I've spent the last decade subjecting myself to pain and humiliation, hopefully for a good cause, which is self-improvement. And I've done this in three parts. So first I started with the mind. And I decided to try to get smarter by reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica from A to Z -- or, more precisely, from "a-ak" to "Zywiec." And here's a little image of that. And this was an amazing year. It was really a fascinating journey. It was painful at times, especially for those around me. My wife started to fine me one dollar for every irrelevant fact I inserted into conversation. So it had its downsides.
Proveo sam posljednje desetljeće prepuštajući se boli i poniženju, nadam se s dobrim razlogom, poput samopoboljšanja. I to sam radio u tri faze. Prvo sam započeo s umom. Odlučio sam da ću pokušati postati pametniji čitajući kompletnu Encyclopediu Britannicu od A do Z -- ili preciznije, od "a-ak" do "Zywiec." Ovo je mala slika toga. To je bila nevjerojatna godina. Bilo je stvarno fascinantno putovanje. Bilo je ponekad bolno, posebno za one oko mene. Žena mi je počela naplaćivati kaznu jedan dolar za svaku nepotrebnu činjenicu koju sam ubacio u razgovor. Tako da ima mane.
But after that, I decided to work on the spirit. As I mentioned last year, I grew up with no religion at all. I'm Jewish, but I'm Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden is Italian. (Laughter) Not really. But I decided to learn about the Bible and my heritage by actually diving in and trying to live it and immerse myself in it. So I decided to follow all the rules of the Bible. And from the Ten Commandments to growing my beard -- because Leviticus says you cannot shave. So this is what I looked like by the end. Thank you for that reaction. (Laughter) I look a little like Moses, or Ted Kaczynski. I got both of them. So there was the topiary there. And there's the sheep.
Ali nakon toga, odlučio sam raditi na duhu. Kako sam spomenuo prošle godine, odrastao sam bez religije. Ja sam Židov, ali sam Židov na isti način kako je "Olive Garden" (američki lanac restorana) talijanski. (Smijeh) Ne previše. Ali odlučio sam učiti o Bibliji i svojem porijeklu zapravo uranjajući i pokušavajući živjeti i udubiti se u to. Tako sam odlučio pratiti sva pravila Biblije. I od Deset božjih zapovijedi do puštanja brade -- jer je Leviticus rekao da se ne možeš brijati. Pa je ovo kako sam izgledao na kraju. Hvala na toj reakciji. (Smijeh) Pomalo sam izgledao kao Mojsije, ili Ted Kaczynski. Uspio sam kao oboje. Počeo sam se baviti vještinom gajenja biljaka. I ovdje je ovca.
Now the final part of the trilogy was I wanted to focus on the body and try to be the healthiest person I could be, the healthiest person alive. So that's what I've been doing the last couple of years. And I just finished a couple of months ago. And I have to say, thank God. Because living so healthily was killing me. (Laughter) It was so overwhelming, because the amount of things you have to do, it's just mind-boggling. I was listening to all the experts and talking to sort of a board of medical advisers. And they were telling me all the things I had to do. I had to eat right, exercise, meditate, pet dogs, because that lowers the blood pressure. I wrote the book on a treadmill, and it took me about a thousand miles to write the book. I had to put on sunscreen. This was no small feat, because if you listen to dermatologists, they say that you should have a shot glass full of sunscreen. And you have to reapply it every two to four hours. So I think half of my book advance went into sunscreen. I was like a glazed doughnut for most of the year. There was the washing of hands. I had to do that properly. And my immunologist told me that I should also wipe down all of the remote controls and iPhones in my house, because those are just orgies of germs. So that took a lot of time.
