SuperBetter: The Power of Living Gamefully

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 even get out of bed, she became depressed, even suicidal. She decided to get better by doing what she does best: she turned her recovery process into a resilience-building game. 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 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, and determination--to real-world goals.