A.J. Jacobs (3:20)

I did. Well, it wasn't just a correct, it was two years. It was supposed to be a year but I needed so much work. It turned out to be two years and it was about 15 years ago. I'm still alive, I can report. So in that sense it was a success. But I was in terrible shape. I got sick all the time, partly from stress. I was what they call skinny fat. So I looked like a snake that had swallowed a goat, you know, just a very big rat. And I decided, my wife said I don't want to be a widow. When I'm in my 40s, you got to get in shape. So I decided I'm going to try to overhaul everything in my life. Every from sleep, stress, diet, exercise, how I go to the bathroom, like just everything, everything. And try to do it in the healthiest way possible. And it was fascinating and it changed my life for the better. It was hard and, and I, I tried everything. So I tried.

Dan Buettner (4:21)

Where do you go for expertise? I mean, do you, do you.

A.J. Jacobs (4:24)

Well, I went to you is one thing.

Dan Buettner (4:26)

Why not?

A.J. Jacobs (4:27)

I had a panel of, of experts. So you know, the best doctors I could find, trainers, nutritionists. But it is a problem like because there is a lot of conflicting advice out there. Way I feel the legitimate experts agree on about 80% of and, and that's what you talk about. The, the eating real food, exercising as much as you can, reducing stress, having a community that is so important, sleep, all of these things. So at the fringes there's arguments about, you know, should I, should I inject 20 year old blood into myself. But, but the basic stuff is, is things that we can agree on.

Dan Buettner (5:11)

So when you start off on this adventure to make yourself the healthiest man alive, what do you start? What's your first?

A.J. Jacobs (5:19)

Well, I started by gathering this group of people and then I tried to go in the easiest way possible so that I always find when you're starting a big project and that's one of my big takeaways. Micro goals lead to macro goals. So try to start the easiest way possible. I read that chocolate and in its purest form contains some great antioxidants. So I spent a lot of time eating chocolate. Did that work? Well, I'm still alive. I wouldn't recommend that as like the ultimate diet.

Dan Buettner (5:54)

But, but did you give yourself, did you say I'm gonna get on this diet, I'm gonna get on this exercise regimen, I'm gonna get on this sort of proactive plan to make more friends or did you just sort of Dip into things.

A.J. Jacobs (6:08)

No, no, that's exactly right. I would devote each chapter of the book.

Dan Buettner (6:14)

Drop Dead Healthy is the book we're talking about.

A.J. Jacobs (6:16)

And so there was a chapter on the stomach, which is about how to eat. And I tried all these different diets, talked to all of these different people, and Blue Zone's diet turns out to be, of course, one of the keys.

Dan Buettner (6:29)

Did you hear that? Blue Zone Diet turns out to be one of the keys. A.J. jacobs, that's a wrap. Thank you very much.

A.J. Jacobs (6:35)

There you go. I'll take my $60. One of the big lessons was that, yes, we know that Blue Zones Diet is good. We know that exercise. But how do we convince ourselves? How do we make ourselves follow that? And that's what you talk about, which is, you gotta change your environment. Willpower is overrated. That was one of the big takeaways. Treat yourself like a lab rat. Design your environment so you are not tempted. Because if you rely on willpower, you are going to be in trouble.

Dan Buettner (7:16)

Yeah, you run out of cat. Boy, you're singing to the choir on that one. So few people intuit that. I think largely because it's hard to make money by convincing people to change their environment. The way you make money is you get people on a supplement plan or a superfood or signing up for that diet once again or getting the gym membership or now the biohack and stem cells. A lot of money in that. So we hear about it. These marketing messages rinse over our psyche several dozen or 100 times a day. The idea of shaping your surroundings so you're nudged into moving. Yeah. To. Nudged into socially interacting. Setting up your kitchen so that the junk food is out of the way and out of sight and the healthy food is inside. I like to say we're on a seafood diet.

A.J. Jacobs (8:07)

Right.

Dan Buettner (8:07)

Well, that is, we eat the food we see.

A.J. Jacobs (8:09)

Yeah, exactly. Well, I will say, you know, I have my list of 10 takeaways. So let's just dive into that one. Because willpower is overrated is one of them.

Dan Buettner (8:19)

Let's just frame this again. You didn't just spend a year or two years making yourself the healthiest man alive. You spent a year, and then some, living the Old Testament. You spent a year living constitutionally. You do all these deep dives into sort of other lives, and each of them offer different pearls of wisdom. So what we're going to get right now is your 30 years. 30 years of work. How many books total? I know. I just happen to have the year of.

A.J. Jacobs (8:55)

There are eight.

Dan Buettner (8:56)

Let me Eight.

A.J. Jacobs (8:57)

Plus or minus a couple. It depends how you count.

Dan Buettner (9:00)

They're all fantastic reads.

A.J. Jacobs (9:01)

Thank you.

Dan Buettner (9:02)

And bestsellers among them. But. So here's the 10 that you've distilled out of your 30 years for living longer and better.

A.J. Jacobs (9:11)

Exactly. Let me start, though, with act grateful, even if you don't feel grateful. So that was an important one, because I knew I'd read research that gratitude is huge. It's huge for health, it's huge for happiness. There's a saying that happiness does not lead to gratitude. Gratitude leads to happiness. And I love that. But how do you get grateful? Because I am born with more of a Larry David point of view than a Mr. Rogers point of view. And I think we all have a negative bias that is built into humans. So what I found is that if I acted as if I was grateful, I eventually became more grateful. It's easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of thinking. You did.

Dan Buettner (10:07)

The consummate manifestation of that in your book Thanks a Thousand, where you wanted to thank everybody involved with delivering your morning cup of coffee.

A.J. Jacobs (10:18)

That is correct. So I took it to the extreme. I don't think you have to. There are ways to do it on a much smaller.

Dan Buettner (10:24)

But unpack that a little bit. Yeah.

