I’m gamer, so I like to have goals. I like special and secret objectives. So here’s my special mission for this talk: I’m to try to increase the life span of every person in this room by seven and a half minutes. Literally, you live seven and a half minutes longer than you would have otherwise, just you watched this talk.
Some of you are looking a little bit skeptical. That’s okay, because check out — I have math to prove that it 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. mission is to figure out how you want to spend your seven and a half minutes. And I think you should do unusual with them, because these are bonus minutes. You weren’t going to have them anyway.
Now, because I’m game designer, you might be thinking to yourself, I know what she wants us do with those minutes, she wants us to spend them playing games. Now is a totally reasonable assumption, given that I have made a habit of encouraging people to spend more time playing games. For example, in my 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 lot of time. It’s so time, in fact, that the number one unsolicited comment that I have from people all over the world since I gave talk, is this: Jane, games are great and all, but on your deathbed, are you really going to you spent more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that are a waste of time that we will come to regret — that I hear it everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just a few weeks ago, this cab driver, upon finding out a friend and I were in town for a game developers’ conference, turned and said — and I quote — “I hate games. Waste life. Imagine getting to the end of your life and all that time.”
Now, I want to take this problem seriously. I games to be a force for good in the world. I don’t want gamers to regret time they spent playing, time that I encouraged them to spend. I have been thinking about this question a lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will we regret 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 of us at the end of our lives, recently issued a report the most frequently expressed regrets that people say when they are literally on their deathbeds. And that’s what 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 had stayed in 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 a life true to my dreams, instead of what others expected me.
Now, as far as I know, no one ever told one the hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent more time playing video games,” but when I hear these five regrets of the dying, I can’t help but hear five deep human that games 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 my when they were growing up. Well, we know that playing games together has family benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young University School of Family Life that parents who spend 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 stay in daily contact with real-life friends and family. A study from the University of Michigan showed that these games are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help us connected with people in our social network that we would otherwise distant from, if we weren’t playing games together.
“I I’d let myself be happier.” Well, here I can’t help think of the groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina University that showed that online games outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety and depression. Just 30 of online game play a day was enough to dramatic boosts in mood and long-term increases in happiness.
“I I’d had the courage 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 with his avatar. And Stanford University has doing research for five years now to document how playing game with an idealized avatar changes 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 to my dreams, and not what others expected of me.” Are games doing this yet? I’m not sure, I’ve left a Super Mario question mark. We’re going to back to this one.
But in the meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, who this game designer to be talking to us about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never in a hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. But recently I did spend three months bed, wanting to die. Really wanting to die.
Now me tell you that story. It started two years ago, I hit my head and got a concussion. The didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, I was with symptoms like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. doctor told me that in order to heal my brain, I to rest it. So I had to avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. For me meant no reading, no writing, no video games, no or email, no running, no 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 quite with traumatic brain injuries. It happens to one in three, and it happened to me. My started telling me, “Jane, you want to die.” It said, “You’re never going to get better.” said, “The pain will never end.”
And these voices so persistent and so persuasive that I started to legitimately fear for my life, which is the time I said to myself after 34 days — and I will never forget 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 for more than a decade when we play a game — and this is in scientific literature — we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, determination, more optimism, and we’re more likely to reach to others for help. I wanted to bring these gamer 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 was call my twin sister — I have an 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 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, like bright lights and crowded spaces. We also collected activated power-ups. This was anything I could do on even worst day to feel just a little bit good, a little bit productive. Things like cuddling my dog for 10 minutes, or out of bed and walking around the block just once.
Now the was that simple: Adopt a secret identity, recruit your allies, battle bad guys, activate the power-ups. But even with a game so simple, within just a couple days starting to play, that fog of depression and anxiety away. It just vanished. It felt like a miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure the headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That lasted for more a year, and it was the hardest year of my life by far. even when I still had the symptoms, even while I was still in pain, I suffering.
