I’m a gamer, I like to have goals. I like special missions and secret objectives. So here’s special mission for this talk: I’m going to try to increase life span of every single person in this room by and a half minutes. Literally, you will live seven a half minutes longer than you would have otherwise, because you watched this talk.
Some of you are looking a little bit skeptical. That’s okay, check it out — I have math to prove that it is possible. won’t make much sense now. I’ll explain it all later, just pay attention to the number at bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will be my gift to you if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, have a secret mission too. Your mission is to figure out how you want spend your extra seven and a half minutes. And think you should do something unusual with them, because these bonus minutes. You weren’t going to have them anyway.
Now, because I’m a designer, you might be thinking to yourself, I know she wants us to do with those minutes, she wants us spend them playing games. Now this is a totally assumption, given that I have made quite a habit encouraging people to spend more time playing games. For example, my first TED Talk, I did propose that we should spend 21 hours a week, as a planet, playing video games.
Now, 21 billion hours, it’s a lot time. It’s so much time, in fact, that the one unsolicited comment that I have heard from people all the world since I gave that talk, is this: Jane, are great and all, but on your deathbed, are you really going to wish spent more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games a waste of time that we will come to — that I hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just a weeks ago, this cab driver, upon finding out that a friend I were in town for a game developers’ conference, turned around and said — I quote — “I hate games. Waste of life. Imagine getting to the end of your and regretting all that time.”
Now, I want to take this seriously. I want games to be a force for good the world. I don’t want gamers to regret the time they spent playing, that I encouraged them to spend. So I have been thinking about this question a lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will we regret the time we spent playing games?
Now, this surprise you, but it turns out there is actually scientific research on this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people who take care us at the end of our lives, recently issued a report the most frequently expressed regrets that people say when they literally on their deathbeds. And that’s what I want share with you today — the top five regrets of dying.
Number one: I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. two: I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. Number three: I I had let myself be happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the courage to my true self. And number five: I wish I’d lived a true to my dreams, instead of what others expected of me.
Now, as far as I know, one ever told one of the hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent time playing video games,” but when I hear these top five regrets of the dying, can’t help but hear five deep human cravings that games help us fulfill.
For example, I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. For many people, this means, I I’d spent more time with my family, with my kids when they growing up. Well, we know that playing games together has tremendous family benefits. A recent from Brigham Young University School of Family Life reported that parents who spend more time playing video with their kids have much stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d stayed in touch my friends.” Hundreds of millions of people use social games FarmVille or Words With Friends to stay in daily contact real-life friends and family. A recent study from the University of Michigan that these games are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help us stay connected people in our social network that we would otherwise grow distant from, we weren’t playing games together.
“I wish I’d let myself happier.” Well, here I can’t help but think of groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina University that that online games can outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical and depression. Just 30 minutes of online game play a day was enough create dramatic boosts in mood and long-term increases in happiness.
“I wish I’d had the to express my true self.” Well, avatars are a to express our true selves, our most heroic, idealized of who we might become. You can see that this alter ego portrait by Robbie Cooper of a gamer his avatar. And Stanford University has been doing research for five years now to document playing a game with an idealized avatar changes how we and act in real life, making us more courageous, ambitious, more committed to our goals.
“I wish I’d led a true to my dreams, and not what others expected of me.” games doing this yet? I’m not sure, so I’ve left a Super Mario question mark. We’re to come back to this one.
But in the meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, who is this game to be talking to us about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never worked in a hospice, I’ve been on my deathbed. But recently I did spend three months bed, wanting to die. Really wanting to die.
Now let me tell that story. It started two years ago, when I hit my head got a concussion. The concussion didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, was left with symptoms like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor me that in order to heal my brain, I had to rest it. I had to avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. me that meant no reading, no writing, no video games, no or email, no running, no alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — and I you see where this is going — no reason live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s meant to be funny, in all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. happens to one in three, and it happened to me. My started telling me, “Jane, you want to die.” It said, “You’re never to get better.” It said, “The pain will never end.”
And voices became so persistent and so persuasive that I started to legitimately fear my life, which is the time that I said to after 34 days — and I will never forget this moment — I said, “I am either going kill myself or I’m going to turn this into game.”
Now, why a game? I knew from researching the of games for more than a decade that when play a game — and this is in the literature — we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more likely reach out to others for help. I wanted to these gamer traits to my real-life challenge, so I created a role-playing game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became new secret identity, and the first thing I did as a slayer was call twin sister — I have an identical twin sister named Kelly — and tell her, “I’m playing a to heal my brain, and I want you to play me.” This was an easier way to ask for help.
She became my first in the game, my husband Kiyash joined next, and we identified and battled the bad guys. Now this was that could trigger my symptoms and therefore slow down the process, things like bright lights and crowded spaces. We also collected and activated power-ups. This was anything could do on even my worst day to feel just a bit good, just a little bit productive. Things like cuddling dog for 10 minutes, or getting out of bed walking around the block just once.
Now the game was simple: Adopt a secret identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. even with a game so simple, within just a couple days of starting to play, that fog of and anxiety went away. It just vanished. It felt a miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure for the headaches or cognitive symptoms. That lasted for more than a year, it was the hardest year of my life by far. But even when still had the symptoms, even while I was still pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with the surprised me. I put up some blog posts and online, explaining how to play. But not everybody has concussion, obviously, not everyone wants to be “the slayer,” I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started from people all over the world who were adopting their own secret identity, their own allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing challenges cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people were it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And I could tell from their messages and their videos that game was helping them in the same ways that it me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. They talked about feeling better understood by their friends family. And they even talked about feeling happier, even though were in pain, even though they were tackling the challenge of their lives.
