I’m gamer, so I like to have goals. I like missions and secret objectives. So here’s my special mission for this talk: I’m going try to increase the life span of every single person in room by seven and a half minutes. Literally, you will live and a half minutes longer than you would have otherwise, just because you watched talk.
Some of you are looking a little bit skeptical. That’s okay, check it out — I have math to prove that 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. That will be my gift you if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, you have secret mission too. Your mission is to figure out how you want to spend your seven and a half minutes. And I think you should something unusual with them, because these are bonus minutes. weren’t going to have them anyway.
Now, because I’m a game designer, you be thinking to yourself, I know what she wants to do with those minutes, she wants us to spend playing games. Now this is a totally reasonable assumption, given I have made quite a habit of encouraging people to more time playing games. For example, in my first TED Talk, I propose that we should spend 21 billion hours a week, as a planet, 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 over the world since gave that talk, is this: Jane, games are great and all, on your deathbed, are you really going to wish you spent time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games are a waste time that we will come to regret — that hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: a few weeks ago, this cab driver, upon finding out a friend and I were in town for a game developers’ conference, turned around said — and I quote — “I hate games. Waste life. Imagine getting to the end of your life and regretting that time.”
Now, I want to take this problem seriously. I want games to be a for good in the world. I don’t want gamers to regret time they spent playing, time that I encouraged them to spend. So I have been thinking about this a lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will we regret the time we playing games?
Now, this may surprise you, but it turns out there is actually some scientific on this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people who take care of us at end of our lives, recently issued a report on the frequently expressed regrets that people say when they are literally on deathbeds. And that’s what I want to share with you — the top five regrets of the dying.
Number one: 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 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, of what others expected of me.
Now, as far as I know, no one told one of the hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent more time playing video games,” but I hear these top five regrets of the dying, I can’t help but five deep human cravings that games actually help us fulfill.
For example, I 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 were up. Well, we know that playing games together has tremendous family benefits. recent study from Brigham Young University School of Family Life reported that parents spend more time playing video games with their kids have much real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d stayed in touch with friends.” Hundreds of millions of people use social games like FarmVille or With Friends to stay in daily contact with real-life friends family. A recent study from the University of Michigan showed that these are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help us stay connected with people in our social network that would otherwise 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 the groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina University that showed that games can outperform 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 courage to express my true self.” Well, avatars are a way to express our true selves, our heroic, idealized version of who we might become. You can see that in this ego portrait by Robbie Cooper of a gamer with his avatar. And Stanford University has been research for five years now to document how playing a game 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 life true to my dreams, and not what others of me.” Are games doing this yet? I’m not sure, I’ve left a Super Mario question mark. We’re going to come back to one.
But in the meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, who is this game designer to be talking us about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never in a hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. But I did spend three months in bed, wanting to die. Really wanting to die.
Now let me you that story. It started two years ago, when I hit my head and a concussion. The concussion didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, I left with symptoms like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor told me that in to heal my brain, I had to rest it. So I to avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. For me meant no reading, no writing, no video games, no work or email, no running, alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — and I think you see where this is going — reason 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 three, and it happened to me. My brain started me, “Jane, you want to die.” It said, “You’re going to get better.” It said, “The pain will never end.”
And these voices so persistent and so persuasive that I started to fear for my life, which is the time that I said to myself 34 days — and I will never forget this moment — I said, “I either going to kill myself or I’m going to this into a game.”
Now, why a game? I from researching the psychology of games for more than a decade that when we a game — and this is in the scientific literature — we tackle tough challenges with creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more likely to out to others for help. I wanted to bring these traits to my real-life challenge, so I created a role-playing game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my new identity, and the first thing I did as a was call my twin sister — I have an identical twin sister Kelly — and tell her, “I’m playing a game heal my brain, and I want you to play me.” This was an easier way to ask for help.