Now what happened next with the game surprised me. I put up 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 hearing from people all the world who were adopting their own secret identity, recruiting own allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing like cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people were playing it for diagnoses like ALS. And I could tell from their and their videos that the game was helping them in same ways that it helped me. They talked about feeling and braver. They talked about feeling better understood by their and family. And they even talked about 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 to myself, is going on here? I mean, how could a game so trivial intervene so powerfully in serious, and in some 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, it turns out there’s science here, too. Some people get stronger and happier a 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 about post-traumatic stress disorder. But scientists now know that traumatic event doesn’t doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can it as a springboard to unleash our best qualities lead happier lives.
Here are the top five things that people post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not afraid do what makes me happy.” “I feel closer to friends and family.” “I understand myself better. I know I really am now.” “I have a new sense of and purpose in my life.” “I’m better able to focus my goals and dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? It should, because the five traits of post-traumatic growth are essentially the direct opposite of the top five of the 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 from trauma to growth? Or better yet, is there a way to get all the benefits post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without having to hit your in the first 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 of strength, resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and there are validated activities that you can do every day to build up four kinds of resilience, and you don’t need a to do it.
I could tell you what these four types of strength are, I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d rather we start building them up together right now. Here’s what we’re to do. We’ll play a quick game together. This is where you earn the and a half minutes of bonus life that I promised you earlier. All you to do is successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. I feel like you can do it. I have confidence you.
So, everybody ready? This is your first quest. Here go. Pick one: Stand up and take three steps, make your hands into fists, raise them over your head as high as you for five seconds, go! All right, I like the doing both. You are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That is worth +1 physical resilience, which means your body can withstand more stress and heal itself faster. We know from research that the number one thing you can do to boost your physical resilience is to not still. That’s all it takes. Every single second that you are sitting still, you are actively improving the health of heart, and your lungs and brains.
Everybody ready for your next quest? want you to snap your fingers exactly 50 times, or count from 100 by seven, like this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t give up.
(Snapping)
Don’t let people counting down from 100 interfere with your counting 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the first time I’ve seen that. Bonus physical resilience. Well done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 mental resilience, which means you have more focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. We know from the research that willpower actually works like a muscle. It stronger the more you exercise it. So tackling a tiny challenge giving up, even one as absurd as snapping your fingers 50 times or counting backwards from 100 by seven is actually 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, here are the two options. If you’re inside, find a and look out of it. If you’re outside, find a and look in. Or do a quick YouTube or image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it 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. look. Got that? Okay, one more. Baby elephant.
(Audience) Oh!
We’re clapping for that? That’s amazing.
(Laughter)
All right, we’re just feeling there is plus-one emotional resilience, which means 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 a secret from the scientific literature for you. you can manage to experience three positive emotions for every one negative emotion over the course 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, good. Nice, nice. Keep it up. I love it! All right, everybody, that +1 social resilience, which means you actually get more strength from your friends, neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a great way to boost social resilience is gratitude. Touch is better.
Here’s one more secret for you: Shaking someone’s for six seconds dramatically raises the level of oxytocin in bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. That means that all of you who shook hands are biochemically primed to like and want to help each other. This will during 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 give you seven and a half minutes of bonus life. Now I get share one more little bit of science with you. turns out that people who regularly boost these four of resilience — physical, mental, emotional and social — 10 years longer than everyone else. So this is true. If you regularly achieving the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if you are never sitting for more than an hour at a time, if you are out to one person you care about every single day, if you are tackling tiny goals to your willpower, you 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 can add 10 of life by boosting your four types of resilience. So every single year that you are your 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, which means every day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, or every single hour you are boosting your four types of resilience, like we just did together, you are 7.68245837 more minutes of life.
Congratulations, those seven and a half minutes are all yours. totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You have your special mission, your secret mission. How are going to spend these minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven and a 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, you spend these seven and a half minutes today something that makes you happy, or that gets you physically active, or you in touch with someone you care about, or even just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re to boost your resilience, so you’re going to earn minutes.
And the good news is, you can keep going like that. Every of the day, every day of your life, all the way to your deathbed, will now be 10 years later than it would have otherwise. And when get there, more than likely, you will not have any of top five regrets, because you will have built up the and resilience to lead a life truer to your dreams. And with 10 extra years, you might have enough time to play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)