A.J. Jacobs (10:25)

The premise of the book Thanks a Thousand was that I went around the world and thanked literally 1,000 people who had anything to do with my morning cup of coffee. So I took it wide. So I thanked the barista at my local New York coffee shop. But I flew to South America, and I thanked the farmers who grew the coffee. I thanked the guy who I tracked down, the guy who drove the. The coffee beans to the warehouse, and I thanked him. I thanked the. The people who made the road so that he could drive on it. And you realize it doesn't just take a village to make a cup of coffee. It takes the world. It takes the world.

Dan Buettner (11:06)

Who's the one person we're least likely to thank or to think of when we drink our morning cup of coffee?

A.J. Jacobs (11:14)

Hundreds. I mean, that's the point, is that there are hundreds of people that we never thought. But I'll give you one example. It was I called the woman who did pest control for the warehouse where the coffee beans were stored. And I called her cold called her. I said, I know this is a little strange, but I just want to thank you for keeping the insects out of my coffee. And she said, well, that is strange, but that makes my day. I do not get A lot of positive feedback, and that made me happy. It was like a virtuous cycle. So thanking. The act of thanking makes you happier. So I recommend people go out. You don't have to fly to South America, but even if you have a. Like, you see a logo for a food and you're like, oh, that's so pretty or clever, just go on Facebook and every company has a website, just say, hey, I loved it. It makes people's day.

Dan Buettner (12:11)

It's a positive contagion that probably passes.

A.J. Jacobs (12:14)

I love the way you.

Dan Buettner (12:15)

Lots of people. What did you learn about gratitude? What did you learn about authentically thanking people? And on this podcast, we'd like to give people takeaways. So what advice do you give people on how to say thank you in an effective way, how to express your gratitude?

A.J. Jacobs (12:33)

One tip that really resonated with me was don't just say reflexively thanks or thank you. Think about what they've done. So think. You know my barista, when I interviewed her, she said, I'm on my feet all day. My feet ache. So maybe just think about what they did.

Dan Buettner (12:52)

I want to thank you and your feet.

A.J. Jacobs (12:54)

That's a perfect way to do it. I love it. Yeah. Add a little humor. Thank you and your feet for all that you do. And that makes such a difference.

Dan Buettner (13:03)

And I think the counterintuitive boomerang effect there is that you're not only making them feel better, but you feel better 100%. That act of gratitude.

A.J. Jacobs (13:12)

It is, right? That it is.

Dan Buettner (13:14)

Can we say a thousand percent, since we're talking about.

A.J. Jacobs (13:16)

Thank you. A thousand. Thank you for plugging my book. Thank you.

Dan Buettner (13:20)

Well, thank you and your writing fingers, by the way.

A.J. Jacobs (13:23)

There you go.

Dan Buettner (13:23)

And by the way, thank your wife for letting you go for a year. And thank your children for the, you know, benign neglect, for taking your attention off a child. Rearrange us so we can just keep going.

A.J. Jacobs (13:38)

Thank the people who made this microphone. Thank you for this room. On and on.

Dan Buettner (13:43)

You know, it's actually a thing. I'm. I'm finishing a book right now called Blue Zones Evolution, where I find the places where people live the longest lives in full health and try to explain it. And one of them is in. In Asia and in Japan, people think that Japanese food is sushi, but actually, in this place, the. The cuisine is called a banzi, and it's mostly sort of braised vegetable, mommy miso and that sort of thing. But part of the ritual of eating is to consciously thank all the people that brought that food to the Table. And it usually starts with the farmer.

A.J. Jacobs (14:21)

I love that.

Dan Buettner (14:22)

But also the person who drove it to the market and the person in the market who sold it to you and the cook who cooked it. And you even think about who's going to clean the dishes. So you're conscious of an ecosystem that food isn't just a commodity that you're wolfing down. It's part of a much bigger system or an environment that we should be conscious of that creates health.

A.J. Jacobs (14:48)

I love. And that is exactly the thesis of my book. And I will say that savoring is a big part of that. So you brought up food. I feel that savoring is very closely aligned with gratitude. And for one of my books, I met these people who were, they were. Would spend a half an hour eating a single blueberry. So they would like. It was meditating.

Dan Buettner (15:15)

What were these people?

A.J. Jacobs (15:15)

I think they were the low, super low calorie people who thought that they would live longer, which I didn't, I didn't buy. I feel it's important to enjoy food, but I don't think, and I don't think you need to spend a half an hour on a blueberry. That's, that's excessive. That's a lot of time. But spend like 30 seconds on it thinking about it. And it's like a pause in time and it slows everything down. And it is, it is just lovely. It's like meditation, mindfulness.

Dan Buettner (15:46)

But about food, you know, as we point out, it's hard to remember to do that at every meal. But there is a trick I learned in Blue Zones for slowing down and appreciating your meal.

A.J. Jacobs (16:00)

What is it?

Dan Buettner (16:01)

It's saying grace. It's expressing gratitude. You know, the Christians say, bless us, O Lord, and these I give.

A.J. Jacobs (16:07)

Right.

Dan Buettner (16:07)

But they put some punctuation between their busy life and their work or whatever it is and their screen. They express gratitude. I'm thanking a higher power for this food we have. Not everybody has it. And now we're going to eat and that slows you down enough so you're more likely to consider the, the texture and the origin.

A.J. Jacobs (16:35)

Right. Well, it's like the Japanese, that, that is what I do as well. The Japanese version. Yeah, I just do it in English and I didn't know that the Japanese did it, but yeah, you can, you don't have to thank God if you're not religious. You can thank all of the people who made that possible. And that provides the same pause.

Dan Buettner (16:55)

Hara haji bu, incidentally, is a Confucian adage. That reminds people to stop eating when their stomach is 80% full.

A.J. Jacobs (17:03)

I like that.

Dan Buettner (17:04)

If you're ever lucky enough to sit down with a Okinawan centenarian, they will literally murmur or say that hara hachi bu before they start eating. It's kind of gone by the wayside with younger generations, but like saying grace, it slows you down. And the reason this is important for health is because it takes about 20 minutes for the full feeling to travel from your belly to your brain. And if you're wolfing down your meal in less than 20 minutes, you could be 120% full, and you don't even realize it. So that whole practice, that mnemonic of slowing down, is more likely to. To feel full when you get full, right? Yeah.

