I’m a gamer, so I like to have goals. 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 person in this room by seven and a half minutes. Literally, will live seven and a half minutes longer than you would otherwise, just because you watched this talk.
Some of are looking a little bit skeptical. That’s okay, because check out — I have math to prove that it is possible. It won’t make sense now. I’ll explain it all later, just pay to the number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will be gift to you if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, you have a mission too. Your mission is to figure out how want to spend your extra seven and a half minutes. And think you should do something unusual with them, because these are bonus minutes. You weren’t going to have anyway.
Now, because I’m a game designer, you might be thinking to yourself, I what she wants us to do with those minutes, wants us to spend them playing games. Now this is a totally reasonable assumption, given that have made quite a habit of encouraging people to spend more time games. For example, in my first TED Talk, I did propose we should spend 21 billion hours a week, as a planet, 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 have heard from people 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 Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games are waste of 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 that a friend and 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 regretting that time.”
Now, I want to take this problem seriously. 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 encouraged them to spend. I 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 scientific on this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people who take care of us the end of our lives, recently issued a report on the frequently expressed regrets that people say when they are literally on their deathbeds. that’s what I want to share with you today — top five regrets of the dying.
Number one: I I hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I wish I had stayed in with my friends. Number three: I wish I had let be happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the courage to my true self. And number five: I wish I’d lived a true to my dreams, instead of what others expected 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 when I these top five regrets of the dying, I can’t help hear five deep human cravings that games actually help fulfill.
For example, I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. For many people, this means, I wish I’d more time with my family, with my kids when they were growing up. Well, know that playing games together has tremendous family benefits. 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 wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.” Hundreds 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 otherwise grow distant from, if we weren’t playing games together.
“I wish I’d myself be happier.” Well, here I can’t help but think of the groundbreaking 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 play a day enough to create dramatic boosts in mood and long-term increases happiness.
“I wish I’d had the courage to express my true self.” Well, are a way to express our true selves, our most heroic, idealized of who we might become. You can see that in this alter ego portrait by Cooper of a gamer with his avatar. And Stanford University has been doing research for five now to document how playing a game with an idealized changes how we think and act in real life, us more courageous, more ambitious, more committed to our goals.
“I wish I’d a 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 come back to this one.
But in the meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, who is game designer to be talking to us about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never worked in hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. But recently I did spend three months in bed, 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 in order to heal my brain, I had to rest it. So I had to everything that triggered my symptoms. For me that meant reading, no writing, no video games, no work or email, running, no alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — and think you see where this is going — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of it’s meant to be funny, but in all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite with traumatic brain injuries. It happens to one in three, it happened to me. My brain started telling me, “Jane, you want to die.” It said, “You’re never going get better.” It said, “The pain will never end.”
And these voices became persistent and so persuasive that I started to legitimately for my life, which is the time that I said myself after 34 days — and I will never this moment — I said, “I am either going to kill myself or I’m going to turn into a game.”
Now, why a game? I knew researching the psychology of games for more than a that when we play a game — and this is in the literature — we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, we’re more likely to reach out to others for help. wanted to bring these gamer traits to my real-life challenge, I created a role-playing recovery 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 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 anything that could trigger my symptoms and therefore slow down the healing process, things bright lights and crowded spaces. We also collected and power-ups. This was anything I could do on even my day to 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 secret identity, recruit your allies, the bad guys, activate the power-ups. But even with game so simple, within just a couple days of starting to play, that of depression and anxiety went away. It just vanished. It like a miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure the headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That lasted for more than a year, and it the hardest year of my life by far. But even when I had the symptoms, even while I was still in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with game surprised me. I put up some blog posts and videos online, how to play. But not everybody has a concussion, obviously, everyone wants to be “the slayer,” so I renamed game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from people all over the world who were their 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 their messages and their videos that the game was helping them the same ways that it helped me. They talked about 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 some cases life-and-death, circumstances? I mean, if 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 was happening to us.
The game was helping us experience scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not something we usually hear about. usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. But scientists now know a traumatic event doesn’t doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it a springboard to unleash our best qualities and lead happier lives.
Here are top 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 my friends and family.” “I understand myself better. I know I really am now.” “I have a new sense of meaning and in my life.” “I’m better able to focus on my goals and dreams.”
Now, this sound familiar? It should, because the top five traits of post-traumatic are essentially the direct opposite of the top five regrets 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 get from trauma growth? Or better yet, is there a way to get all benefits of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without having to hit your head in first place? That would be good, right?
I wanted understand the phenomenon better, so I devoured the scientific literature, here’s what I learned. There are four kinds of strength, or resilience, that contribute post-traumatic growth, and there are scientifically validated activities 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 you what these types of strength are, but I’d rather you experience firsthand. I’d rather we all start building them up right now. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll a quick game together. This is where you earn the and a half minutes of bonus life that I promised earlier. All you have to do is successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. I feel like you can do it. I have in you.
So, everybody ready? This is your first quest. Here we go. one: Stand up and take three steps, or make hands into fists, raise them over your head as 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 +1 physical resilience, which means that your body can more stress and heal itself faster. We know from the research 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 not sitting still, you are actively the health of your heart, and your lungs and brains.
Everybody ready for next 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 up.
(Snapping)
Don’t let the people counting down from 100 interfere your 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 worth +1 mental resilience, which you have more mental focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. know from the scientific research that willpower actually works a muscle. It gets stronger the more you exercise it. So a tiny challenge without giving up, even one as as snapping your fingers exactly 50 times or counting backwards from 100 by seven actually a scientifically validated way to boost your willpower.
So good job. number three. Pick one: Because of the room, fate’s determined this for you, but here are the two options. 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 some baby animals, and I’ll put on the screen. So, what do we want to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see what we got. Baby dolphin 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 plus-one emotional resilience, which means you have the ability 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 emotion over the course of an hour, a day, week, you dramatically improve your health and your ability to successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. And is called the three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s my favorite trick, so keep it up.
All right, pick one, quest: Shake someone’s hand for six seconds, or send a quick thank you by text, email, Facebook or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, good. Nice, nice. Keep it up. I love it! right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, which means you get more strength from your friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a great 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 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 successfully completed your four quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed my mission to give you seven a half minutes of bonus life. Now I get to share one more little of science with you. It turns out that people who regularly boost these types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional and social — live 10 longer than everyone else. So this is true. If you are regularly achieving 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 person you care about every single day, if you are tiny goals to boost your willpower, you will live 10 years than everyone else, and here’s where that math I 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 10 years of life by boosting your four types of resilience. So single year that you are boosting your four types resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more years of life or 46 days of life, or 67,298 more minutes of life, which means every single day, you earning 184 minutes of life, or every single hour that you are boosting your types of resilience, like we just did together, you earning 7.68245837 more minutes of life.
Congratulations, those seven a half minutes are all yours. You 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 my suggestion. These seven and a half bonus minutes kind of like genie’s wishes. You can use your first to wish for a million more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if you spend these and a half minutes today doing something that makes you happy, or gets you physically active, or puts you in touch someone you care about, or even just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re going to boost your resilience, you’re going to earn more minutes.
And the good is, you can keep going like that. Every hour of the day, day of your life, all the way to your deathbed, which will now be 10 later than it would have otherwise. And when you get there, than likely, you will not have any of those five regrets, because you will have built up the strength and resilience to lead a life to your dreams. And with 10 extra years, you might even have enough time to play a few games.
Thank you.
(Applause)