**An innovative guide to living gamefully, based on the program that
has already helped nearly half a million people achieve remarkable
personal growth
**
In 2009, internationally renowned game designer Jane McGonigal suffered
a severe concussion. Unable to think clearly or work or even get out of
bed, she became anxious and depressed, even suicidal. But rather than
let herself sink further, she decided to get better by doing what she
does best: she turned her recovery process into a resilience-building
game. What started as a simple motivational exercise quickly became a
set of rules for "post-traumatic growth" that she shared on her blog.
These rules led to a digital game and a major research study with the
National Institutes of Health. Today nearly half a million people have
played SuperBetter to get stronger, happier, and healthier.
But the life-changing ideas behind SuperBetter are much bigger than just
one game. In this book, McGonigal reveals a decade's worth of scientific
research into the ways all games--including videogames, sports, and
puzzles--change how we respond to stress, challenge, and pain. She
explains how we can cultivate new powers of recovery and resilience in
everyday life simply by adopting a more "gameful" mind-set. Being
gameful means bringing the same psychological strengths we naturally
display when we play games--such as optimism, creativity, courage, and
determination--to real-world goals.
Drawing on hundreds of studies, McGonigal shows that getting superbetter
is as simple as tapping into the three core psychological strengths that
games help you build:
- Your ability to control your attention, and therefore your
thoughts and feelings
- Your power to turn anyone into a potential ally, and to strengthen
your existing relationships
- Your natural capacity to motivate yourself and super-charge your
heroic qualities, like willpower, compassion, and determination
SuperBetter contains nearly 100 playful challenges anyone can
undertake in order to build these gameful strengths. It includes stories
and data from people who have used the SuperBetter method to get
stronger in the face of illness, injury, and other major setbacks, as
well as to achieve goals like losing weight, running a marathon, and
finding a new job.
As inspiring as it is down to earth, and grounded in rigorous research,
SuperBetter is a proven game plan for a better life. You'll never say
that something is "just a game" again.
