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 to try to increase the life span of every single person in this room by and a half minutes. Literally, you will live seven and a half minutes longer you would have otherwise, just because you watched this talk.
Some you are looking a little bit skeptical. That’s okay, because check out — I have math to prove that it is possible. won’t make much sense now. I’ll explain it all later, just pay attention to the number the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will be my gift to you if I’m successful my mission.
Now, you have a secret mission too. Your mission is to out how you want to spend your extra seven and a half minutes. And I think you do something unusual with them, because these are bonus minutes. weren’t going to have them anyway.
Now, because I’m a game designer, you might be thinking yourself, I know what she wants us to do with those minutes, she us to spend them playing games. Now this is totally reasonable assumption, given that I have made quite a habit encouraging people to spend more time playing games. For example, my first TED Talk, I did propose that we should 21 billion hours a week, as a planet, playing games.
Now, 21 billion hours, it’s a lot of time. It’s so much time, in fact, that number one unsolicited comment that I have heard from people all over the world I gave that talk, is this: Jane, games are and all, but on your deathbed, are you really going to wish you spent time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games a waste of time that we will come to regret — that I it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: a few weeks ago, this cab driver, upon finding out that a and I were in town for a game developers’ conference, turned and said — and I quote — “I hate games. of 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 world. I don’t want gamers to regret the time they spent playing, time I encouraged them to spend. So 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 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 at the end of our lives, recently issued a report on the most expressed regrets that people say when they are literally their deathbeds. And that’s what I want to share with you today — the top five of the dying.
Number one: I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I I had stayed in touch with my friends. Number three: I wish I let myself be happier. Number four: I wish I’d had courage to express my true self. And number five: I wish I’d lived a life true to dreams, instead of what others expected of me.
Now, as far as I know, no one ever one of the hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent more time playing video games,” but when hear these top five regrets of the dying, I can’t help but hear five deep human that games actually help us fulfill.
For example, I wish hadn’t worked so hard. For many people, this means, I I’d spent more time with my family, with my kids they were growing up. Well, we know that playing together has tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young University School of Family Life reported parents who spend more time playing video games with their kids much 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 and family. A recent study from the University of Michigan showed that games are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help us stay connected with in our social network that we would otherwise grow distant from, if weren’t playing games together.
“I wish I’d let myself happier.” Well, here I can’t help but think of groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina University showed that online games can outperform pharmaceuticals for treating anxiety and depression. Just 30 minutes of online game play a day was enough to create dramatic in mood and long-term increases in happiness.
“I wish I’d the courage to express my true self.” Well, avatars are a way to our true selves, our most heroic, idealized version of who we might become. 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 avatar changes 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 yet? I’m not sure, so 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 is this game designer to be talking us about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never worked 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 hit my head and got a concussion. The concussion didn’t properly, and after 30 days, I was left with symptoms like headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor told me that in order to heal brain, I had to rest it. So I had to avoid everything that triggered symptoms. For me that meant no reading, no writing, no games, no work or email, no running, no alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — and I think see where this is going — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s to be funny, but in all seriousness, suicidal ideation is common with traumatic brain injuries. It happens to one three, and it happened to me. My brain started telling me, “Jane, you want die.” It said, “You’re never going to get better.” said, “The pain will never end.”
And these voices became so persistent and so that I started to legitimately fear for my life, is the time that I said to myself after 34 — and I will never forget this moment — said, “I am either going to kill myself or I’m going to turn into a 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 scientific 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 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 named — and tell her, “I’m playing a game to heal brain, and I want you to play with me.” This was easier way to ask for help.
She became my 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 and activated power-ups. This anything I could do on even my worst day to feel just a bit good, just a little bit productive. Things like cuddling my dog 10 minutes, or getting out of bed and walking around block just once.
