Our Top Autumn Podcast Recommendations

The promise of autumn tempts us to crunchy-under-foot walks, and cosying up on the sofa with a warm drink. An excellent podcast is the perfect companion.  With a host of health and wellness podcasts to choose from, we’ve curated some of the best, from the super popular to the more unusual corners of the podscape.  All the podcasts are available on the major podcasting platforms, or their own websites.

 

Maintenance Phase

This witty, irreverent and well researched podcast interrogates the wellness and health industry, exposing the pseudoscience and multiple myths that abound. The hosts, Aubrey Gordon and Michael Hobbes, are highly entertaining; they manage to balance humour with the deeply serious, acknowledging the vulnerabilities that the health industry often plays on for profit. No one and nothing is safe from their forensic focus, not even Oprah Winfrey.  Listen here.

 

The Mindful Minute

For those new to meditation or practitioners who want to find sustainable ways to support their practice, this podcast offers an excellent way in.  The host, Mary Arnett, starts with a brief discussion and then a guided themed meditation. She includes mini meditations to support a regular home practice and longer guided meditations to help you go deeper. A recent episode contains a very honest discussion about whether meditation really has a useful place in the political and environmental crises in which we find ourselves (spoiler: she believes it does). Listen here.

 

The Resilience Sessions

In a different approach to the celebrity-led podcast format, the Resilience Sessions pair injured veterans with public figures to share stories about their ups and downs, and how they have faced and dealt with significant life obstacles. It is moving, funny and inspiring in equal measure - a contemplation on what can come out of the worst of times. An early episode features Carol Voderman in conversation with Si Harmer, a medical combat technician who lost both legs in Afghanistan, and their fascinating conversation about what resilience means to them, the importance of gratitude and the challenges of navigating social media. Listen here.

 

Feel Better, Live More with Dr Chatterjee

A long time fixture on the UK health podcast scene, host Dr Rangan Chatterjee is a GP and advocate of adopting lifestyle medicine alongside conventional healthcare. Diverse episodes range across the wellness spectrum, discussing evidence-based behaviour change to live longer and better. Conversations with experts are accessible, practical and encouraging - Dr Chatterjee’s mission is to simplify the discussion about health. The biggest issue with the podcast is working out where to start with such a large archive. Some of our favourites include ‘How to make lifestyle changes that will last’, ‘The latest science on gut health’ with Tim Spector and ‘Movement is Medicine’ with Darryl Edwards. Dr Chatterjee also has a range of books if you prefer a read to a listen. Listen here.

 

The Rich Roll Podcast

This hugely popular podcast is hosted by the eponymous and charismatic Rich Roll. An ex-lawyer and substance abuser turned ultra-athlete, author and wellness advocate, Rich Roll interviews some of the biggest names in sport, psychology, science and nutrition, mainly from the US. As well as the big names, key to its success is the conversational nature of the episodes: they feel less like interviews, more listening in on highly educated friends. Recent highlights include Gabor Mate on the ‘myth of normal’, Susan Caine on the powers of introversion and Malcolm Gladwell on running, among many other things.  Listen here.

 

Food Heaven podcast

Like many long running podcasts, Food Heaven is evolving further away from its roots (in nutrition as the title suggests) to a wide range of healthy living topics, from supplements to healthy periods to capsule wardrobes. But it has stayed close to its values - an energetic, inclusive and informed discussion between friends (both nutritionists by trade) and experts. It is funny and there is great chemistry between the hosts (Wendy Lopez and Jessica James); they are unashamedly political - deconstructing the anti-Black sentiment at the heart of diet culture - and talking to a genuinely diverse listener group. Listen here.

 

Doctors Kitchen

Dr Rupy Aujla is an NHS GP and self-confessed foodie who is passionate about food’s impact on our physical and mental health, having personally experienced its benefits to support his own diagnosis of atrial fibrillation in his early 20s. Early episodes of the podcast are almost exclusively focussed on food as medicine as Dr Rupy invites experienced guests to share his kitchen and talk food and health. The nutrition theme continues through more recent episodes of this long running podcast, but with a wider range of guests and subjects, ranging from sleep, life without email, citizen health and spontaneous cures. Highly recommended are the episodes on menopause and those on immunity with Dr Jenna Maccioni. If you like the sound of the recipes, Dr Rupy has written cookbooks to accompany the podcast. Listen here.

 

Goop

Famous or infamous, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop brand has spent plenty of time hitting the headlines over the last few years - from jade eggs to vaginal steaming. Her podcast focuses less on products and more a series of conversations with Gwyneth, her collaborator Erica Chidi and ‘the brightest thinkers and change-makers’. While Paltrow and Chidi are not natural interviewers, they do attract some pretty hefty celebrity guests: Selma Blair, Kim Kardashian, Alicia Keys and Billy Porter to name a few. Listen here.

 

Happy Place with Fearne Cotton 

Fearne Cotton interviews mainly UK based celebrities about what makes them happy, and the challenges they have overcome. Intimate, chatty interviews make this an easy listen, with subjects put at ease and willing to be surprisingly candid about the struggles that come with success. The podcast’s focus is on the mind, emotions and spirituality, but by focusing on individuals’ stories, it avoids descending into self-help platitudes. The podcast has now spun off into books, music and a yearly festival. Listen here.

 

GABA

Billed as a soundscape meditation podcast, Adam Martin’s GABA defies easy pigeonholing. It is part storytelling, part meditation, part insight and part music.  For those whose minds struggle to sit with more conventional meditation or mindfulness, GABA offers something which has the power to swiftly transport you into a state of contemplation, wonder and playfulness. It is totally intriguing, and something that needs to be experienced to be truly appreciated. Coming in at short 6 - 10 minute episodes, that is easy to do. Listen here.