SuperBetter: How to be gameful with your health
Game designer Jane McGonigal created SuperBetter to help recover from a concussion — and it's available free for any of us to use, too
One day in 2009, Jane McGonigal stood up quickly under an open cabinet door. A marathon runner with strong legs, she had power: She smacked into it with such force that she got a concussion, a type of traumatic brain injury.
Her concussion left her with headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. She is a writer, a game designer, and a futurist, and the concussion meant she was unable to work.
Her doctor said she needed to rest her brain so it could recover: No reading, no writing, no video games, no caffeine, no alcohol, no running.
Jane didn’t get better quickly, and when she saw her doctor after a month, he shared that concussion recovery varies dramatically: Some people get better within the first 30 days, some in the first 3 months, some in the first year, and some never recover.
The news that she could be sick for the rest of her life, that this Groundhog Day existence of struggling to write an email could continue indefinitely, sent her into a spiral.
She was in deep despair, with alarming thoughts about ending her life, thoughts she had never thought before. (She learned later that suicidal ideation is a common side effect of concussions — about 1 in 3 people who have concussions experience it.)
“And then something happenend,” she wrote in her book SuperBetter. “I had one crystal-clear thought that changed everything. Thirty-four days after I hit my head — and I will never forget this moment—I said to myself, I am either going to kill myself, or I’m going to turn this into a game.”
“Why a game? By the time I hit my head in 2009, I’d been researching the psychology of games for nearly a decade. In fact, I was the first person in the world to earn a Ph.D. studying the psychological strengths of gamers and how those strengths can translate into real-world problem solving. I knew from my years of research at University of California at Berkeley that when we play a game, we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, and more optimism. We’re also more likely to reach out to others for help. And I wanted to bring these gameful traits to my real-life challenge.”
Jane drew upon game elements:
Challenge
Bad guys
Superhero
Allies
Power-ups
Quests
For each one, she modified it to fit her circumstance.
Challenge — To recover from the concussion
Bad Guys — Anything that blocks her healing process, such as bright lights
Superhero — She gave herself a secret identity, Jane the Concussion Slayer (she’s a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan)
Power-ups — She thought of easy, quick things she could do to feel better in a rough moment, like cuddling her dog for 10 minutes or a short walk around the block or looking at photos of baby animals
Allies — She recruited her husband and twin sister (Kelly McGonigal, who happens to be the author of The Upside of Stress, which I wrote about here) to be her allies in the game
Quests — She started by asking her sister to send her a quest, something small and doable that would help nudge her in the right direction. For her first quest, her sister assigned her to look out the window that day (remember, she’s too sick to be out of bed much or do anything) and share later one interesting thing she saw.
By turning her recovery into a game, she made the tedious, scary process more interesting, more fun, more collaborative.
“But even with a game so simple, within just a couple of days of starting to play, that fog of depression and anxiety went away. It just vanished,” Jane writes in her book SuperBetter. “It felt like a miracle to me. It wasn’t a miracle cure for the headaches or the cognitive symptoms — they lasted more than a year, and it was the hardest year of my life by far. But even when I still had the symptoms, even when I was in pain, I stopped suffering. I felt more in control of my own destiny. My friends and family knew exactly how to help and support me. And I started to see myself as a much stronger person.”
Unlocking a major difficulty of sickness
One of the hardest parts of being sick is loved ones not knowing how to help and the sick person not knowing how to ask others for help.
People genuinely want to help, but they don’t know exactly what to do. And the tiny things that can make a difference feel hard to ask out of the blue.
Framing it this way, with allies, quests, and power-ups, makes it easier.
It might be hard to say, I know that I’m supposed to get up a walk each day to feel better, but I feel horrible, and I really don’t want to talk about it. I want help with this, but ugh, I don’t know where to begin.
Then imagine a dialogue like, maybe a text or email thread, between someone who is sick — let’s call her Sally — and her ally.
Sally: I’m supposed to walk each day to recover, and it’s HARD. ARGHHHH. Could you help me make that a quest — starting really small and adding more each day? And check in with me?
Ally: Yes, absolutely!! What would be a good starting point? How about from the bedroom to the front door?
Sally: I can do that already actually. Maybe I could walk to the mailbox today.
Ally: OK, that sounds like a great quest! Your quest today is to walk from your bedroom to the mailbox. Let me know when you complete it!
Later:
[texted photo of Sally by the mailbox] I did it! Tomorrow I’m going to try for the neighbor’s house.
Ally: Yay! Super! You did it!!! I’ll remind you of your quest tomorrow, too.
By framing these actions as “quests,” it feels more fun, and your allies can celebrate with you.
We know how games work! We are excited when a goal is made, or a next level us unlocked. It feels good to high-five each other.
I love how this game framework gives us a language to talk to other people close to us and enlist their support. It’s really a brilliant idea.
Superbetter for you
Once Jane got better — and she did, over time — she wanted to share this game idea with the others. She called the game Superbetter, which she has been testing and refining now for years.
Researchers have studied Superbetter with patients, too.
A University of Pennsylvania study found that playing SuperBetter for 10 minutes a day for 30 days increased players’ happiness, satisfaction with their lives, and belief in their own ability to reach their goals. It also decreased symptoms of depression and anxiety.
And a study at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center of teens with concussions found that playing the SuperBetter app helped improve symptoms and increase optimism.
SuperBetter Rules are built on psychological strengths:
Superbetter can be used with any kind of challenge, not just illness.
You could get Superbetter at parenting, at cooking, at reducing your blood pressure, at getting 8 hours of sleep, at running, at writing your first book, at breaking a habit — at anything, really!
How do you play SuperBetter?
The digital game is free — both in a website version and as an Apple App and Google Play App — so you can ask your friends to be your allies and play with you. (I haven’t tried these yet; if you do, let me know what how it goes.)
You could also play SuperBetter on your own, without the app, by recruiting an ally or two and going through all the steps.
The book SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting STronger, Happier, Braver, and More Resilient lays out all the instructions.
This book is where I learned about SuperBetter, including the story at the beginning of how Dr. McGonigal first got her concussion. (A few extra details came from this podcast interview with Tim Ferris and her TedTalk.)
In the book, Dr. McGonigal writes, “Every single day for the past five years I’ve heard from someone who says that the SuperBetter method has changed their life.”
And she adds an important warning: ”Please remember that the SuperBetter method is not a substitute for medical advice or treatment. Many successful SuperBetter players—including a majority of participants in the University of Pennsylvania study and all the participants in the clinical trial—followed the SuperBetter method alongside some form of continuing counseling, medication, or rehabilitation, or with a doctor’s supervision.”
What’s a Challenge you’d like to conquer?
What would be your superhero name?
Who or what are your Bad Guys?
Who would be your Allies?
What would be your Power-ups?
What are the Quests that could move toward your Challenge?
I’m very curious. You can always write to me at brianne@odysseyofthebody.com or reply to this email, or add a comment below.
I hope you have a wonderful week ahead, filled with Allies and Power-Ups!
To our journeys,
Brianne