A.J. Jacobs (17:48)

But the number two that we already referenced, the number two, which also has to do with food, is that willpower is overrated. That set up your environment. Instead of trying to change your behavior, change your environment. And I love that. You gave a couple great examples for me. I just. Today, I put a bowl of oranges on my counter because I knew that if I had to go into the fridge, that's one more step. Make it extremely easy to get those clementines. One thing I like to do is at a restaurant, I order the entree, but I say, can you put half of it in a to go container?

Dan Buettner (18:27)

I love that.

A.J. Jacobs (18:28)

Yeah, yeah. Because as you say, seafood, otherwise I'm going to eat it.

Dan Buettner (18:32)

That's right.

A.J. Jacobs (18:32)

And I'm usually full after a half, and then I can have the rest the next day.

Dan Buettner (18:39)

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Julie (19:52)

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Dan Buettner (21:29)

every time you go out to eat in America, on average, you eat 300 more calories than you would if you ate at home. Why? Because food is usually the cheapest part of the eating experience. So restaurants, they're people like a big mound of food. They think they're get their values worth it. They can charge you 30 or 40 bucks an entree because there's a pile of food. You don't need all that food and it's a, a disservice to actually try to eat it. Is there any case where willpower works?

A.J. Jacobs (21:59)

Well, you can, and I do think it's a muscle. The studies show it is a muscle. So you can build it up. So it's not. It's an important part of being healthy. But rely on it as little as possible. There's something called the Odysseus strategy where you know about that.

Dan Buettner (22:20)

Yeah, Ulysses Contract or whatever.

A.J. Jacobs (22:22)

Oh yes, the con. The.

Dan Buettner (22:23)

Were you tied to the pillar or whatever?

A.J. Jacobs (22:25)

Tied to the mast. Exactly. Because when he was, he was going to. In a boat and he was going

Dan Buettner (22:30)

to pass the sirens with the sirens, right?

A.J. Jacobs (22:33)

And he didn't want to jump in, so he told the sailors, tie me to the mast. So tie yourself to the mast whenever you can. Actually, one of the more radical and interesting strategies I did during Drop Dead Healthy, I wrote a contract, a literal contract with myself. I was addicted to these dried mangoes, which, they're at least the fruit, but they are so sugary, so sugary. So I said to my wife, I said, if I ever eat, you have to promise me, if I ever eat another dried mango, you are going to send this $100 check. And I wrote a hundred dollar check. Now, you could write it to a charity you like, but if you really want to stop yourselves, write it to a charity you hate. And there is a Yale professor who came up with this strategy. But anyway, Dan, any way you can tie yourself to the mast?

Dan Buettner (23:28)

You know, I call it strategic discipline. I have very good strategic discipline.

A.J. Jacobs (23:32)

Love it.

Dan Buettner (23:33)

Yeah. At the grocery store I can say, I'm not going to buy that bag of cookies because if I buy it, it ends up in my house. And if it's already in my house and there's a bag of cookies, forget it. I'm going to eat the damn cookies. So the more you can strategically make decisions ahead of time to remove the temptation or curb the temptation.

A.J. Jacobs (23:54)

And also, it's not just in food, it's in, in my work. You know, the, the. The Internet is such a siren, such a temptress. And so I have to turn it off using software that cuts me off from the Internet. For my most recent book was about trying to live constitutionally and get back.

Dan Buettner (24:15)

I hear of living constitutionally.

A.J. Jacobs (24:17)

Thank you, Dan. So that one, I wrote a lot of it with a quill pen on actual parchment. And it was fantastic because there was no dings. There was nothing to distract me. I felt it really made. So you don't have to use.

Dan Buettner (24:34)

Do you think the end product was better or worse than typing away?

A.J. Jacobs (24:39)

I think it was better. I think. And I still write. I don't use a quill as much, but I write by hand. I write by hand whenever I can because I feel that you. And there is some research to back that up. You think more deeply.

Dan Buettner (24:52)

Yes.

A.J. Jacobs (24:53)

When you. Because otherwise the Internet is always there just tempting you.

Dan Buettner (24:57)

My assertion, when it comes to longevity, there's no short term fix. There's no, there's no pill, no sub. There's nothing you can do this week or this month that has any bearing at all on whether or not you're alive and highly functioning in 2030, other than not dying. On your quest to be the healthiest man alive, did you find any habits that people can stick to?

A.J. Jacobs (25:25)

Well, I think yes, I think you can build habits. And, and I guess that's one of my tips, is one of the ways to build habits is micro goals. I'm a big fan of micro goals. So if I, for instance, as a writer, if I say, okay, today I'm going to go write a book, then that's so intimidating. But if I say, all right, for the next 15 minutes, I'm going to come up with three ideas for chapter two. Then I'm like, okay, I can do this. Or even. Or with a treadmill. If I say I am going to put on my sneakers, I'm not going to guarantee I'm going to get on the treadmill, but I'm going to put on my sneakers. I put on my sneakers, I'm going to get on it. I'm not even going to turn it on. And you eventually. So that is the way I build habits is using micro goals. And I do have a list every morning of, of things that I do that have turned into habits, but the way I get into them is the micro goals.

Dan Buettner (26:30)

So what habits last from that year of living healthily?

A.J. Jacobs (26:34)

Well, I do actually answer. I don't write my books on a treadmill, but I do answer emails and do phone calls while walking on a treadmill because I think we were built to move as, you know, so that's a big one.

Dan Buettner (26:50)

I would argue, though, that's an environmental tweak that you've created. This, the fact that you have a desk treadmill.

A.J. Jacobs (26:57)

So true. No, you're right. You're right. One habit I just adopted, I did it during the year, but I've restarted it about six months ago, is to smell the roses. Not just the roses, though. The bananas. Smell the charcoal. Our sense of smell is the most underrated sense. And there are health benefits to it, memory benefits to it, and just pleasure benefits to it.

