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      Rewire your brain so it’s easier to motivate yourself, persevere, and succeed.

      In video games, we play as heroes. We become conquering space cowboys, warrior princesses, daredevil racecar drivers, or the last survivors of a zombie apocalypse. Even in nondigital games, we strive to be the hero of the day, accomplishing epic feats that amaze. Think about scoring a last-second goal in soccer, or marching a pawn across the chessboard to win a second queen after losing your first.

      But do games actually develop our heroic potential? Can games make us more likely to be an inspiration to others, and to achieve extraordinary goals in real life? The evidence suggests yes.

      In this chapter, we’re going to explore how games of all kinds increase our character strengths—like grit, perseverance, compassion, and work ethic. We’ll uncover the science behind how games strengthen our real-life willpower and help us change our real-world behavior for the better. We’ll look at the neuroscience of game play—how it changes the way our brains respond to challenge and effort, making us less likely to give up when things are difficult for us. And we’ll explore why certain games make us more likely to rise to the heroic occasion when someone else is in need.

      By understanding exactly how games tap into your natural determination and compassion, you can become better able to tap into these heroic qualities—anywhere, anytime.

      Let’s start with a game that has a truly audacious goal: to help young people beat cancer.

      At first glance, Re-Mission looks like a typical fantasy shooter game. You control a superhero robot named Roxxi, who flies through a twisting-and-turning landscape, using powerful weapons to blow up the bad guys. But despite the 3-D graphics and immersive sound effects, Re-Mission isn’t a typical video game. Look closer, and you’ll notice that Roxxi is flying inside the human body, the bad guys are cancer cells, and her weapons include chemotherapy blasters and antibiotic grenades.

      Re-Mission was created by the nonprofit HopeLab for a special purpose: to improve young patients’ adherence to difficult, but life-saving, chemotherapy and antibiotic regimens.

      To fight childhood cancers like leukemia, most patients will take oral doses of these medications for two to three years. It’s extremely important for patients to try to never miss a dose. Eighty percent of cases where childhood cancer comes back (instead of staying in remission) are associated with missed medication. Fewer missed doses means lower rates of infection, fever, and hospitalization—and most important, better survival outcomes.

      Families and patients know this, but young people miss doses anyway, for many different reasons. They can’t stand the side effects, such as nausea and fatigue. They get busy with school or sports as they start to feel better, making it harder to follow a strict medication routine. Or after years of treatment, they subconsciously rebel and forget to take the drugs, because they are just “sick of being sick.”

      Re-Mission was designed to prevent these lapses, by helping young patients feel more optimistic and motivated to take their medications. As senior HopeLab researcher and UCLA professor of medicine Steve Cole told me, “Thirty percent of kids miss twenty percent of doses or more. Those kids have twice the risk of having a rebound of the leukemia. This is a completely avoidable risk. We have to somehow get across the message: No matter how bad the disease is, you are fundamentally in control of your health, and no one can save your life if you don’t do your part.”

      Cole and his collaborators hoped that patients would become more committed to their treatment plans if they learned more about chemotherapy in the empowering context of a video game. These lessons were integrated right into the game play. For example, when the virtual patient in the game skips a chemotherapy dose, Roxxi’s chemo-blaster weapon starts to malfunction, misfiring every third shot. Skip another chemotherapy dose, and more virtual cancer cells survive each blast. Skip again, and cancer cells become drug-resistant, further increasing the challenge of each level.

      So did it work? Yes, overwhelmingly. In a clinical trial, patients who played Re-Mission for as little as two hours had greater medication adherence for three months.¹

      Electronic pill-cap monitors showed that the game players took 16 percent more antibiotic doses over a three-month period than nonplayers. This means the game effectively eliminated a whopping half of the typically missed doses. And when patients’ blood was drawn and tested, Re-Mission players had 41 percent higher doses of the cancer-fighting medication in their bodies. They were significantly more successful in keeping up with treatment—and therefore more likely to stay in remission.² (The trial was conducted with 375 patients, aged 13 to 29, at 34 medical centers across the United States.)

      Interestingly, a full quarter of the study participants reported that they rarely played video games before the trial. Another third had previously played just

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