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.
Podvrgavao sam se bolu i ponižavanju tokom poslednje decenije, nadam se iz dobrih razloga, kao što je rad na sebi. Uradio sam to u tri faze. Počeo sam sa umom. Pokušao sam da postanem pametniji tako što sam pročitao celu enciklopediju "Britanika" od A do Š, ili preciznije od "a-ak" do "švrljanja". Evo male slike koja to predstavlja. To je bila sjajna godina. Bilo je to očaravajuće putovanje. Ponekada je bilo naporno, naročito za one oko mene. Žena je počela da mi naplaćuje po dolar za svaku nebitnu činjenicu koju bih ubacio u razgovor. To je imalo i svoje negativne strane.
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.
Nakon toga, rešio sam da se posvetim duhu. Kao što sam pomenuo prošle godine, odrastao sam u nereligioznoj sredini. Ja sam Jevrejin, onoliko koliko je "Mekdonalds" restoran zdrave hrane. (smeh) Ne baš. Ali sam odlučio da naučim više o Bibliji i svom nasleđu pokušavajući da živim taj život i potpuno posvetim sebe tome. Odlučio sam da sledim sva pravila iz Biblije. I to počevši od deset zapovesti pa do puštanja brade, jer Levitikus nalaže zabranu brijanja. Ovako sam izgledao na kraju toga. Hvala za ovu reakciju. (smeh) Podsećam malo na Mojsija ili na Teda Kazinskog. Ili na obojicu. Ovde vidite tu hortikulturu. A ovo 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.
Poslednji deo u ovoj trilogiji je bila želja da se koncentrišem na telo i da pokušam da budem što zdravija osoba, najzdravija osoba na svetu. Time sam se bavio poslednjih par godina. Upravo sam završio ciklus pre par meseci. Moram reći, hvala Bogu. Tako zdrav način života me je ubijao. (smeh) To je bilo čak i previše, ako sagledate sve što treba da uradite, to prosto preplavljuje mozak. Slušao sam sve stručnjake i pričao sa nekom vrstom medicinskog savetodavnog tela. Oni su mi predlagali sve stvari kojih je trebalo da se pridržavam. Trebalo je da ispravno jedem, vežbam, meditiram, igram se sa kučićima, jer to snižava krvni pritisak. Napisao sam knjigu na spravi za trčanje, i za to mi je trebalo oko 1.600 kilometara. Trebalo je da koristim kremu za zaštitu od sunca. To nije bilo malo postignuće, jer dermatolozi preporučuju da sa sobom uvek imate čašicu napunjenu kremom za zaštitu. Morate nanositi svež sloj svakih dva do četiri sata. Mislim da je krema za zaštitu od sunca značajno usporila pisanje moje knjige. Bio sam kao glazirana krofna skoro tokom cele godine. Uračunajte tu i pranje ruku. Trebalo je to da radim ispravno. Moj imunolog mi je rekao da treba da očistim sve upravljačke uređaje i mobilne telefone u kući, jer klice na tim spravama prosto orgijaju. To je oduzimalo puno 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.
Pokušao sam da budem i što zaštićeniji, jer je i to deo zdravlja. Inspirisala me je inicijativa danskog Saveta za bezbednost. Započeli su javnu kampanju koja ima slogan: "Kaciga za šetanje je dobra kaciga." Smatraju da ne samo da treba da nosite kacigu kada vozite bicikl, već i kada se šetate. Ovde ih možete videti kako nose kacige u toku kupovine. (smeh) Pa da, probao sam to. Malo je ekstremno, moram priznati. Ako razmislite o ovome, o tome su autori u "Freakonomics-u" pisali, da više ljudi pogine po kilometru usled šetnje dok su pijani nego kada pijani voze. Porazmislite o tome večeras ukoliko ste popili piće ili dva.
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.
