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