I sad posljednji dio trilogije, želio sam se usredotočiti na tijelo i biti najzdravija moguća osoba, najzdravija živa osoba. I to sam radio zadnjih nekoliko godina. I upravo sam prestao prije par mjeseci. I moram reći, hvala bogu. Zato jer sam živio tako zdravo da me to ubijalo. (smijeh) Bilo je tako pretjerano, jer količina stvari koje se trebaju napraviti, mozak vam pregori. Slušao sam stručnjake i pričao s raznim medicinskim savjetnicima. I oni su mi govorili sve stvari koje trebam raditi. Trebam jesti zdravo, vježbati, meditirati, igrati se s psima, zato jer to snižava krvni tlak. Napisao sam knjigu o sobnom biciklu i trebalo mi je oko tisuću milja da napišem knjigu. Mazao sam se s kremom za sunčanje. To nije bila mala stvar, jer ako slušate dermatologe, oni govore da bi trebali upotrebljavati punu čašicu kreme za sunčanje. I trebali bi se ponovno mazati svaka dva sata. Tako da mislim da je polovica mog napretka otišla na kremu za sunčanje. Bio sam poput premazanog uštipka većinu godine. Nakon toga je bilo pranje ruku. Trebao sam to raditi propisno. I moj imunolog mi je rekao da trebam čistiti sve daljinske upravljače i iPhone u mojoj kući, jer su oni orgije bacila. Tako da mi je to oduzimalo mnogo vremena.
I also tried to be the safest person I could be, because that's a part of health. I was inspired by the Danish Safety Council. They started a public campaign that says, "A walking helmet is a good helmet." So they believe you should not just wear helmets for biking, but also for walking around. And you can see there they're shopping with their helmets. (Laughter) Well yeah, I tried that. Now it's a little extreme, I admit. But if you think about this, this is actually -- the "Freakonomics" authors wrote about this -- that more people die on a per mile basis from drunk walking than from drunk driving. So something to think about tonight if you've had a couple.
Pokušavao sam biti najsigurnija moguća osoba, jer je to dio zdravlja. Bio sam inspiriran Danskim Vijećem za Sigurnost. Oni su započeli kampanju koja je govorila "Kaciga za hodanje je dobra kaciga" Oni vjeruju da ne bi trebali nositi kacigu samo za vožnju bicikla, već i za hodanje naokolo. I ovdje možete vidjeti da oni idu u šoping sa svojim kacigama. (Smijeh) Pa, da, probao sam to. Moram priznati da je malo ekstremno. Ali ako razmislite o tome, ovo je zapravo -- "Frikonomika", autori su pisali o tome -- da više ljudi pogine po jednoj milji od pijanog hodanja nego od pijane vožnje. I nešto o čemu za razmišljati večeras ako ste malo popili.
So I finished, and it was a success in a sense. All of the markers went in the right direction. My cholesterol went down, I lost weight, my wife stopped telling me that I looked pregnant. So that was nice. And it was successful overall. But I also learned that I was too healthy, and that was unhealthy. I was so focused on doing all these things that I was neglecting my friends and family. And as Dan Buettner can tell you, having a strong social network is so crucial to our health.
I tako sam ja završio, i to je bio uspjeh na neki način. Svi pokazatelji su otišli prema pravom smjeru. Moj kolesterol se spustio, izgubio sam na težini, supruga mi je prestala govoriti da izgledam trudno. I to je bilo lijepo. Sve u svemu sam bio uspješan. Ali sam također naučio da sam bio previše zdrav, i to je bilo nezdravo. Usredotočio sam se na obavljanje svih tih stvari da sam zapostavljao sve moje prijatelje i obitelj. I kao što bi vam Dan Buettner mogao reći, snažna društvena mreža je osnova za naše zdravlje.
So I finished. And I kind of went overboard on the week after the project was over. I went to the dark side, and I just indulged myself. It was like something out of Caligula. (Laughter) Without the sex part. Because I have three young kids, so that wasn't happening. But the over-eating and over-drinking, definitely. And I finally have stabilized. So now I'm back to adopting many -- not all; I don't wear a helmet anymore -- but dozens of healthy behaviors that I adopted during my year. It was really a life-changing project. And I, of course, don't have time to go into all of them. Let me just tell you two really quickly.
I tako sam završio. I možda malo pretjerao tjedan nakon što je projekt završio. Prešao sam na tamnu stranu, i prepustio se. Bilo je nešto poput Kaligule. (Smijeh) Bez onog dijela sa seksom. Zato jer imam troje djece, tako da ništa od toga. Ali definitivno sa prejedanjem i opijanjem. I konačno sam se stabilizirao. I sad sam normalan i prihvatio sam mnoge stvari -- ne sve, ne nosim kacigu više ali mnogo zdravih navika sam usvojio tijekom mojih godinu dana. To je bio zbilja projekt koji mi je promijenio život. I naravno, nemam vremena za detaljnu analizu. Samo da vam kažem par stvari na brzinu.
