Podcasts to Listen to (wellbeing)

Loneliness is a subjective experience, but neuroscientists define it as a distress that arrives from a discrepancy between perceived and desired social relationships. There may be an evolutionary benefit to the feeling of loneliness; we’re a social species, and feeling lonely might have sent us to seek out other humans, which has been very important for survival. Moreover, if gone unaddressed and isolation worsens, health effects of loneliness have been shown to double mortality rates. It's linked to cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease, cognitive decline, higher rates of dementia, and poor mental health outcomes (i.e. depression and anxiety).

With loneliness implicated in so many cognitive impacts, Dr. Lee and her colleagues wanted to understand what is known to date about the impact of loneliness on the brain. They conducted a systematic review of the published research that examines loneliness and resulting neurobiological assessments, such as imaging studies, EEG studies, and pathological studies. Listen in and read to learn more!

Neurobiology of loneliness: a systematic review

A pair of star-crossed lovers encounter the paranormal while performing Romeo & Juliet in fair Wisconsin. And when a man falls in love with his wife he doesn’t just get one life partner – he gains an entire family.

STORIES

Romeo & Juliet

A pair of star-crossed lovers encounter the paranormal in fair Wisconsin, where we lay our scene.

This story comes to us from our evil-twin, Spooked, a Luminary Original podcast.

Want more Spooked? Season 6 of Spooked is streaming now. This Luminary Original Podcast is rolling out new episodes through Spring, 2022. You can hear the newest episodes by subscribing to the Luminary Channel on Apple Podcasts, or directly on Luminary.

Thank you, Kelsey Brennan & Andy Truschinski, for sharing your story!

Produced by Zoë Ferrigno, original score by Nicholas Marks

Multiplicity

When you get really close to someone, you get to know different sides of them naturally. It was no different when Jim Bunkelman fell in love with his wife, Rhonda. What was different was just how many different sides of Rhonda there were.

This does refer to trauma from sexual and physical abuse, sensitive listeners are advised.

Thanks, Jim, for sharing your story with us!

If you’d like to learn more about what is referred to by some as healthy multiplicity, Jim suggests you consult Healthymultiplicity.com and Multiplicity 101 for more information.

Produced by Julia DeWitt, sound design by Leon Morimoto
Artwork by Teo Ducot

Season 13 – Episode 7

Wherefore Art Thou?

With a typical search warrant, police are supposed to knock and announce themselves. But with no-knock warrants, police can force their way into people’s homes without warning.

This six-part investigative podcast from The Washington Post sheds light on how easy it is to plan, obtain and execute no-knock warrants — one of the most intrusive and dangerous police tactics. We explore the consequences when these warrants become the rule, rather than the exception.

Hosted by investigative reporters Jenn Abelson and Nicole Dungca, “Broken Doors” is about how no-knock warrants are deployed in the American justice system — and what happens when accountability is flawed at every level.

Episode 1: "That's what you get"

Yonis, vaginas, and sex were ALL forbidden language for Ashley and her conservative church-going Liberian mom. But when adult life got too big and too real those family secrets would be the one thing bringing them together.

This story uses strong language, discusses sex and genitalia, and briefly mentions molestation. Sensitive listeners, please be advised. 

BIG thanks to Ashley Asatu and Janice Kennedy for sharing your story with us! Learn more about The Yoni Day Spa + check it out on Instagram.

Produced by Regina Bediako, original score by Sandra Lawson-Ndu, artwork by Teo Ducot

Season 13 – Episode 30

The Divine Feminine

When Swiyyah and Dederick got married, her schizophrenia was a challenge they thought was under control. Until it wasn’t. And Glynn tells a story at Snap LIVE in Brooklyn about searching for his lost friend in Las Vegas.

STORIES

Swiyyah and Dederick

When Swiyyah and Dederick got married, her schizophrenia was a challenge they thought was under control. Until it wasn’t. Listen as they share their story of facing life’s many challenges with love, faith, and each other.

This story comes to us from the amazing Unseen & Unheard podcast. This show aims to change the way we see schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder by revealing the untold stories of those actually living with these illnesses. Hear from adults in the US going through life with these conditions. The hardships. The humanity. But also, the hope. Learn more at www.UnseenUnheardPodcast.com.

This story was produced by PRX productions, Jocelyn Gonzales, Ian Fox, with writing by Sarah Lilley, and engineering by Tommy Bazarian with assistance from Marisa Dodge. It is sponsored by Janssen Pharmaceuticals.

Leaving Las Vegas

Glynn tells a story at Snap LIVE in Brooklyn about searching for his lost friend in Las Vegas. Music by Bells Atlas. Engineering by Pat Mesiti-Miller.

This story contains some strong language. Sensitive listeners please be advised.