She became first ally in the game, my husband Kiyash joined next, and together we identified battled the bad guys. Now this was anything that could my symptoms and therefore slow down the healing process, like bright lights and crowded spaces. We also collected and power-ups. This was anything I could do on even my worst day to 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 secret identity, recruit allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. But even with a so simple, within just a couple days of starting to play, that fog of and anxiety went away. It just vanished. It felt like miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure for the headaches or cognitive symptoms. That lasted for more than a year, and it was hardest year of my life by far. But even when I still had the symptoms, even while I still in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with the game surprised me. 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 the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from all over the world who were adopting their own secret identity, recruiting their own allies, and they getting “super better,” facing challenges like cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. people were playing it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And could tell from their messages and their videos that the was helping them in the same ways that it helped me. They talked about feeling and braver. They talked about feeling better understood by their friends family. And they even talked about feeling happier, even though they were in pain, even though were tackling the toughest challenge of their lives.
Now the time, I’m thinking to myself, what is going on here? I mean, could a 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 it was possible. Well, it turns out there’s some here, too. Some people get stronger and happier after a event. And that’s what was happening to us.
The game was helping experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not we usually hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. scientists now know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us to indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard to our best qualities and lead happier lives.
Here are the five things that people with post-traumatic growth say: “My have changed.” “I’m not afraid to do 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 meaning and purpose in my life.” “I’m better able focus on my goals 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? seems that somehow, a traumatic event can unlock our to lead a life with fewer regrets.
But how it work? How do you get from trauma to growth? Or better yet, is there way to get all the benefits of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without having to hit head 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. are four kinds of strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and there are scientifically activities that you can do every day to build up four kinds of resilience, and you don’t need a trauma to do it.
I could tell you these four types of strength are, but I’d rather you 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 game together. This is where you earn the seven and a half minutes bonus life that I promised you earlier. All you have to do successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. And I feel like can do it. I have confidence in you.
So, ready? This is your first quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand and take three steps, or make your hands into fists, raise them over head as high as you can for five seconds, go! All right, I the people doing both. You are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That is worth +1 resilience, which means that your body can withstand more stress heal itself faster. We know from the research that the number one thing you can do to your physical resilience is to not sit still. That’s all it takes. Every single second you are not sitting still, you are actively improving the health of your heart, and your and brains.
Everybody ready for your next quest? I you to snap your fingers exactly 50 times, or backwards from 100 by seven, like this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t give up.
(Snapping)
Don’t the people counting down from 100 interfere with your counting 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen that. Bonus physical resilience. Well done, everyone. that’s worth +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 a muscle. gets stronger the more you exercise it. So 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 to your willpower.
So good job. Quest number three. Pick one: Because the 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 on your phones, or just shout out some baby animals, I’ll put them on the screen. So, what do we 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 there is plus-one emotional resilience, which means you have the ability provoke powerful, positive emotions like curiosity or love, which we feel looking at animals, when you need them most.
Here’s a secret the scientific literature for you. If you can manage to experience three positive emotions for every negative emotion over the course of an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve your health and ability to successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. And this is the three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s my favorite SuperBetter trick, so keep it up.
All right, pick one, quest: Shake someone’s hand for six seconds, or send someone a quick you by text, email, Facebook or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. Keep it up. I it! All right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, means you actually get more strength from your friends, neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a great way boost social resilience is gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s more secret for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six dramatically raises the level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, that’s the trust hormone. That means that all of you who shook hands are biochemically primed to like and want help each other. This will linger during the break, take advantage of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully your four quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed my mission give you seven and a half minutes of bonus life. I get to share one more little bit of with you. It turns out that people who regularly boost these four of resilience — physical, mental, emotional and social — live 10 longer than everyone else. So this is true. If you are achieving the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if you are never sitting still for than an hour at a time, if you are reaching out to one you care about every single day, if you are tackling tiny goals boost your willpower, you will live 10 years longer than everyone else, and here’s where math 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 more than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that you can add 10 years of life boosting your four types of resilience. So every single year that you are boosting your four types resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more years of life 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, 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. still have your special mission, your secret mission. How are going to spend these minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s 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 these seven and a half minutes doing something that makes you 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 good news is, you can keep going like that. Every 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, more likely, you will not have any of those top five regrets, you will have built up the strength and resilience to lead a life truer your dreams. And with 10 extra years, you might even have enough time to a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)