Drop Dead Healthy by A. Jacobs (books to read to increase intelligence .TXT) 📕

his job. In fact, doesn’t the research show that human touch is healthy? It helps fight depression and high blood pressure.

What if I thought of this as a free massage? It’s kind of relaxing when he’s patting my shoulders.

Get the TSA officer some coconut massage oil and a citrus-scented candle, and I’d have to pay him a hundred dollars.

At the end, the guy gave me a friendly pat on the back. A signal that I’m good to go.

“Thanks,” I said. My government-mandated shiatsu may not have lowered my blood pressure, but it probably didn’t raise it either.

Memento Mori

The ultimate reframe, I suppose, is to remind yourself that you’re going to die one day soon, so stop being a petty little bastard. Renaissance painters excelled at these memento mori, and planted little skulls in the corners of their portraits as symbols of our fleeting mortality.

I’ve been a fan of the memento mori concept for a long time. A couple of years ago, I decided to get a memento mori screen saver for my laptop. I downloaded an image of a white bony skull, the kind you see in a Hamlet production. Whenever I opened my computer, there it was, staring at me with its eye sockets. I found it jarring, a buzz kill. Why should imminent death be so gruesome? So I got a more chipper skull. I plucked an image off the Internet of a multicolored, sweetly smiling cartoonlike skull that was probably painted by a Bolinas resident.

The new skull has done a good job over the years of calming me. At least until recently. It now has started to backfire.

Take my latest inconsequential crisis. I did an Esquire interview with this beautiful Colombian actress named Sofia Vergara, who plays the heavily accented, stiletto-heeled young wife on Modern Family. We had coffee, we chatted pleasantly. That’s not the stressful part. During the interview, she went on a rant about how weird Hollywood women look after they’ve had too much plastic surgery. She called Madonna’s cheekbones “crazy.” It seemed funny, and in character, so I put it in the article.

When the article came out, the gossip blogs claimed she had declared a feud with Madonna. Madonna’s fans flooded her with vitriolic e-mails. So what did she do? She denied saying it and tweeted that the reporter (me) was just trying to cause trouble. I started getting calls from Entertainment Tonight about the feud and my part in it.

I was furious. “I can’t believe she claims that I made it up!” I told Julie. “I have it on tape. Why would I make that up? Why would I want to?”

“Why do you care? It’s ridiculous. It’ll go away in a day.”

“No. You don’t understand. The Internet is forever. It’ll never go away.”

She besmirched my reputation, such as it is.

I went back to my office and looked at my smiling-skull painting. It relaxed me a little. But not totally. Because the Internet isn’t the only thing that threatens to go on forever.

As I mentioned, I’m obsessed with these books on immortality. It’s coming soon, possibly in our lifetime, say some scientists. The latest estimate, according to a Time magazine cover story, is 2045. Gene therapy will keep my precious telomeres long and sturdy. Sirtuin will keep my muscles fresh. And Sofia’s accusation will follow me around for thousands of years, like an eternal National Sex Offenders Registry.

Mortality is scary, but there’s a comforting element as well, since you know there’s a limit. Immortality comes with its own set of complications.

Time Management

One of the most stressful parts of my life is the lack of time in my day. Staying healthy is pretty much a full-time job. Consider this partial list of what I have to do every day:

     stretching (10 minutes)

     meditating (10 minutes)

     chewing (10 minutes)

     saying the 80 percent mantra before meals (this is where you agree to eat only until you are four-fifths full) (1 minute)

     humming (3 minutes)

     brushing teeth (4 minutes)

     flossing (2 minutes)

     keeping a food diary (5 minutes)

     putting on moisturizer and sunscreen (2 minutes)

     aerobic exercise (45 minutes)

     anaerobic exercise (20 minutes)

     memorizing word of the day (1 minute)

     napping (25 minutes)

     reading before sleep (10 minutes)

     doing neck exercises (physician and author Nancy Snyderman says we should turn our head side to side five times a day to prevent neck pain) (2 minutes)

     airing out apartment (2 minutes)

     wiping down germy surfaces such as remote control, cell phone, etc. (5 minutes)

     doing crossword puzzle and other brain exercises (20 minutes)

     taking stairs instead of elevator (2 minutes)

     walking instead of taking the bus or cab (20 minutes)

     steaming vegetables (20 minutes)

     grilling salmon (20 minutes)

     making salad (20 minutes)

     putting on/taking off earphones repeatedly (1 minute)

     spending time on social interactions (1 hour)

     scrubbing vegetables to get off chemical and bacterial residue (3 minutes)

     taking supplements, including omega-3 fish oil; vitamin B12; and coenzyme Q10 (3 minutes)

     paying respect to older self (1 minute)

     petting dogs (5 minutes)

     refilling water purifier (1 minute)

     having sex (not every day, and amount of time spent is classified, per Julie)

     checking pedometer (3 minutes)

     writing list of things for which grateful (3 minutes)

     getting ultraviolet light treatment with Philips GoLite Blu Sunlight Therapy to prevent seasonal affective disorder (15 minutes)

     drinking glass of wine (10 minutes)

I’m always looking for ways to shave time from my schedule. One of the greatest days of my life? The day I figured out how to make podcasts play at double speed on my iPhone. It works great with NPR. I also enjoy listening to a full-body relaxation course on double speed—“now-relax-your-toes-now-relax-your-calves,” though perhaps it defeats the purpose.

My time deficiency is why I was excited to read about a newish fitness trend: the hyperefficient workout. Twenty minutes a week. Not twenty minutes a day. Twenty minutes a week.

Welcome news.

On a Tuesday, I take the bus down to another eccentrically capitalized place, InForm Fitness, home of the fastest workout in the land. I climb the stairs to the second floor of a building in midtown Manhattan, a space once occupied by a tuxedo shop. When I open the heavy wooden door, I find the quietest