In 2009 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 motivational exercise quickly became a set of rules for "post-traumatic growth". These rules led to a digital game and a major research study. 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.

McGonigal shows that getting superbetter is as simple as tapping in to 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 supercharge your heroic qualities, like willpower, compassion, and determination
  

SuperBetter contains nearly 100 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.