SuperBetter: How a gameful life can make you stronger, happier, braver and more resilient - Jane McGonigal

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stronger than you were a minute ago.

      Let’s keep playing!

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      QUEST 3: Emotional Resilience

       Pick one:

      If you’re inside, find a window and look outside for thirty seconds. If you’re outside, find a window and look in.

       or

      Do a Google Image or YouTube video search for “baby [your favorite animal].”

       Go!

      Mission accomplished? Great!

      By completing this quest, you’ve just strengthened your emotional resilience.

      Emotional resilience is the ability to access positive emotions at will. It doesn’t matter if you’re stressed, or bored, or angry, or in pain—when you have emotional resilience, you can choose to feel something good instead.

      Emotional resilience is a particularly important strength. Research has shown that if, on average, people experience more positive emotions than negative ones, they gain a huge range of benefits. They’re more creative at solving problems. They’re more ambitious and successful at school and at work. They’re less likely to give up when things are hard. People around them are more likely to offer help and support them in their goals.10

      To achieve emotional resilience, you don’t need to eliminate negative emotions—that’s obviously impossible. You just need enough positive emotions, over the course of a day, to beat out the negative ones.

      Both options in this quest are scientifically validated methods for provoking a specific positive emotion. Looking through a window provokes curiosity—the positive emotion that psychologists define as “a desire to gratify the mind with new information or objects of interest.”11 (Hopefully you saw something interesting through the window!) Meanwhile, researchers have demonstrated that looking at photos or videos of baby animals is all it takes to make virtually anyone feel the emotion of love. (Baby animal cuteness brings out our nurturing instinct!) Better yet, this quick burst of love from looking at baby animals doesn’t just feel good, it also improves attention and productivity.12

      Even if you felt the curiosity or the love for only a few seconds, you just got emotionally stronger. Enjoy it.

      Let’s try one more quest.

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      QUEST 4: Social Resilience

       Pick one:

      Shake or hold someone’s hand for at least six seconds.

       or

      Send someone you know a quick thank-you by text, email, or Facebook message.

       Go!

      All done? Awesome.

      By completing this quest, you’ve boosted your social resilience.

      Social resilience is the ability to get support from friends, family members, neighbors, and co-workers. You’re able to ask for the help you need—and you’re more likely to receive it. Social support is crucial to tackling challenges successfully. You can try to go it alone, but your odds of success are vastly improved when someone else has your back.

      There are lots of ways to increase your social resilience. Touch and gratitude are two of the most effective.

      Studies show that shaking or holding someone’s hand for at least six seconds increases the level of the “trust hormone,” oxytocin, in both of your bloodstreams.13 Boosted oxytocin levels make you want to help and protect each other. The more oxytocin you release together, the deeper your bond.14

      Meanwhile, expressing thanks is one of the most reliable ways to cultivate good feelings and a closer connection. Gratitude is the single most important relationship-strengthening emotion because, as researchers explain, “it requires us to see how we’ve been supported and affirmed by other people.”15

      So whether you just touched or thanked someone, you are now socially stronger than you were a page ago. Success!

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      I knew you could do it: you’ve completed four simple quests, and you’re already building up life-changing skills and abilities. You’re discovering that you are, in fact, stronger than you know; you are indeed surrounded by potential allies; and you really can become a hero to others just by tapping into your natural resilience.

      Are you having fun yet? I hope so. Because my goal is to make this the most fun book you’ve ever read. You’ll complete nearly one hundred more quests before this book is through. Each one is based on a different scientific breakthrough about what makes you more resilient. And at the start of each quest, you’ll see one of these four icons to let you know if you’re building primarily physical, mental, emotional, or social resilience:

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      I promise you these quests will make you feel more confident, more in control, and more optimistic about all your real-life challenges. (As with any good game, these quests will get a little bit trickier the further you go!)

      Seeking out and completing quests is just one of the seven gameful skills that will help you become stronger, happier, and braver in everyday life. Now that you’ve gotten a taste of what it feels like to adopt a gameful mindset, let me tell you a little bit more about what you can expect from this book.

      I won’t ask you to start leading a more gameful life until you’re absolutely convinced of the ability of games to solve real problems and change real lives. So in Part 1, “Why Games Make Us Superbetter,” we’ll start with an overview of the evidence on games. What strengths do they tap into, and what psychological benefits do they bring? We’ll look at games that increase motivation and willpower, that block the feeling of physical pain more powerfully than morphine, that help you overcome anxiety and depression, that can change your eating habits, develop your compassion for others, and help you forge stronger, happier relationships with friends and family. Most of the games we discuss in Part 1 are readily available for you to play on your phone or your computer as a way to practice and understand your gameful strengths better. However, even if you decide never to play any of these games, Part 1 will give you a solid foundation to understand what it means to be gameful. You will know exactly what it takes to tap into your three most important challenge-facing, problem-solving powers: your abilities to control your attention, to make allies and get support, and to motivate yourself to do what’s important, even when it’s difficult for you. We’ll finish by exploring the research on why some game players are better able than others to bring these powers from their favorite games into their real lives.

      Part 1 is full of gameful quests for you to complete, just like the ones in this introduction—so you’ll have plenty of opportunity to play and get stronger with every page.

      In Part 2, “How to Be Gameful,” we’ll talk about your life. Now that you understand your strengths, what is the best way to harness them in everyday life? We’ll go in depth with each of the seven gameful skills that can help you tackle real-life challenges with more courage, creativity, and determination. I’ll give you seven simple rules to follow to practice each of these skills in daily life. This is the SuperBetter method, and it’s designed to make it easy for you to lead a more gameful life—whether or not you

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