Description: SuperBetter by Jane McGonigal An innovative guide to living gamefully, based on the program that has already helped nearly half a million people achieve remarkable personal growthIn 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 decades 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. Youll never say that something is "just a game" again. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Author Biography Jane McGonigal, PhD, is a senior researcher at the Institute for the Future and the author of The New York Times bestseller Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. Her work has been featured in The Economist, Wired, and The New York Times and on MTV, CNN, and NPR. She has been called one of the top ten innovators to watch (BusinessWeek), one of the one hundred most creative people in business (Fast Company), and one of the fifty most important people in the gaming industry (Game Developers Magazine). Her TED talks on games have been viewed more than ten million times. Review Kirkus: "For those in search of a new self-help regimen, "SuperBetter" might just be the answer. Strong medical research and firsthand accounts provide evidence that playing games can make you a healthier, happier, more confident person."Daniel H. Pink, bestselling author of Drive and A Whole New Mind: "At the heart of SuperBetter is a simple and potentially transformative idea: We can use the same psychological strengths we display when we play games to confront real-life challenges, whether its illness, injury, or just changing our habits for the better. Grounded in research and informed by McGonigals own sometimes harrowing experiences, this book will make you stop and think, then get you to act." Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., Clinical Professor, UCLA School of Medicine and author of Mindsight: "SuperBetter delivers mind-boggling, science-supported, health-promoting knowledge and practical steps to bring more well-being into your life in a fun and engaging way, even if you are facing epic challenges like anxiety, depression, traumatic brain injury, or medical illness. Visionary innovator and researcher Jane McGonigal provides the proof and the practices that reveal how living a gameful life can help you get personally stronger, closer to others, clearer in your mind, braver in your actions, and a greater hero in your own unfolding life story. SuperBetter is a playful, hands-on manual immersing you directly in challenges and adventures of creative gaming to develop more flexibility and resilience as you transform your life." Jennifer Senior, author of All Joy and No Fun: "In this dazzling manifesto, Jane McGonigal knits together state-of-the-art research, moving anecdotes, and extremely satisfying mini-challenges to show us how games—video and otherwise—hold the key to a more productive, joyous life. A game designer by training and an empath by nature, McGonigal uses every power-up at her disposal to convince her audience that the very tools we deploy in imaginary worlds can be used to overcome struggles in everyday life. The result is a candy-crushing, genre-slaying read, for which fans will surely be sending her gratitude notes for years to come." Felicia Day, creator of Geek and Sundry and author of Youre Never Weird on the Internet (Almost): "SuperBetter is an amazing book that fuses psychology and play in an revelatory way. With a wonderfully encouraging writing style, Jane morphs the tropes of gaming into an empowering tool set for change. SuperBetter is impeccably researched, extremely accessible, and sure to inspire gamers and non-gamers to adopt gameful techniques into their day-to-day lives. The sword of self-improvement never seemed easier to wield against the monsters lurking in ones mind!" Rob Delaney, comedian and author of best-selling memoir Rob Delaney: Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage.: "You cant think your way out of a problem, but you can work your way out of a problem. SuperBetter shows us that its also possible, and maybe even healthier, to play your way out of a problem. Especially if youre a silly person, like me or Stephen Hawking." Asi Burak, President of Games for Change: "Jane McGonigal is easily one of the most innovative thinkers in gaming today. In SuperBetter, she reveals to the world a great secret that avid game players kept for years: games are not a waste of your time; they can make you stronger, happier and more mindful. Reading this book is a compelling quest for anyone—whether you play games regularly, or you just have an open mind about them." Amy Cuddy, associate professor, Harvard Business School; author of Presence: "This book is a wise and compassionate distillation of a wealth of good research about the psychology and neuroscience of resilience and social support, married to a game framework that itself comes out of rigorous new science into the psychology and neuroscience of gaming. SuperBetter has been studied in action by the University of Pennsylvania and the National Institutes of Health, among others, and the facts are incontrovertible: following the SuperBetter rules makes people happier, more satisfied, less controlled by suffering, and stronger in their relationships with others. It really works." Susan Cain, co-founder of Quiet Revolution LLC and New York Times bestselling author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Cant Stop Talking: "After reading Jane McGonigals SuperBetter Ill never again say that something is only a game. SuperBetter gives readers the tools to take the same challenge mindset we bring to playing the games we love and apply it to facing our greatest life challenges. The result is a clear path, not just to post-traumatic recovery, but to post-traumatic growth. In every sense a game-changing book." Jack Kornfield, Buddhist