How To Add Ten Years To Your Life

After being bedridden for a long period of time following a severe concussion, video game designer Jane McGonigal came up with her game SuperBetter which aims to help people recovering from injuries and surgeries find connection with others and with their inner sense of optimism. In her TED talk she outlines how her research into post-traumatic growth which shows how some people get stronger and happier after a traumatic event. McGonigal says, " ... scientists now know that a traumatic event doesn't doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard to unleash our best qualities and lead happier lives."

Here are the top five things that people with post-traumatic growth say:

• My priorities have changed. I'm not afraid to do what makes me happy
• I feel closer to my friends and family
• I understand myself better. I know who I really am now
• I have a sense of meaning and purpose in my life
• I'm better able to focus on my goals and dreams

She goes on to explore, ... "But how does it work? How do you get from trauma to growth? Or better yet, is there a way to get all the benefits of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without having to hit your head in the first place? That would be good, right?"

Wanting to understand the phenomenon better she studied the scientific literature and learned that there are four kinds of strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and "there are scientifically validated activities that you can do every day to build up these four kinds of resilience, and you don't need a trauma to do it."

Here's how it works:

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Physical - Do one of either of these two things: Stand up and take three steps or raise your hands over your head as high as you can for five seconds. By doing so give yourself +1 in physical resilience, which means that your body can withstand more stress and heal itself faster. Research shows that the number one thing you can do to boost your physical resilience is to not sit still. That's all it takes. Every single second that you are not sitting still, you are actively improving the health of your heart, and your lungs and brains. If you're confined to a chair or bed, choosing the option to raise your hands over your head is an excellent choice.

Mental - Choose one of the two: Snap your fingers exactly 50 times or count backwards from 100 by seven, like this: 100, 93 ... etc. This is worth +1 in mental resilience, which means you have more mental focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. Scientific research proves that willpower actually works like a muscle, getting strong the more you you exercise it. So tackling a tiny challenge without giving up, even one as absurd as snapping your fingers exactly 50 times or counting backwards from 100 by seven is actually a scientifically validated way to boost your willpower.

Emotional - Pick one: If you're inside, find a window and look out of it. If you're outside, find a window and look in. Or do a quick YouTube or Google image search for your favorite baby animal. The powerful, positive emotions like curiosity or love, which we feel looking at baby animals for instance, results in +1 emotional resilience. Scientific literature shows that if you can manage to experience three positive emotions for every one negative emotion over the course of an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve your health and your ability to successfully tackle any problem you're facing. This is called the three-to-one positive emotion ratio.

Social - Shake someone's hand for six seconds or send someone a quick thank you by text or email. The result is a +1 social resilience which means you actually get more strength from your friends, your family, your community. An excellent way to boost social resilience is gratitude. Touch is even better. Shaking someone's hand for six seconds dramatically raises the level of oxytocin in your bloodstream which is the trust hormone. That means that when you shake someone's hands you'll be biochemically primed to like and want to help each other.

Jane McGonigal explains the science and math: "It turns out that people who regularly boost these four types of resilience - physical, mental, emotional and social - live 10 years longer than everyone else. So this is true. If you are regularly achieving the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if you are never sitting still for more than an hour at a time, if you are reaching out to one person you care about every single day, if you are tackling tiny goals to boost your willpower, you will live 10 years longer than everyone else ...

"So, the average life expectancy in the U.S. and the U.K. is 78.1 years, but we know from more than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that you can add 10 years of life by boosting your four types of resilience. So every single year that you are boosting your four types of resilience, you're actually earning .128 more years of life or 46 more days of life or 67,298 more minutes of life, which means every single day you are earning 184 minutes of life or every single hour that you are boosting your four types of resilience ... you are earning 7.68245837 more minutes of life."

Ready, Set, Go!

Jane's website is here: show me the science.com