Dan Buettner (27:28)

Let me give you a cocktail party hack, which you showed us all last night. You show up to the cocktail party with a bag of little vials of scents. Oh, good, you're going to show it to us.

A.J. Jacobs (27:40)

I brought it along just in case.

Dan Buettner (27:42)

You sort of pass them around and you ask people to smell them and identify the smell.

A.J. Jacobs (27:47)

That's it. This is from a wine tasting kit. I don't really care about wine tasting. That Much. But it provided, like a hundred of these little vials with all different smells. So apple, oak, horse sweat, even

Dan Buettner (28:05)

I know when I put a little of that, but behind my ears, the girls really flock.

A.J. Jacobs (28:12)

So. So every one of those.

Dan Buettner (28:16)

Okay, I want the whole audience to smell this.

A.J. Jacobs (28:19)

This is good for a podcast.

Dan Buettner (28:21)

This is fruity and citrusy, but I can't quite put my finger on what. What is it?

A.J. Jacobs (28:26)

That one is passion fruit.

Dan Buettner (28:27)

Passion fruit. I was close.

A.J. Jacobs (28:29)

Yeah, you were in there.

Dan Buettner (28:29)

You got fruity.

A.J. Jacobs (28:30)

Anyway, so I love that surge of passion. I recommend it. And, you know, that's another big thing, is to gamify it. That's another big takeaway is if you can gamify something that seems like a chore and turn it into something fun, so much better.

Dan Buettner (28:46)

So give the audience a good example of something that we ought to be doing for our health that we can gamify. Make it fun.

A.J. Jacobs (28:53)

Well, just exercise. Gamifying exercise. I do the treadmill every day. I put it on an angle and it tracks how many feet I go up. So I try to climb a thousand feet a day on my treadmill. And I keep track of how. How many days will it take me to climb Mount Everest?

Dan Buettner (29:13)

There you go. That's perfect.

A.J. Jacobs (29:14)

So that is a fun game. And then I'm like, hey, I'm at the summit.

Dan Buettner (29:18)

Yeah, I dare say, AJ You've gamified your life and you've done it to our benefit because we get to read about them and learn. You want to keep going through your list. I also want to talk about a year of living biblically, but, oh, sure, I've got.

A.J. Jacobs (29:34)

Well, I do have some that touch on that. I would say this one we did touch on already. But don't put exercise in the corner. Like, don't put baby in the corner. Meaning weave exercise into your life. And you talk about this in the blue zones. I am not a gym rat. I don't find pleasure in spending an hour at the gym. But instead I walk on the treadmill for five minutes or more. It's just, I walk to do an errand. I park farther away. I walk. I take the stairs up instead. So anytime you can weave exercise and movement into your life, that is, that is.

Dan Buettner (30:17)

I think this is a bigger point than people probably are registering in blue zones. These are populations where people manifestly live about a decade longer at middle age. Not a one. I interviewed 450, 700 year olds. Not a one of them ever went to the gym. They didn't go to Pilates class. They didn't pump iron. They didn't do any of the exercise. What do they do? They have a garden.

A.J. Jacobs (30:43)

Right.

Dan Buettner (30:43)

So they're weeding and watering and harvesting. They walk to their friend's house. Their kids walk to school. They walk to work. And their houses aren't full of mechanical conveniences. So they're still grinding corn by hand or kneading bread by hand or doing their own housework instead of having a machine do it. And their whole life is punctuated by nudges to move. And I think that's the direction we need to go.

A.J. Jacobs (31:12)

100. I love that idea And I love reframing. I used to get annoyed when I dropped something on the floor under the couch. I had to crawl. That's good. I get to bend down. Yeah. Bending down is so important because you don't do it.

Dan Buettner (31:25)

The other thing. I went and moved in with 104-year-old woman. We didn't. She didn't speak a lick of English. I didn't speak any Okinawan. And we were in her sitting on her tatami mat in her hut in northern Okinawa. I'm sure she had no idea what I was doing there. But my editor said don't just interview a bunch of hundred year olds. Move in with one of them. So I got permission to move out and I spent two days and a night with her. And I tried to see what was it about her life that explains living to 100. And I came away. First of all she ate mostly a whole food plant based diet. She had vegetable miso soup for breakfast. But the biggest takeaway I noticed there was no furniture in her house. And at 104 she got up and down off of this tatami mat 34 times a day. I counted 34. That's 34 squats. She didn't have to go to the gym for. And one of the biggest killer of older people is folly. You fall down and break your hip and you're 80 years old. There's about a 40% chance you're dead within a year. She had amazing lower body strength. She had balance. Why not? She didn't spend her day in an easy chair. Right up and down off that tatami mat.

A.J. Jacobs (32:40)

I love it. What are we sitting in a chair for? Let's get on the ground. I feel like I got to get rid of all of my furniture. This is fantastic. But you're absolutely.

Dan Buettner (32:49)

I love that I made you walk over here. So we're that.

A.J. Jacobs (32:53)

But yeah. Getting up and on the ground.

Dan Buettner (32:56)

Yeah.

A.J. Jacobs (32:56)

Don't view it as as something beneath you. It's. There you go, it's good. Here, I got another few. I got. Well, this one is. Is very important for my mental health. And it, it ranges. It's sort of one of the frameworks for my whole 30 years of experimenting, which is don't get furious, get curious. Which not only rhymes, it's great advice. And I actually learned it from a child care book. When your kid throws a tantrum, try not to get angry at them. Try to understand what are they saying, what are they really upset about? But I took it wide. I think we're all children in some way, so let's apply it to the world. And it has made such a difference because if you look at life as a series of puzzles instead of a series of crises, then you are going to be a lot happier.

Dan Buettner (34:00)

Let's just say you've been waiting in line for 20 minutes and I cut in front of you. Just boldly, just cut right in front of you. I would get furious at that.

A.J. Jacobs (34:10)

Right.