Now at the time, I’m to myself, what is going on here? I mean, how could game so trivial intervene so powerfully in such serious, and some cases life-and-death, circumstances? I mean, if it hadn’t for me, there’s no way I would have believed was possible. Well, it turns out there’s some science here, too. Some people get stronger and happier a traumatic event. And that’s what was happening to us.
The game was helping us experience what scientists post-traumatic growth, which is not something we usually hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. But now know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard unleash our best qualities and lead happier lives.
Here are the top five things that people post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not afraid to do what makes me happy.” “I feel to my friends and family.” “I understand myself better. know who I really am now.” “I have a new sense of meaning and purpose my life.” “I’m better able to focus on my and dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? It should, because the top traits of post-traumatic growth are essentially the direct opposite the top five regrets of the dying. Now this is interesting, right? It seems that somehow, traumatic event can unlock our ability to lead a life with fewer regrets.
But does it work? How do you get from trauma to growth? Or yet, is there a way to get all the benefits of post-traumatic without the trauma, without having to hit your head in the first place? would be good, right?
I wanted to understand the phenomenon better, so I devoured the scientific literature, here’s what I learned. There are four kinds of strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and are scientifically validated activities that you can do every day to build these four kinds of resilience, and you don’t need a to do it.
I could tell you what these four types of are, but I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d rather we all start building them up together now. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll play a quick game together. This is you earn the seven and a half minutes of bonus life I promised you earlier. All you have to do is successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. And feel like you can do it. I have confidence you.
So, everybody ready? This is your first quest. we go. Pick one: Stand up and take three steps, or make your into fists, raise them over your head as high as you can for seconds, go! All right, I like the people doing both. are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That worth +1 physical resilience, which means that your body can withstand more stress heal itself faster. We know from the research that number one thing you can do to boost your physical resilience to not sit still. That’s all it takes. Every single that you are not sitting still, you are actively improving the of your heart, and your lungs and brains.
Everybody ready for your next quest? I you to snap your fingers exactly 50 times, or count backwards from 100 seven, like this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t give up.
(Snapping)
Don’t let the people counting from 100 interfere with your counting to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the first I’ve ever seen that. Bonus physical resilience. Well done, everyone. Now that’s +1 mental resilience, which means you have more mental focus, discipline, determination and willpower. We know from the scientific research that willpower works like a muscle. It gets stronger the more you exercise it. tackling a tiny challenge without giving up, even one as absurd snapping your fingers exactly 50 times or counting backwards 100 by seven is actually a scientifically validated way boost your willpower.
So good job. Quest number three. one: Because of the room, fate’s really determined this for you, but here the two options. If you’re inside, find a window and look out it. If you’re outside, find a window and look in. Or do a quick YouTube or image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it on your phones, or just shout out baby animals, and I’ll put them on the screen. So, what do we want see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see what we got. Baby dolphin baby llamas. Everybody look. Got that? Okay, one more. Baby elephant.
(Audience) Oh!
We’re for that? That’s amazing.
(Laughter)
All right, what we’re feeling there is plus-one emotional resilience, which means you the ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions like curiosity or love, which we feel looking baby animals, when you need them most.
Here’s a secret from the scientific literature for you. If you manage to experience three positive emotions for every one negative emotion the course of an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve health and your ability to successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. this is called the three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s my favorite trick, so keep it up.
All right, pick one, last quest: Shake someone’s for six seconds, or send someone a quick thank you text, email, Facebook or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. Keep up. I love it! All right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, which means actually get more strength from your friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, great way to boost social resilience is gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s one secret for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six seconds dramatically raises the level of in your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. That means all of you who just shook hands are biochemically primed to like and want to help other. This will linger during the break, so take of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully completed your four quests, let’s see if I’ve completed my mission to give you seven and a minutes of bonus life. Now I get to share one little bit of science with you. It turns out that people who regularly boost four types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional and social — live 10 years longer than else. So this is true. If you are regularly achieving the three-to-one positive ratio, if you are never sitting still for more than an hour at a time, if are reaching out to one person you care about single day, if you are tackling tiny goals to boost your willpower, will live 10 years longer than everyone else, and here’s that math I showed you earlier comes in.
So, the average expectancy in the U.S. and the U.K. is 78.1 years, but we from more than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that you add 10 years of life by boosting your four types of resilience. So single year that you are boosting your four types of resilience, you’re earning .128 more years of life or 46 more days life, or 67,298 more minutes of life, which means single day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, every single hour that you are boosting your four types of resilience, like just did together, you are earning 7.68245837 more minutes life.
Congratulations, those seven and a half minutes are yours. You totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You still your special mission, your secret mission. How are you going to these minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven and half bonus minutes are kind of like genie’s wishes. You can use your first to wish for a million more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if spend these seven and a half minutes today doing something that makes you happy, or that you physically active, or puts you in touch with someone you about, or even just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re going to boost your resilience, so you’re to earn more minutes.
And the good news is, you keep going like that. Every hour of the day, every day of your life, all the way your deathbed, which will now be 10 years later than it have otherwise. And when you get there, more than likely, will not have any of those top five regrets, because you will have up the strength and resilience to lead a life truer to your dreams. And 10 extra years, you might even have enough time to play a more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)