Artwork by Teo Ducot

Season 13 – Episode 33

Unseen & Unheard

After a traumatic event, women are more likely to be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Research has been conducted on what might be causing this higher rate of diagnoses; for instance, perhaps women had more cumulative trauma in their lives than the men in question. But scientists say that even taking prior childhood trauma into account, women are still diagnosed at a higher rate than men.

Alyssa Roeckner is a neuroscience PhD candidate at Emory University, she’s in the lab of Dr. Jennifer Stevens, assistant professor in the department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University. They are two of the authors of a recent study in NPP titled “Sex-dependent risk factors for PTSD: a prospective structural MRI study.”

Read the full study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-022-01452-9

Sex-dependent risk factors for PTSD: a prospective structural MRI study

This episode of LSE iQ asks, ‘How can we tackle loneliness?’.  According to the Office for National Statistics, 7.1 per cent of adults in Great Britain - nearly 4 million people - say they 'often or always' feel lonely. Look around you when you’re in a crowded place – a supermarket or an office -  1 in 14 of the people you’re looking at are likely to be lonely, not just sometimes but most of the time.  

And that’s half a million more people saying that they feel chronically lonely in 2023 than there were in 2020 – suggesting that the pandemic has had some enduring impacts in this respect. 

Sue Windebank talks to a young person who responded to her own deep feelings of loneliness by campaigning to help others. She hears how people can be influenced to feel more or less lonely – at least for a short time.  And she got a surprising insight into which group of people are the loneliest. 

Sue talks to: Heather Kappes, Associate Professor of Management at LSE; David McDaid Associate Professorial Research Fellow in the Care Policy and Evaluation Centre at LSE; and Molly Taylor, Loneliness Activist and founder of #AloneNoMore.   

 

Contributors 

Heather Kappes 

David McDaid 

Molly Taylor 

 

Research 

The Role of Comparisons in Judgments of Loneliness by Andrew J. Arnold, Heather Barry Kappes, Eric Klinenberg and Piotr Winkielman. 

Tackling loneliness evidence review: main report by: Louise Arseneault; Manuela Barreto; Anne-Kathrin Fett; Nancy Hey; Sonia Johnson; Kalpa Kharicha; Timothy Matthews; David McDaid; Ellie Pearce; Alexandra Pitman; and Christina Victor. 

Addressing Loneliness in Older People Through a Personalized Support and Community Response Program by David McDaid and A-La Park.

LSE IQ podcast

How can we tackle loneliness?

"Impact of Stress on the Brain: Pathology, Treatment and Prevention," the 2016 issue of Neuropsychopharmacology Reviews, focuses on advances in our understanding of the impact of stress on the brain: From pathology to circuits, treatment to prevention. Emerging data from genetics, epigenetics, neural circuit and intergenerational models, animal models, and neuroimaging all suggest that stress affects the brain in a variety of dynamic and often long-lasting ways. The effects of these processes on developmental risk for pathology are particularly notable.
www.nature.com/npp/index.html

Brainpod: Impact of Stress on the Brain: Pathology, Treatment and Prevention

Philip Dodd looks at the value of the arts with the former Chief Scientific Advisor to the EU, biologist Anne Glover,and discusses the notion of belonging and social identity in Europe with Dutch author Tommy Wieringa, Hungarian film director Kornel Mondruczo and academics Eric Kaufmann and Vesna Popovski. Published on February 25, 2015.

Free Thinking -  Social Identity

LSD is not only a well-known psychedelic drug, but it was also studied extensively for its potential in psychotherapy in the early days of its use, about fifty years ago. Those early studies didn't necessarily meet today's standards for clinical trials, and previous research ended in the 1970s, due to changing regulations and a prohibition against LSD. Today, LSD is once again being studied for its therapeutic use, this time in a carefully controlled clinical setting. In a recent study, a team of researchers investigated LSD's effects on fear recognition, emotional empathy, and sociality. Listen to the latest BrainPod, Neuropsychopharmacology's official podcast, to hear Dr. Matthias Liechti discuss this study!

Neuropsychopharmacology

Brainpod: LSD Acutely Impairs Fear Recognition and Enhances Emotional Empathy and Sociality

As our environment becomes ever increasingly complex, understanding how sex differences impact disease risk and resilience will only become more critical. The 2019 Neuropsychopharmacology Reviews, "Sex Matters," edited by Dr. Tracy L. Bale, highlights the causal and mechanistic value in cases where significant sex differences are found, as well as when they're not; where sex differences may arise at one period of life and disappear in another. Additionally, this podcast, as well as the special issue, reinforces the message that males are not the control, and females are not more variable. The value is in appreciating the difference. Sex matters.