The first is -- and this was surprising to me; I didn't expect this to come out -- but I live a much quieter life now. Because we live in such a noisy world. There's trains and planes and cars and Bill O'Reilly, he's very noisy. (Laughter) And this is a real underestimated, under-appreciated health hazard -- not just because it harms our hearing, which it obviously does, but it actually initiates the fight-or-flight response. A loud noise will get your fight-or-flight response going. And this, over the years, can cause real damage, cardiovascular damage. The World Health Organization just did a big study that they published this year. And it was done in Europe. And they estimated that 1.6 million years of healthy living are lost every year in Europe because of noise pollution. So they think it's actually very deadly.
Prva je -- i to me stvarno začudilo; Nisam očekivao takav razvoj situacije -- ali sada živim mnogo mirnije. Zato jer mi živimo u jako bučnom svijetu. Okruženi smo vlakovima i avionima i automobilima i Bill O'Reillyem, on je vrlo glasan. (Smijeh) I to je stvarno podcijenjeni zdravstveni rizik -- ne samo zbog svih stvari koje čujemo, što je očito, nego zapravo inicira borbeni refleks. Glasna buka će stvarno podići agresiju u vama. I to, nakon svih godina, može uzrokovati stvarnu štetu, kardiovaskularnu štetu. Svjetska zdravstvena organizacija je napravila veliku studiju koju je objavila ove godine. I bila je provedena u Europi. I oni su procjenili da 1,6 milijuna godina zdravog života su izgubljene svake godine u Europi zbog zagađenja bukom. Te oni misle da je to vrlo opasno.
And by the way, it's also terrible for your brain. It really impairs cognition. And our Founding Fathers knew about this. When they wrote the Constitution, they put dirt all over the cobblestones outside the hall so that they could concentrate. So without noise reduction technology, our country would not exist. So as a patriot, I felt it was important to -- I wear all the earplugs and the earphones, and it's really improved my life in a surprising and unexpected way.
I ujedno, užasno je za vaš mozak. Stvarno smanjuje kognitivne sposobnosti. I naši osnivači su bili svjesni toga. Kada su pisali Ustav, stavili su zemlju na sve kamenčiće vani kako bi se mogli koncentrirati. I tako bez redukcije buke, ova država ne bi postojala. I tako kao domoljub, Osjećam da je vrlo važno da -- nosim čepove za uši i slušalice i to je stvarno poboljšalo moj život na iznenađujuć i neočekivan način.
And the second point I want to make, the final point, is that -- and it's actually been a theme of TEDMED -- that joy is so important to your health, that very few of these behaviors will stick with me unless there's some sense of pleasure and joy in them. And just to give you one instance of this: food. The junk food industry is really great at pressing our pleasure buttons and figuring out what's the most pleasurable. But I think we can use their techniques and apply them to healthy food. To give just one example, we love crunchiness, mouthfeel. So I basically have tried to incorporate crunchiness into a lot of my recipes -- throw in some sunflower seeds. And you can almost trick yourself into thinking you're eating Doritos. (Laughter) And it has made me a healthier person.
I druga stvar koju želim reći, najvažnija stvar, je ta -- i to je zapravo bila tema TEDMED-a -- radost je toliko važna za vaše zdravlje, da bi malo ovakvog ponašanja ostalo u meni da nema nekog osjećaja zadovoljstva i užitka u njima. I da vam dam samo jedan primjer toga: hrana. Industrija fast-fooda je stvarno odlična djeluje na naše tipke užitka tako da se usredotoči na ono što nam je najbolje. Ali ja mislim da možemo koristiti te tehnike i primjeniti ih na zdravu hranu. Da vam dam samo jedan primjer, mi volimo hrskav osjećaj. I u osnovi sam pokušavao ugraditi osjećaj hrskavosti u mnoge moje recepte -- ubaciti mnogo sjemenki od suncokreta. Skoro možete sami sebe zavarati da jedete čips. (Smijeh) I to me učinilo zdravijom osobom.
So that is it. The book about it comes out in April. It's called "Drop Dead Healthy." And I hope that I don't get sick during the book tour. That's my greatest hope.
I to je to. Knjiga izlazi van u travnju. I zove se "Ubojito zdrav" I nadam se da vam neće biti zlo tijekom predstavljanja knjige. To je moja najveća nada.
So thank you very much.
Puno vam hvala.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)