teacher and bestselling author of A Path With Heart: "Jane McGonigal shows a playful doorway to well-being and how much we can gain from training attention. This is using the art of games to grow, heal and learn."Charles Duhigg, New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Habit: "Hundreds of thousands of people have had their lives changed by Jane McGonigals SuperBetter program, and I see why. Its a marriage of positive psychology with pioneering insights from cutting-edge game design. This is a plan for profound growth in the face of whatever challenges life throws at you - and whatever ones you can throw at yourself."Gretchen Rubin, bestselling author of Better Than Before and The Happiness Project: "Dont we all want to be better than before? If fact, wed like to be super better! Jane McGonigals fascinating, ground-breaking approach shows how living gamefully can help us lead happier, healthier, more engaged lives."James R. Doty, M.D., Professor of Neurosurgery, Stanford University School of Medicine: "Many of us struggle to overcome challenges that seem overwhelming. Jane McGonigal has taken her immense knowledge of the science of gaming to create an innovative guide that allowed her to overcome her greatest challenge and now, thankfully, is available to each of us to overcome our own."Nilofer Merchant, CEO, Silicon Valley strategist, and author of The New How: "Until you understand yourselves as the hero of your own story, youll never make a dent in the world. This insightful book shows you how to create the life of your dreams, using a gameful approach."Stacy London, host, What Not to Wear; author of The Truth About Style: "Jane McGonigals book is an inspiring one about overcoming personal obstacles, and a revolutionary testament that game playing is for ANYONE who wants to change their life for the better. To become stronger, braver, and happier, you have to play with a purpose. And if you dont know what that means, get ready… you will."Marc Goodman, author of Future Crimes and Chair for Policy, Law & Ethics at Singularity University: "Masterfully written and well researched, SuperBetter is literally a game-changer for anybody looking to build resilience in their lives. Though todays rapidly evolving world can often seem overwhelming, McGonigal offers an important and timely roadmap to take back control of our own lives and focus on what really matters. SuperBetter is a quest well-worth going on." Review Quote Kirkus: Excerpt from Book Before You Play, Heres What You Need to Know The SuperBetter method is designed to make you stronger, happier, braver, and more resilient. Its based on the science of games--and theres a lot of evidence that it works. A randomized, controlled study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania found that playing SuperBetter for thirty days significantly reduces symptoms of depression and anxiety and increases optimism, social support, and players belief in their own ability to succeed and achieve their goals. The study also found that people who followed the SuperBetter rules for one month were significantly happier and more satisfied with their lives. A clinical trial funded by the National Institutes of Health and conducted at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and Cincinnati Childrens Hospital found that the SuperBetter method improves mood, decreases anxiety and suffering, and strengthens family relationships during rehabilitation and recovery. Meanwhile, data collected from more than 400,000 SuperBetter players has helped me improve the method, to make it easier to learn and more fun to use in everyday life. Every single day for the past five years Ive heard from someone who says that the SuperBetter method has changed their life. It is my greatest hope that SuperBetter will help you tackle your toughest challenges, and pursue your biggest dreams, with more courage, creativity, optimism, and support. Please remember, 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 doctors supervision. The SuperBetter method is NOT an alternative to therapy, counseling, ongoing medical treatment, or medication--nor is any game recommended or discussed in this book. Now that you know--lets play! Introduction You are stronger than you know. You are surrounded by potential allies. You are the hero of your own story. These three qualities are all it takes to become happier, braver, and more resilient in the face of any challenge. Heres the good news: You already have these qualities within you. You dont have to change a thing. You are already more powerful than you realize. You have the ability to control your attention--and therefore your thoughts and feelings. You have the strength to find support in the most unexpected places, and deepen your existing relationships. You have a natural capacity to motivate yourself and supercharge your heroic qualities, like willpower, compassion, and determination. This book will help you understand the powers you already have--and show you that accessing these powers is as easy as playing a game . And yet this book is not about playing games--at least, not exactly. Its about learning how to be gameful in the face of extreme stress and personal challenge. Being gameful means bringing the psychological strengths you naturally display when you play games--such as optimism, creativity, courage, and determination--to your real life. It means having the curiosity and openness to play with different strategies to discover what works best. It means building up the resilience to tackle tougher and tougher challenges with greater and greater success. The best way I know to explain what it means to be gameful--and how being gameful can make you stronger, happier, and braver--is to tell you a story. Its the story of how I invented the SuperBetter method--and the life-threatening