Dan Buettner (34:11)

How would you deal with it? What's your mindset?

A.J. Jacobs (34:13)

Well, you've got a couple of ways to go.

Dan Buettner (34:15)

You can watch a guy.

A.J. Jacobs (34:16)

Yeah, that's number one, of course. Well, you can either confront them and try to deal with the. Change the situation, or you can accept the situation and be like, you know what, it's not a big deal. I have my Kindle, I'm reading a great book. But let's take the first where you confront the guy. I would say, don't go in hot. Go in and say, excuse me, I don't know if you noticed, but I was here before you. So just assume that they made a mistake as opposed to. Or if he says, yeah, I know. And then get curious and say, well, just curious. Why do you think it's okay for you to do that? And maybe that will lead to a discussion as opposed to, you know, you're an asshole and I'm gonna punch you. That rarely. And I feel that that's. And politics is very important nowadays because if I meet someone from the opposite side of the political spectrum, if I try to debate them on the facts, that's just not going to work. That is not the way it happens to change people's mind. Instead, treat it like a puzzle. Why do I believe what I believe? Why does she believe what she believes? Is there any evidence that could change one of our minds? And if we can't change our minds, is there any move forward that we both agree on that will make the world that is so much more Productive. And then the other option is, as I said, acceptance. And you just say, you know what? This is not a battle I want to fight. I got to choose my battles. He's a jerk. He has to live with that. And I'm just going to have three more minutes to enjoy my book or my podcast or my, my wordle on my phone.

Dan Buettner (36:02)

That's a good attitude. Curiosity. Yes. I should try to get them to, to reveal why they're doing what they're doing. They may win you over. My daughter's getting married and if I don't get this, I'm going to miss the wedding. And you might say, that's a good point. You know what? No problem.

A.J. Jacobs (36:19)

Never assume malice when stupidity or mistakenness can be the answer. Because a lot of us just, you know, we make mistakes.

Dan Buettner (36:31)

I did a 10 day silent meditation. 4:30 in the morning till 10 o' clock night for 10 and the guide, the next mat over. You can't talk for 10 days.

A.J. Jacobs (36:39)

Is this a true story?

Dan Buettner (36:40)

True story. Guy next to me had the worst BO and my eyes would tear up. And I'm sitting on a mat meditating for 14 hours and I have to admit, malice welled up in my heart. I started to hate this guy.

A.J. Jacobs (36:57)

So what did you do at the

Dan Buettner (36:59)

end of 10 days? We were able to talk to each other. And it turns out he was the sweetest guy. He runs this charity for homeless children in San Francisco and he had this mellifluous voice. He was the nicest guy. But yet, I'm embarrassed to admit it, I developed hate for this beautiful human being. And when I finally got curious about him, to your point, it completely flipped.

A.J. Jacobs (37:24)

I love that story.

Dan Buettner (37:25)

So I learned a lesson. So let's talk about a time before antiperperspirants and deodorants. So you spent an entire year living the Old Testament?

A.J. Jacobs (37:37)

I did. I did.

Dan Buettner (37:39)

What prompted this idea and how far did you take?

A.J. Jacobs (37:42)

I took it as far as I could. I took it quite far.

Dan Buettner (37:47)

Yeah.

A.J. Jacobs (37:47)

This was prompted because I grew up in a very secular home. As I say in the book, I'm Jewish, but I'm Jewish in the same way. The Olive Garden is Italian, so not Jerry. But I found religion fascinating. And I knew that there were, you know, half the world at least, is religious and find some meaning in it. So I thought, am I missing something? What if I explored religion? And as you know, the way I like to explore things is to dive in and immerse myself. So I decided I'm going to follow every rule in The Bible as literally as possible. And that meant the famous ones like the Ten Commandments. It meant be fruitful and multiply. And I did have twin sons during the year, so I took it very seriously.

Dan Buettner (38:37)

You were indeed fruitful.

A.J. Jacobs (38:39)

But I also thought I would do the less well known ones from the Old Testament, like the Leviticus. It says you cannot shave the corners of your beard. I didn't know where the corners were, so I just let the whole thing grow. And I looked like I had, you know, I looked like Ted Kaczynski at the end. I looked pretty crazy.

Dan Buettner (38:59)

I looked biblical.

A.J. Jacobs (38:59)

Yeah, I looked biblical. The Bible says you should stone adulterers, so I thought I should at least try, and I did. I used very small stones, like pebbles. But I did check that off my list.

Dan Buettner (39:10)

How did you find an adulterer?

A.J. Jacobs (39:12)

Well, I will tell you very quickly. It was quite fortuitous. I was in Central park and I was wearing my robe and my beard, and this man came up to me and said, why do you dress like that? And I said, well, I'm trying to follow all the rules of the Bible from the Ten Commandments to stoning adulterers. He says, I'm an adulterer. Are you going to stone me? And I said, well, that would be fantastic. Thank you for the offer. And I took out a handful of stones I had been carrying around for weeks. And they were for this very purpose. For this purpose. And they were very small, as I say, pebbles. He was very aggressive. He grabbed them out of my hand and threw them at my face. And I thought, an eye for an eye. Also in the black. So that's how I did it. But after the year, I shaved my beard, I stopped stoning adulterers. But I.

Dan Buettner (40:00)

But did you eat? I mean, I happen to know. Genesis, chapter one, verse 26 through 28.

A.J. Jacobs (40:07)

Good for you.

Dan Buettner (40:08)

God is the only one I know. But God says that every tree that bears fruit. So apples, oranges, tomatoes, avocado, and every plant that bears seed. So that's nuts and whole grains and my favorite, beans. Did you eat a plant based diet?

A.J. Jacobs (40:30)

I did. Well, I happen to be vegetarian, so it was very healthy. But I also looked into. Yeah.

Dan Buettner (40:36)

What Leviticus has.

A.J. Jacobs (40:38)

Leviticus has a lot of rules about food, so I tried to follow those. And I did eat sort of Ezekiel bread, although not the original Ezekiel bread was cooked over cow poop. I decided not to do that, but I did that.