Now the game was that simple: Adopt a secret identity, your allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. But even a game so simple, within just a couple days of starting to play, that fog depression 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 the hardest year my life by far. But even when I still the symptoms, even while I was still in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what 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 to “the slayer,” so I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I hearing from people all over the world who were their own secret identity, recruiting their own allies, and were getting “super better,” facing challenges like cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even were playing it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And I could tell from messages and their videos that the game was helping in the same ways that it helped me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. talked about feeling better understood by their friends and family. And they even talked about feeling happier, even they were in pain, even though they were tackling the toughest of their lives.
Now at the time, I’m thinking to myself, what is on here? I mean, how could a game so trivial so powerfully in such serious, and in some cases life-and-death, circumstances? mean, if it hadn’t worked for me, there’s no I would have believed it was possible. Well, it out there’s some science here, too. Some people get stronger happier after a traumatic event. And that’s what was happening to us.
The was helping us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not something we usually hear about. usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. But scientists now that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use as a springboard to unleash our best qualities and lead happier lives.
Here are the five things that people with post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not to do what makes me happy.” “I feel closer to my friends family.” “I understand myself better. I know who I really now.” “I have a new sense of meaning and purpose in life.” “I’m better able to focus on my goals dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? It should, because the top five of post-traumatic growth are essentially the direct opposite of the five regrets 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 of post-traumatic without the trauma, without having to hit your head in the first place? That would good, right?
I wanted to understand the phenomenon better, so I devoured the literature, and here’s what I learned. There are four of strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and there are scientifically activities that you can do every day to build these four kinds of resilience, and you don’t need a trauma 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 going to do. We’ll a quick game together. This is where you earn the seven a half minutes of bonus life that I promised you earlier. All you have to do is successfully the first four SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you can do it. have confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? This is first quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand up and three steps, or make your hands into fists, raise them over your head as high as you can five seconds, go! All right, I like the people doing both. You are overachievers. good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That is worth +1 physical resilience, which that your body can withstand more stress and heal itself faster. know from the research that the number one thing you can do to boost your resilience is to not sit still. That’s all it takes. Every single second that are not sitting still, you are actively improving the health of your heart, your lungs and 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 people counting from 100 interfere with your counting to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the time I’ve ever seen that. Bonus physical resilience. Well done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 resilience, which means you have more mental focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. We know from the scientific that willpower actually works like a muscle. It gets stronger the more you exercise it. 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 of the room, fate’s really determined for you, but here are the two 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 out some baby animals, and I’ll put them on the screen. So, what do we 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 to provoke powerful, positive emotions curiosity or love, which we feel looking at baby animals, you need them most.
Here’s a secret from the literature for you. If you can manage to experience three positive emotions for one negative emotion over the course of an hour, a day, week, you dramatically improve your health and your ability successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. And this is called the three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s favorite SuperBetter trick, so keep it up.
All right, pick one, quest: Shake someone’s hand for six seconds, or send someone a quick thank by text, email, Facebook or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. Keep it up. love 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 one more secret for you: someone’s hand for six seconds dramatically raises the level of oxytocin your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. That means that all of you just 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 to give you seven and a minutes of bonus life. Now I get to share 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 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 to one person you care about every single day, you are tackling tiny goals to boost your willpower, you live 10 years longer than everyone else, and here’s where that math I showed earlier comes in.
So, the average life expectancy in the U.S. the U.K. is 78.1 years, but we know from 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 every single 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, are earning 7.68245837 more minutes of life.
Congratulations, those and 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 you going to these minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven a half bonus minutes are kind of like genie’s wishes. can use your first wish to wish for a more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if you spend these seven a half minutes today doing something that makes you happy, that gets you physically active, or puts you in with someone you care about, or even just tackling tiny challenge, you’re going to boost your resilience, so you’re to earn more 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 deathbed, which will now be 10 years later than it have otherwise. And when you get there, more than likely, you will not have any those top five regrets, because you will have built up the strength and resilience to a life truer to your dreams. And with 10 extra years, you even have enough time to play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)