Special issue link: https://www.nature.com/npp/volumes/44/issues/1

Brainpod - January 2019 - Sex Matters

Tony Robbins SELF DISCIPLINE (The Best Motivation Ever)

The recreational drug MDMA, also known as Ecstasy or Molly, is particularly popular in social settings and raves, in large part because of how socially connected it makes the users feel. It’s being studied for use in psychotherapy —there’s a phase III clinical trial for the use of MDMA to treat PTSD. What’s clear is that the drug affects how users experience social interactions. But there are questions: Does the drug make positive social interactions feel better, or reduce the negative feelings associated with negative social interactions?

Related link -
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-019-0402-z

Brainpod - Effects of MDMA on attention to positive social cues and pleasantness of affective touch

A number of drugs that are used recreationally are now being studied for their use in psychopharmacology. But while the ways in which these drugs are similar or different has been described anecdotally by recreational users, they haven’t been studied in comparison to one another. Dr. Matthias Liechti and his team of researchers recently published a study in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, in which 28 healthy subjects, men and women, take doses of LSD, MDMA, amphetamines, and a placebo over four different sessions. Dr. Liechti says this blinding is important; in other studies, participants either have taken a drug or a placebo and can tell when they’re taking the drug. But in this case they don’t know which drug they’re taking, which allows the effects of the drugs to be compared against each other. Take a listen to find out more!

Distinct acute effects of LSD, MDMA, and D-amphetamine in healthy subjects

Over the past decades, there’s clearly been a dramatic increase in the amount of time people spend online using social networking sites. For instance, Facebook and Instagram have literally billions of users. At the same time, there’s been a rise in mental health issues for young people from teens through their mid 20s. The rise in these issues has been seen particularly for Millenials and the I generation, both of which grew up with increased access to and use of social networking sites. As a result, some have drawn the conclusion that perhaps the two are linked, and the rise in mental health issues is linked causally to the increase in time spent online, and so treatment should involve reducing social networking use. Dr. Kiara Timpano, associate professor at the University of Miami department of psychology, and Dr. Courtney Beard, co-director of the clinical research program in behavioral health at McLean Hospital and associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, reviewed the literature.

Brainpod - Social networking and mental health

‘Mental health in the community’ is a series of six podcasts brought to you by the Mental Health Foundation and the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. 

What is this series about? 
From 2016 to 2019 the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust ran the Mental Health Fellowships programme, funding individuals to travel abroad to learn more about how community-based solutions are being created to respond to some of today’s most pressing mental health challenges. 

The Mental Health Foundation was the expert partner in this programme, helping to shape its aims, select the successful candidates and provide mentoring to the successful Fellows. In total, 59 Churchill Fellows were chosen to investigate best practice in 18 countries and bring back new evidence and ideas to create positive change in their profession, practice and communities in the UK.  

This series of podcasts distils the key findings from this rich body of learning, and makes recommendations for policy and practice in the UK. Each episode focuses on an aspect of the Mental Health Fellowships’ overarching theme ‘community-based solutions’. There are also corresponding briefings for each of the categories below, available at www.mentalhealth.org.uk or www.wcmt.org.uk.

Episode 5: Trauma and Adversity: trauma-informed care 

Who’s on the podcast today? 
Trevor Barnes: Host, freelance journalist and BBC radio presenter.  

Dr Karen Treisman: a clinical psychologist, trainer, and author, travelled to the USA to research international approaches to integrating adversity, culturally, and trauma-informed and responsive principles at a system-wide and organisational level.

Daniel Johnson: forensic psychologist and service manager at Kibble Education and Care Centre, a specialist provider of child and youth care services, travelled to the USA, Norway and Sweden to investigate how trauma-informed principles have been turned into tangible practice in young people’s residential care services.

What is the episode about? 
This episode features details of a number of leading trauma-informed organisations delivering services in a variety of community-based contexts abroad.

We hear about Jasper Mountain, a large care, education and treatment centre in the Oregon forest, initially opened by a husband and wife who were practising therapists frustrated by the systems in which they worked. The main residential building is a castle, with a keep, large central hall and even a drawbridge. It has been built like this as children had said this was the structure they would prefer and in which they would feel most safe. 

Need support?
	If you need someone to talk to then Samaritans are available on 116 123 (UK) for free, 24/7. They are there to talk to, listen and they won't judge or tell you what to do. 
	C.A.L.M.: National helpline for men to talk about any troubles they are feeling. Call 0800 58 58 58 (UK). They are available 5pm-midnight 365 days a year.
	For support in a crisis, Text Shout to 85258. If you’re experiencing a personal crisis, are unable to cope and need support.  Shout can help with urgent issues such as: Suicidal thoughts, abuse or assault, self-harm, bullying, relationship challenges.

Trauma & adversity - Trauma-informed care / Mental health in the community

You are on your smoke break at Walmart. You look down and see a box: inside is a ceramic lamb with a note around its neck asking you to take it home. Do you: 
a) burn it
b) throw it in the trash, or 
c) take it home?