Dan Buettner (40:56)

Smoky.

A.J. Jacobs (40:56)

Yeah. Not the taste I want, but the Bible does have a line that says you cannot eat insects except for locusts, grasshoppers and crickets. So I did try some crickets. That was because I figured, how do they taste? It's crunchy. It's crunchy. Kind of not so bad. I mean, it's not. So. I mean, there is a whole movement of people eating insects and as well.

Dan Buettner (41:24)

Yeah, I've eaten grasshoppers and I thought they tasted vaguely reptilian. It did turn me off. Kind of oily reptilian with a crunch. Right.

A.J. Jacobs (41:34)

But it was. Yeah, it was. It changed every part of my life. How I ate, how I talked, how I walked, how I treated.

Dan Buettner (41:41)

How did you treat your slave? Because I know in the Old Testament there's very clear rules about it.

A.J. Jacobs (41:45)

That was a tricky one. That was a tricky one, Dan. I actually did. I felt the closest thing to a slave that I could stomach was an intern. So I did get an intern who baked me bread. And he turned actually out to. He became a friend of mine and became a great writer named Kevin Roos.

Dan Buettner (42:05)

Oh, my God.

A.J. Jacobs (42:06)

Yes. Who is a great New York Times columnist about technology. And he got his start as my.

Dan Buettner (42:13)

As your slave. Yes. And aren't there some kind of questionable passages in the Old Testament about how to treat women?

A.J. Jacobs (42:23)

Oh, yes, the women. I mean, if you take the Bible literally, it is not a great life for women. I mean, that was one of the big takeaways, was don't follow the Bible. Literally, that is. There are millions of Americans who say they do, first of all, they don't. They're cherry picking.

Dan Buettner (42:42)

Yeah, every religion cherry picks.

A.J. Jacobs (42:44)

Every religion cherry picks. Otherwise, you'd be doing what I'm doing, you know, not sitting in seats and stoning adulterers, rocks at people and so forth. But also to that point, it's okay to cherry pick as long as you pick the good cherries. About compassion, loving your neighbor. There is some wonderful wisdom in the Bible. There's also some ancient stuff that does not apply to our world. So I think it's okay to be a cafeteria religionist. That's another word for cherry picking. Just there's some great food at the cafeteria about loving your neighbor, about tolerance, all of these wonderful golden rule. That's terrific. So focus on that. You can find good in religion. It's a tool. I feel religion is a tool that can be used for good or bad.

Dan Buettner (43:38)

What about that year of living? The Old Testament remains with you today. Was there anything about that experience that you think made you a better person?

A.J. Jacobs (43:49)

100%. Dozens of things. I mean, some of what we've already Talked about gratitude was huge in the Bible. So I tried to be thankful for everything. I pressed the elevator button, thankful the elevator came. There was nothing that said thou shalt not use the elevator. So I felt like

Dan Buettner (44:08)

an Orthodox Jew is prohibited. You can't do anything during the Sabbath.

A.J. Jacobs (44:12)

Right there is that. And that is a whole separate thing of, you know, I was taking the Bible literally. But they also, they use the Talmud, which is an interpretation of the Bible. But anyway, yes, gratitude was huge. I discovered the power of rituals. You don't have to believe in God to find meaning and wonder and awe in the universe through rituals. And so much of our lives are rituals. Even birthday. Like, what is the, you know, if a Martian came down and saw me blowing out fire on top of a bunch of sugar for my birthday, like, why is that so much more rational than a religious rite? And it's not. Rituals imbue our life with meaning.

Dan Buettner (45:05)

So parenthetically Phyllis Diller, who was this like 90 year old comedian, she said, well, I'm getting to the age where my birthday cakes looked like prairie fires. There's a ritual. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, you know, just what you see in church or temples or mosques, you know, that's all human invented sort of interpretation of what we think God wants.

A.J. Jacobs (45:31)

But who knows, right? And I feel as long as the rituals are life affirming as opposed to life harming, then I'm all for them. I think they can add so much meaning to our lives.

Dan Buettner (45:46)

Amazon Health AI presents Painful Thoughts I

A.J. Jacobs (45:52)

can't stop scratching my down downtown. Yeah, but I'm not itching to go downtown and tell a receptionist I'm here

Dan Buettner (45:59)

to talk about my downtown. Some things you'd rather type than say out loud. There's no question too embarrassing For Amazon Health AI, chat your symptoms and get virtual care 24. 7 Healthcare just got less painful. Just to remind people, this is from a man who spent 30 years experimenting on himself, AJ Jacobs, who in addition spending almost two years making himself the healthiest man in the world. So what we're getting is a distillation of 30 years of wisdom of that trial and error. Real human, not theoretical.

A.J. Jacobs (46:40)

That's right, this is real.

Dan Buettner (46:42)

By the way, aj, Isaac, you are a great writer.

A.J. Jacobs (46:45)

Thank you Dan. I'm right back at you.

Dan Buettner (46:47)

So much of like this scientific writing is dry and boring and you bring real science alive with great stories that are entertaining and it's also delivered. I don't know if you guys watching if you see this on YouTube, but AJ's face settles into a smile. And I think that's a window into your soul. And I think it radiates through live appearances, but it also radiates through your writing.

A.J. Jacobs (47:16)

So thank you.

Dan Buettner (47:17)

Yes. And as you know, I'm a journalist, so, you know, I'm beneath flattery.

A.J. Jacobs (47:24)

Well, let me give you a couple. Let me give you a couple more. One is, we touched on this a little with curiosity, but my recommendation is puzzle your brains out. Puzzle your brains out. I love puzzles, and we talked about seeing the world as a puzzle, but I think literal puzzles are great as well. The word puzzles or Sudoku. There is evidence that doing them daily does help you with staving off dementia. It's not just puzzles, though. You can learn a new instrument. You can learn language. The point is to push your mental envelope. Always keep challenging yourself. But what I love about puzzles is they teach you to be flexible in your cognition, to be. And that is so important in solving life's problems. So seeing things from a different point of view, I actually, if you have 90 seconds, I wrote a blue zones related puzzle that I can give you.