Završio sam to, bilo je na neki način uspešno. Svi pokazatelji su se kretali u pravom smeru. Snizio sam nivo holesterola, smršao sam, moja žena mi više nije govorila da izgledam kao trudnica. To je bilo dobro. Uopšteno gledajući, bilo je uspešno. Takođe sam shvatio da sam bio previše zdrav, a to je zapravo nezdravo. Toliko sam bio koncentrisan na to da sam zapostavio prijatelje i porodicu. Kao što bi vam Den Bojtner rekao, stabilna društvena mreža je od suštinske važnosti za 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.
Dakle, završio sam ciklus. Prešao sam u drugi ekstrem u toku nedelje nakon završetka poduhvata. Prešao sam na mračnu stranu, i prepustio se uživanjima. To je podsećalo na film Kaligula. (smeh) Samo bez seksa. Jer imam tri mala deteta, tako da toga nije bilo. Ali sam definitivno preterao sa hranom i pićem. Napokon sam se unormalio. Tako da sam se vratio primenjivanju mnogih pravila - ne svih, ne nosim više kacigu - desetine zdravih navika koje sam primenjivao u toku te godine. Bio je to zaista poduhvat koji menja život. Naravno, nemam vremena da pričam o svemu. Ispričao bih vam na brzinu o samo dva aspekta.
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 stvar, a to me je prilično iznenadilo, nisam to očekivao kao rezultat, živim sada mnogo tišim životom. Živimo u veoma bučnom svetu. Oko nas su vozovi, avioni i kola i Bil O'Rajli, on je veoma bučan. (smeh) To je zaista podcenjen, nedovoljno priznat faktor koji loše utiče na zdravlje, ne samo da šteti sluhu, što je očigledno, nego i podstiče "bori se ili beži" odgovor. Buka će inicirati vaš "bori se ili beži" odgovor. Tokom godina taj proces može da uzrokuje pravu štetu, kardiovaskularnu štetu. Svetska zdravstvena organizacija je upravo uradila veliku studiju koju je objavila ove godine. Urađena je u Evropi. Procenili su da se u Evropi izgubi 1.6 miliona godina zdravog života svake godine usled prevelike buke. Smatraju da je buka poprilično smrtonosna.
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.
Uzgred budi rečeno, pogubna je za vaš mozak. Značajno oštećuje proces kognicije. Naši Očevi osnivači su to znali. Kada su pisali Ustav, posuli su prašinu svuda po prilazima oko same sale, kako bi mogli da se koncentrišu. Tako da bez tehnologije koja smanjuje buku, naša zamlja ne bi postojala. Kao patriota, smatrao sam da je to veoma značajno, sada nosim čepove i slušalice za uši, i to je zaista poboljšalo kvalitet mog života, na iznenađujući i neočekivani 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.
Druga stvar koju želim da naglasim, a to ja i zaključna stvar, a ujedno je i tema ove TEDMED konferencije, jeste da je radost toliko važna za vaše zdravlje, da ću nastaviti da se pridržavam samo onih prethodno opisanih pravila u kojima nalazim osećaj zadovoljstva i radosti. Predočio bih vam samo jedan primer toga: hrana. Industrija brze hrane je sjajna u pokretanju tastera za zadovoljstvo i razumevanju onoga šta donosi najveće zadovoljstvo. Smatram da možemo koristiti njihove tehnike i primeniti ih na zdravu hranu. Naveo bih jedan primer, volimo hrskavu hranu, bogat osećaj u ustima. Pokušao sam da ubacim hrsakve sastojke u sve moje specijalitete, ubacim malo semena suncokreta. Skoro pa prevarite sami sebe da u stvari jedete "Doritos" (čips). (smeh) To je od mene napravilo zdraviju osobu.
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.
To bi bilo to. Knjiga o tome će izaći u aprilu. Naziv knjige je "Umri zdrav". Nadam se da se neću razboleti na promotivnoj turi. To je moja najveća nada.
So thank you very much.
Mnogo vam hvala.
(Applause)
(aplauz)