challenge I had to overcome to be able to write this book. In the summer of 2009, I hit my head and got a concussion. It didnt heal properly, and after thirty days I still had constant headaches, nausea, and vertigo. I couldnt read or write for more than a few minutes at a time. I had trouble remembering things. Most days I felt too sick to get out of bed. I was in a total mental fog. These symptoms left me more anxious and depressed than I had ever been in my life. I had trouble communicating clearly to friends and family exactly what I was going through. I thought if I could write something down, it would help. I struggled and struggled to put together words that made sense, and this is what I came up with: Everything is hard. The iron fist is pushing against my thoughts. My whole brain feels vacuum pressurized. If I cant think who am I? Unfortunately, there is no real treatment for postconcussion syndrome. You just rest as much as you can and hope for the best. I was told I might not feel better for months or even a year or longer. There was one thing I could do to try to heal faster. My doctor told me I should avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. That meant no reading, no writing, no running, no video games, no work, no email, no alcohol, and no caffeine. I joked to my doctor at the time: "In other words, no reason to live." There was quite a bit of truth in that joke. I didnt know it then, but suicidal ideation is very common with traumatic brain injuries--even mild ones like mine.1 It happens to one in three, and it happened to me. My brain started telling me: Jane, you want to die. It said, Youre never going to get better. The pain will never end. Youll be a burden to your husband. These voices became so persistent and so persuasive that I started to legitimately fear for my life. And then something happened. 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 Im going to turn this into a game. Why a game? By the time I hit my head in 2009, Id 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 to real-world problem solving. I knew from my years of research at the University of California at Berkeley that when we play a game, we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, and more optimism. Were also more likely to reach out to others for help. And I wanted to bring these gameful traits to my real-life challenge. So I created a simple recovery game called "Jane the Concussion Slayer." This became my new secret identity , a way to start feeling heroic and determined instead of hopeless. The first thing I did as the concussion slayer was to call my twin sister, Kelly, and tell her, "Im playing a game to heal my brain, and I want you to play with me." This was an easy way to ask for help. She became my first ally in the game. My husband, Kiyash, joined next. Together we identified and battled the bad guys. These were anything that could trigger my symptoms and therefore slow down the healing process--things like bright lights and crowded spaces. We also collected and activated power-ups. These were anything I could do on even my worst day to feel just a little bit good or happy or powerful. Some of my favorite power-ups were cuddling my Shetland sheepdog for five minutes, eating walnuts (good for my brain), and walking around the block twice with my husband. The game was that simple: adopt a secret identity, recruit allies, battle the bad guys, and activate power-ups. But even with a game so simple, within just a couple days of starting to play, that fog of depression and anxiety went away. It just vanished. It felt like a miracle to me. It wasnt 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 while I was still 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. What happened next with the game surprised me. After a few months, I put up a blog post and a short video online explaining how to play. Not everybody has a concussion, and not everyone wants to be "the slayer," so I renamed the game SuperBetter . Why SuperBetter? Everyone had told me to "get better soon" while I was recovering from the concussion, but I didnt want just to get better, as in back to normal. I wanted to get super better: happier and healthier than Id been before the injury. Soon I started hearing from people all over the world who were adopting their own secret identities, recruiting their own allies, and fighting their own bad guys. They were getting "superbetter" at facing challenges like depression and anxiety, surgery and chronic pain, migraines and Crohns disease, healing a broken heart and finding a job after years of unemployment. People were even playing it for extremely serious, even terminal diagnoses, like stage-five cancer and Lou Gehrigs disease (ALS). And I could tell from their messages and their videos that the game was helping them in the same ways that it helped me. These players talked about feeling stronger and braver. They talked about feeling better understood by their friends and family. And they talked about feeling happier, even though they were in pain, even though they were tackling the toughest challenges of their lives. At the time, I thought to myself, What on earth is going on here? How could a game so seemingly trivial, Details ISBN0143109774 Author Jane McGonigal Short Title SUPERBETTER Pages 480 Language English ISBN-10 0143109774 ISBN-13 9780143109778 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY 158 Year 2016 Publication Date 2016-09-13 Subtitle The Power of Living Gamefully Place of Publication New York, NY Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2016-09-13 NZ Release Date 2016-09-13 US Release Date 2016-09-13 UK Release Date 2016-09-13 Publisher Penguin Putnam Inc Imprint Penguin USA Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:137703367;
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