Dan Buettner (48:27)

I love it. All right, but listen up, guys.

A.J. Jacobs (48:31)

So this is a word puzzle related to healthy foods, and it's the healthiest named celebrities of all time. So all of these celebrities have a healthy food in their name. So who would be an actress and dancer? Who was Fred Astaire's most famous partner? Oh, and her first name is a spice with anti inflammatory effects.

Dan Buettner (48:54)

Ginger Rogers.

A.J. Jacobs (48:55)

Ginger Rogers. How about a clumsy character played by British comedian Rowan Atkinson, whose last name is one of your favorite superfoods.

Dan Buettner (49:05)

Mr. Bean.

A.J. Jacobs (49:06)

Mr. Bean. This one's a little harder. This one is an actor who played Dr. Frank N. Furter in Rocky Horror Picture Show. We know Frankfurter's are not healthy food, but his real last name is quite a healthy spice. Anti inflammatory. It is. Tim Curry. Tim Curry.

Dan Buettner (49:25)

There we go. I always think, I thought that Tim Curry and Ginger Rogers ought to get together. I mean, wouldn't that be a great dish?

A.J. Jacobs (49:32)

Perfect. Excellent.

Dan Buettner (49:34)

I love the idea of a jigsaw puzzle.

A.J. Jacobs (49:37)

Oh, yeah.

Dan Buettner (49:38)

Done with your family or with your partner. So it's kind of a social thing. But you're also cooperating, using your brain for that sort of cognitive agility.

A.J. Jacobs (49:47)

Well, that's it. And community, as you know, from the blue zones is so important. And doing these communal activities is just wonderful. And I. Yeah, Jigsaw puzzles also have this sort of a wonderful meditative. I feel it's like, you know, you get into a zone. I Have just two more that I want before we run out of time. This one sounds a little macabre, but it's actually life affirming, in my opinion, which is you probably know the phrase memento mori. Remind yourself of that. You're gonna die. It's a fact of life. Hopefully you'll die after 100 if you pay attention to blue zones. But we are all gonna die. And that can be seen as in a macabre, depressing way. But also, you can reframe it. We have limited time here. Let's not. Let's embrace what we have. Let's savor. Let's live life to its fullest while we can.

Dan Buettner (50:46)

And I think that is a wonderful momentum.

A.J. Jacobs (50:49)

Mori and I haven't written about this yet, but I did mistakenly eat a bunch of starbursts that I thought was Starburst but turned out to be gummies. Weed gummies. And I thought I was having a stroke because I had to be put in the psych ward. It was that because I thought I kept telling people I'm in two universes at once.

Dan Buettner (51:16)

Was it horrible or pleasant?

A.J. Jacobs (51:18)

It was horrible. For the six hours, I thought that I was having a. A fatal stroke and that I would never get my brain back. The moment I realized what had happened, it was wonderful.

Dan Buettner (51:29)

I'm just gonna ride this out.

A.J. Jacobs (51:31)

Well, it was more wonderful. It was wonderful. A little in that way, but more that this. I thought that was it. I thought, okay, I had a pretty good life. I had some ups, I had some downs. Now when I realized I'm not gonna die, I just ate a whole bunch of weed gummies. It was like a revelation. It's like everything from here on in is gravy. This is amazing. I have so it really. That was a big wake up call. Like, that was an interesting moment.

Dan Buettner (52:02)

What an unexpected little gift that.

A.J. Jacobs (52:04)

Yeah, exactly.

Dan Buettner (52:06)

You were able to confront your own death and the euphoria that came from. No, it's not over yet.

A.J. Jacobs (52:12)

I really thought that this was it. I was leaving voice messages for my wife. You know, feel free to get married. I don't want you to be alone. So, yeah, it was. But I am a big fan of. And I will say the flip of that is called. It's much less well known. It's called momento nasci N A S C I. And that means remember the unlikely fact that you were born, because think about the fact that there were on average 100 million sperm out there and the one that contained your DNA beat them all. That is a Crazy statistic that's running a race against everyone in New York.

Dan Buettner (52:51)

And aren't there something like 30,000 eggs? So the fact that that egg and that sperm, you know, the chances against me coming to existence are astronomical.

A.J. Jacobs (53:01)

Astronomical. That is just the. I know. And that's just the last of the many, many that your parents met. And. And so remembering that and being just sort of having this sense of wonder

Dan Buettner (53:16)

like I can't believe and enormous luck as we bitch about our lives. Just remember how lucky we are to be here. And there's a dimension there to celebrate that we under.

A.J. Jacobs (53:27)

Celebrate. Right. And realizing. I think luck is something very important to think about because it's also very good for compassion.

Dan Buettner (53:35)

We take so much luck for granted. I agree that just the act of verbalizing kind of was lucky. Kind of lucky. I can step outside and walk down the street and have the sun hit me.

A.J. Jacobs (53:49)

Right.

Dan Buettner (53:49)

You know, they're little. Just the act of verbalizing that. That the wonderful dimension of our life makes it more pronounced in our psyche.

A.J. Jacobs (53:58)

Right. And also the other side realizing that bad luck happens. And sometimes you do everything right and it doesn't work out. It's not necessarily your fault. People who. There are thousands of people, I believe as talented as George Clooney and Julia Roberts who are waiting tables because there is so much luck in life.

Dan Buettner (54:22)

They might be happier waiting tables. That's the other great.

A.J. Jacobs (54:25)

I know that is possible.

Dan Buettner (54:26)

I don't know about you, but the biggest blessings of my life started out as catastrophes. I'm not proud to tell you the story. I'll just very quickly. I was a lifeguard, put myself through college. I was about to attend an after hours party at the lifeguard station that got busted by the cops.

A.J. Jacobs (54:44)

Interesting.

