About TEDMED Now
When A.J. Jacobs set out to become the healthiest person alive, he expected to learn about nutrition, exercise, sleep, and longevity. Instead, his experiment uncovered a deeper question: What happens when the pursuit of health becomes another source of stress?
In this episode of TEDMED Now, Kelly Thomas revisits Jacobs’ TEDMED Talk to explore what his yearlong quest reveals about burnout, recovery, and whole-person health. Through science and story, the episode reframes resilience not as endless endurance or self-optimization, but as the capacity to recover, reconnect, and fully inhabit life. Joy is not a reward for health. It may be one of the ways health becomes sustainable.
About A.J. Jacobs
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AJ Jacobs is an author, philosopher, prankster and journalist. He has written three New York Times bestsellers: The Year of Living Biblically, The Know-It-All and The Guinea Pig Diaries. His upcoming book is titled The Healthiest Person Alive, and is about his attempt to be, well, the healthiest person alive. He has changed everything from his diet to his attitude to his behavior to the type of shoes he wears.
About Kelly Thomas
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Kelly Thomas, PhD is Director of Scientific Content at TEDMED, where she curates and translates breakthrough ideas at the intersection of science, medicine, and human potential. Her work focuses on making complex research clear, accurate, and meaningful — connecting rigorous evidence to the realities of everyday life.
With a background spanning biomedical engineering, structural biology, oncology, and the biology of the stem-cell niche in acute myeloid leukemia, Kelly has written across formats ranging from peer-reviewed research and grant proposals to health and wellness journalism. Throughout her career, she has been driven by a central question: how do we translate the best of science into longer, healthier, more meaningful lives?
At TEDMED, she leads the development of conversations and experiences designed to surface nuance, challenge assumptions, and make emerging science accessible without oversimplifying it. As one of the hosts of TEDMED Conversations, she explores topics including resilience, mental health, technology’s impact on youth, and the future of care.
A lifelong athlete and high-performance competitor, Kelly brings a particular interest in the neuroscience of resilience and behavior change — and how science can inform the way we live, train, recover, and grow.
