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