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