Dan Buettner (54:45)

The next day in the newspaper, my dad's sitting at the breakfast table reading the paper. Front page. Lifeguard party makes waves, sinks seven jobs. And in the first paragraph of the St. Paul Pioneer Press is his son's name. Dan Buettner got fired for showing up to this party. And all of a sudden, not only was I humiliated my family, I lost my job. I don't know. I was going to pay tuition. And that catastrophe led through a series of serendipity. I started this basically a student discount card where I made like five times more money doing that and put myself through college, which I would have. I would have struggled to make enough money to pay tuition. But it turns out this stroke of bad luck became this great blessing.

A.J. Jacobs (55:32)

I love that.

Dan Buettner (55:33)

And I think a lot of us, if we can look at the things. We're blessed. And go back. You know, I have this wonderful wife right now, but if I go back, the only reason I have this wife is because the girl I thought I love dumped me. You know that wouldn't have happened, right?

A.J. Jacobs (55:48)

That is so true. Yeah. I think it's so important to reframe. There is something called narrative therapy, which I'm a fan of. I love CBT therapy, but narrative therapy is all about taking the chaos of your life and crafting a narrative that it all led to Good. That blessing. Many things are blessings in disguise. What seems like a negative can turn out to be a positive, just like you said.

Dan Buettner (56:14)

You know, we had this great psychiatrist, Samantha boardman, who spent 15 years getting training in psychiatry and the pharmaceuticals, and her biggest takeaway was how we talk about ourselves and flipping it from negative to positive.

A.J. Jacobs (56:30)

Yeah. Reframing is so important. I just. Yeah, I think it. And even something like saying life is a puzzle instead of a. That's another great thing. I don't have problems. I have puzzles.

Dan Buettner (56:43)

And when somebody cuts me off in traffic. This is a puzzle.

A.J. Jacobs (56:45)

Yes.

Dan Buettner (56:46)

Why am I so pissed off at this?

A.J. Jacobs (56:48)

Oh, that is it. Well, that is. Let me end on that one. I love what you just said. Why and what.

Dan Buettner (56:55)

What?

A.J. Jacobs (56:56)

It's called metacognition. Thinking about thinking. So that's one of my big takeaways from my 30 years. Treat your brain like a mischievous, lovable, but mischievous child. I do not trust my brain because we are built. We all have these built in cognitive biases. So whenever I have a thought, I try to step back and say, is this a good thought? Is this true? Is it useful? And like you said, I often gamify it. One thing I love to do, and I wrote about this in my substack, is called mood watching. It's like bird watching for moods. So I make a list of emotions at the beginning of the day. Gratitude, awe, annoyance, schadenfreude, jealousy. And whenever I experience one, I try to check it off. I actually carry a card around with me.

Dan Buettner (57:56)

Oh, let's see this with.

A.J. Jacobs (57:58)

And then I check it off and I write what caused it. But that's an example of my mood watching.

Dan Buettner (58:06)

So here's the checklist right here.

A.J. Jacobs (58:09)

Yeah, gratitude is gratitude, delight.

Dan Buettner (58:11)

We haven't checked that off. You can do that after the damn Buettner podcast. You can check that off. Fascination. But today you've had some compassion, some curiosity, some. Some wonder, some sadness, worry. AJ Jacobs. Not just always bright, some stress, some annoyance. I love that. So it reminds me of those birdwatchers have this sort of passport, and they. They, of course, they're always looking for the rare bird, the oropendula, or the dodo bird. But what's the emotion equivalent of finding a dodo bird?

A.J. Jacobs (58:49)

Yeah.

Dan Buettner (58:50)

Aw.

A.J. Jacobs (58:50)

Is a tough one. So good. I love awe. That's so cool. And there's another version that a friend of mine, Guy Winch, recommends on a bingo. So write down at the beginning of the day, a little bingo card with all of the things that, you know, annoy you. So you know people not returning your texts. And then you check them off, and it's not as annoying because it's a little bit of a game.

Dan Buettner (59:15)

That's right. I want someone to cut me off, damn it. Because I gotta check out B16.

A.J. Jacobs (59:21)

And it also distances you, like, so you're not immediately having that fight or flight or freeze. You're like, okay, well, this isn't. I expected this. I know. This happens all the time. I'm gonna check it off.

Dan Buettner (59:36)

So in 30 years of experimenting on things that interest you, is there one piece of life advice that you take away that you know, if your children ever came to you? And, dad, what's the one piece of life advice to make my life better?

A.J. Jacobs (59:58)

Right.

Dan Buettner (59:59)

What would you tell them?

A.J. Jacobs (60:00)

I would go with a meta piece of life advice, which is try to see life as a series of experiments. It is a wonderful way to live. You don't have to grow a huge beard and stone adulterers. But I recommend I am a huge advocate for many experiments throughout your life, whether they're health, they're mental, they're work, they're romantic. You know, spend a week buying your boyfriend or girlfriend presents and see how that affects you. Try to spend a week without gossiping. Try to spend a week being vegetarian and see how. Because it's so important to keep our brains carving new pathways, otherwise we're in the same ruts and we start to ossify, we start to think the same. So keep everything experimental. Always be trying new things. It's more a fun way to live, and I think it's a healthier way to live, and I think that it's a more productive and creative way to live. So embrace experimentation.

Dan Buettner (61:10)

I love that. That is not only a great piece of advice, it's an original piece of advice. Tell people what the best way to connect with A.J. jacobs. And I want to hear the first of the many books we should read and how we can keep up with your writing on a regular basis.

A.J. Jacobs (61:27)

Well, thank you. You're very kind to ask. I loved writing the Year of Living Biblically. I love Drop Dead Healthy, which I think is in this. The shortest is Thanks a thousand. So if you want to make it, sure. I also spend a lot of time on my substack now, which is called you can find it at experimentalliving.substack.com and I write there every week about a new life experiment. And I love the reader feedback, so send me emails whenever you can.

Dan Buettner (61:58)

Aj, thank you for experimenting on yourself so we can all live better lives.

A.J. Jacobs (62:03)

Right back at you.