SuperBetter: How a gameful life can make you stronger, happier, braver and more resilient. Jane McGonigal
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magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This technology allows researchers to see where blood is flowing in the brain—the more blood flow, the more active that region of the brain. In Snow World studies, fMRI footage showed reduced blood flow to all five regions of the brain associated with processing pain. This data revealed that players weren’t just doing a better job of dealing with the pain they felt—they were actively blocking the brain from dedicating resources to processing the pain signals.4 No cognitive resources, no pain.
This is the real breakthrough at the heart of the Snow World technique: the game isn’t merely a distraction from feelings of pain; it actively prevents conscious feelings of pain in the first place. And you can learn to use this technique in your own life.
You may never be in as much physical pain as a burn patient. But if and when you do find yourself in pain, you now know: You don’t have to pay attention to the signals from your nerves. You can choose to pay attention to anything you want. Even when you’re in pain, even when you’re suffering, you can control your attention spotlight and change your experience for the better.
And you don’t necessarily need a fancy 3-D VR headset to do it. Although advanced game technology makes it easier to commandeer cognitive resources, other studies on pain and gaming show that in less extreme cases, a simple handheld game—the kind you can play on your mobile phone or iPad—can also block pain signals effectively.5
Or if you prefer a nongaming solution, you can choose any challenging activity that successfully captures your full attention. Research suggests, for example, that knitting and crafting both require enough brain-processing resources to successfully reduce chronic pain.6 The key is simply to realize that you are in charge of your cognitive resources. If you don’t want your brain to pay attention to pain signals, give it something else to pay attention to instead.
Snow World is an important health care innovation—but it’s also much more than that. It’s a clear lesson in how much untapped power we all have over what we physically feel. Even when we’re in pain, even when we’re suffering, we can control our attention spotlight and change our experience for the better.
As you’ll see in the coming pages, this finding is repeated again and again in video game research: we have more power, more mental control, over what we feel, moment to moment, than we realize.
You have this power—and it comes from your ability to control your attention spotlight, and in doing so, to change what is happening in your body and your brain.
Let’s start practicing that power now, with your next quest.
QUEST 6: Stop the Pink Elephant!
Don’t think of a pink elephant. Whatever you do, do not think of a pink elephant.
Stop reading this book for the next ten seconds, and in that time, be absolutely sure you do not once think about a pink elephant. Go!
10 . . . 9 . . . 8 . . .
Did you think of a pink elephant? Of course you did, even though I told you not to. Fortunately, that’s not your quest. At least not yet—not until you have a concrete strategy for controlling your attention spotlight.
The command “Don’t think of an elephant” (or sometimes “Don’t think of a bear”) is one of the most widely employed exercises in cognitive psychology. Devised by Harvard University professor Daniel Wegner and later made popular by University of California at Berkeley professor George Lakoff, the idea is simple: once you evoke a concept in someone’s mind, they are essentially powerless to block it. Despite the instructions to not picture a large gray (or pink) mammal with a trunk and floppy ears, the brain is incapable of obeying. The word elephant calls up the idea of an elephant, and you’re stuck with it, for better or for worse.7
We’re going to try a different experiment here. I want you to keep trying to not think about a pink elephant, but I’m going to give you a strategy for doing just that.
What to do: This time you’re going to control your attention spotlight by focusing your cognitive resources on a challenging, high-attention task.
To stop the pink elephant from commanding your attention, I want you picture a giant letter P and E (short for pink elephant, naturally). P and E. Got it?
Now I’m going to give you sixty seconds—set a timer, or just estimate it—to list as many words that contain both the letter P and the letter E, in any order. Here are a few to get you started: help, hope, pickle, peanut.
Write the words down, or if it’s easier, just think of them and tick them off on your fingers, or keep a mental tally.
If you can think of at least ten more words with a P and an E in sixty seconds, that’s very good. If you can think of twenty or more, that’s amazing. If you can think of thirty or more, you’re a rock star at this, one of the best in the world. Try to aim for at least ten—and remember, while you’re doing it, don’t think about a pink elephant.
Go!
Okay, now I want you to notice two things.
1. Were you better able to stop thinking about a pink elephant while you were engaged in this high-attention, challenging task? I hope so. The higher your word score, the more likely you are to have completely blocked that silly animal out of your mind. (If you don’t like your score or you couldn’t stop the pink elephant from occupying your thoughts, give it another try with these two letters: S and B, for SuperBetter!)
2. As you go back to reading this book or go about the rest of your day, see which is more likely to occur: you keep picturing a pink elephant or you randomly think of or spot another word with the letters P and E in them. If you are like most people, you’re more likely to flash back to the word game than to the mental image of an elephant. That’s because your attention spotlight is more likely to drift back to something that engaged more cognitive resources. Be sure to notice what happens in the next few minutes or hours to see if this is true for you!
Quest complete: If you found this word game an effective technique to control your attention spotlight, congratulations. You now have a new tool in your toolkit for blocking unwanted thoughts, feelings, or physical sensations. Try it anytime, with any two letters, to practice swinging that spotlight of attention quickly and more effectively.
Just for fun: Check out the following footnote for twenty P and E words you could have thought of!*
* People, preach, happen, pamphlet, prairie, prayer, apple, yelp, rope, dampen, patent, prehistoric, petal, penumbra, pennant, sniper, eclipse, epicenter, spine, rapture, empty, prince, poke.
As you’re hopefully starting to see, researchers have figured out all kinds of ways people can get better at controlling their attention spotlight. Let’s take a look at other types of mental and emotional resilience you can develop by mastering this important skill—such as the power to prevent trauma, fight cravings, block anxiety, and heal from depression.
You’ve almost certainly seen Tetris, the falling blocks puzzle game, even if you’ve never played it. It’s estimated to be one of the most widely played video games of all time, with nearly half a billion players to date.
Despite having been around since 1984, it wasn’t until recently that researchers realized that Tetris can do more than entertain us. It can, remarkably, help us recover more quickly from traumatic events.
Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is a psychological condition that can develop after an individual witnesses or experiences a terrifying or tragic event. The hallmark symptom of PTSD is recurring flashbacks. Unwanted, intrusive memories can haunt individuals for months or even years after a traumatic event, disrupting sleep, triggering panic