Thank you, Corey, for sharing your story with Spooked!

Produced by Chris Hambrick, original score by Lauryn Newson
Artwork by Teo Ducot 

Spooked Season 5 - Episode 1

Spooked Season 5 has 22 brand new episodes, each released weekly on Mondays & Fridays. Select episodes will be available across streaming platforms (like this episode), but you can find ALL the new episodes only on Luminary.

You can get a Luminary subscription for as little as $2.99 a month with their annual plan, plus a 7-day free trial to get started. Visit luminarypodcasts.com to start your free trial.

Snap Judgment Presents: Spooked

Take Me Home - Spooked

What’s keeping you from feeling proud today? We’re exploring that question with a special Snap two-for-one: SHAMEBOOTH, a traveling art installation, hotline, and podcast featuring the voices of real people sharing their shame, and “Quiet Is Best,” a story from Julie Lindahl about her shocking discovery of a secret — and shameful — family legacy.

Content advisory: These stories detail substances, violence against a trans person, graphic images of Nazi Germany, and sexual assault. Sensitive listeners, please be advised.

STORIES:

SHAMEBOOTH Recordings

SHAMEBOOTH explores the science & psychology behind one of the most intense and isolating emotions a person can feel by capturing the voices of real people who step into a refurbished phone booth to speak their truths. It has become an art installation, podcast, hotline, live event space, and movement to help people get proud.

A very big thank you to all of the brave people who stepped into the SHAMEBOOTH, baring their souls. For more, head on over to SHAMEBOOTH and subscribe to the podcast!

SHAMEBOOTH’s creator and host is Paula Williams. The podcast is produced by the fine folks at SOUND MADE PUBLIC: Tania Ketenjian, Philip Wood, and Katie McCutcheon. Production assistance was by Snap’s Regina Bediako.

“Quiet is Best” – Snap Classic

When Julie Lindahl discovered that her grandfather had been an active member of the German SS, she decided to return to the scene of his crimes. But her grandmother made things difficult.

Thank you, Julie, for sharing your story with Snap! A version of this story was originally produced for the podcast Kind World. For more, please make sure to check out Julie Lindahl’s book, The Pendulum: A Granddaughther’s Search for Her Family’s Forbidden Nazi Past.

Produced by Erika Lantz, original score by Leon Morimoto with production assistance by Liz Mak

Season 11 – Episode 28

Snap Judgment

Shame

Lawrence “Binkey” Tolefree gets a phone call about a huge opportunity. But it’s the next call from his mom that leads to the most surprising performance of his career. And Nygel Turner shares what it’s like to live with Gynecomastia (aka Man Boobs).

This episode contains adult language & a scene with graphic imagery. Sensitive listeners, please be advised.

STORIES

The Looking Glass

Glynn looks at an old picture of himself and reflects…

Produced by Pat Mesiti-Miller

Have You Seen Her

Lawrence “Binkey” Tolefree Jr. was born with a mic in his hands. He never met a stage he wouldn’t try to grace with his presence. And at 33, he thinks he’s finally gotten his big break. But when he calls his mom to tell her the good news, he sets into motion a journey that ushers in the most unexpected performance of his career.

Go on and get more Binkey Tolefree in your life! Check out his show every Friday on South Side Radio.

The piece featured “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye, and “Have You Seen Her” by The Chi-Lites, which was written in part by Binky’s grandmother the great Barbara Acklin.

Produced by Regina Bediako, original score by Pat Mesiti-Miller

The Amazing T*tty Man

How far will you hurt yourself before you start loving yourself? Nygel Turner shares what it’s like to live with Gynecomastia (aka Man Boobs).

This story was produced by YR Media‘s Adult ISH podcast. Adult ISH is a culture, advice, and storytelling show about #adulting, that is produced entirely by folks who are “almost adults”. The show is distributed by PRX’s Radiotopia. Be sure to subscribe and listen here!

Produced by Nygel Turner and Davey Kim, sound design by Oluwafemi and Davey Kim

Artwork by Teo Ducot

Season 11 – Episode 38

Beautiful - full episode

Lawrence “Binkey” Tolefree Jr. was born with a mic in his hands. He never met a stage he wouldn’t try to grace with his presence. And at 33, he thinks he’s finally gotten his big break. But when he calls his mom to tell her the good news, he sets into motion a journey that ushers in the most unexpected performance of his career.

Go on and get more Binkey Tolefree in your life! Check out his show every Friday on South Side Radio.

The piece featured “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye, and “Have You Seen Her” by The Chi-Lites, which was written in part by Binky’s grandmother the great Barbara Acklin.

Produced by Regina Bediako, original score by Pat Mesiti-Miller

Podcasts to Listen to (wellbeing)

Destini Turner