A. J. Jacobs
A. J. Jacobs
Arnold Stephen "A. J." Jacobs, Jr.is an American journalist, author, and lecturer best known for writing about his lifestyle experiments. He is the editor at large for Esquire and has worked for the Antioch Daily Ledger and Entertainment Weekly...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth20 March 1968
CountryUnited States of America
vegetables preparation violence
After decimating several vegetables, I decide juicing is my favorite form of food preparation. There's something perversely appealing about subjecting an innocent plant to that much violence.
shapes belief behavior
Behavior shapes beliefs.
health years disease
Med students panic their first year when they learn all the diseases. It's not until the second year that they learn the cures.
jobs sleep insomnia
A 2002 Oxford study showed counting sheep actually delays the onset of sleep. It's just too dull to stop us from worrying about jobs and spouses.
keys self decision
The key to making healthy decisions is to respect your future self. Honor him or her. Treat him or her like you would treat a friend or a loved one.
thinking compassion important
I'm all for cafeteria religion. I think there's nothing wrong with cafeterias - I've had some great meals at cafeterias. I've also had some horrible meals, so it's important to pick the right things. Take a heaping helping of compassion and mercy, and leave the intolerance on the table.
boys brain tasks
Let me tell you, though: being the smartest boy in the world wasn’t easy. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want this. On the contrary, it was a huge burden. First, there was the task of keeping my brain perfectly protected. My cerebral cortex was a national treasure, a masterpiece of the Sistine Chapel of brains. This was not something that could be treated frivolously. If I could have locked it in a safe, I would have. Instead, I became obsessed with brain damage.
decision laziness twins
Probably 90 percent of our life decisions are powered by the twin engines of inertia and laziness.
book utah should-have
I always thought the name of Utah’s major newspaper was some sort of weird misspelling of the word “desert.” But no, Deseret is the “land of the honeybee,” according to the Book of Mormon. I guess I should have figured they would have caught a typo in the masthead after 154 years.
crazy israel people
When I went to Israel, it was a little disorienting, because there are so many people who look crazy and were dressed like me. There, I was just one of the apocalyptic crowd.
sanctuary should volume
This is what the Sabbath should feel like. A pause. Not just a minor pause, but a major pause. Not just lowering the volume, but a muting. As the famous rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel put it, the Sabbath is a sanctuary in time.
water thank-god meals
I've started to look at life differently. When you're thanking God for every little you - every meal, every time you wake up, every time you take a sip of water - you can't help but be more thankful for life itself, for the unlikely and miraculous fact that you exist at all.
christian powerful inspiration
Unconditional love is an illogical notion, but such a great and powerful one.
jumping birth-control honey
I prefer the earlier birth control techniques, which ranged from the delicious (using honey as a spermicide) to the aerobic (jumping backward seven times after coitus).