Welcome to the last episode of Series 3! I really hope you have enjoyed the series and it’s given you some pause for thoughts. Don’t forget to rate and review the show on iTunes to help other people find me.Priya Parker is a conflict resolut

The expectation effect, with David Robson

Oct 20th, 2022 49m 42s

Can the way you think about your body, change the way it works? Can a positive outcome about ageing, actually cause you to live longer?I’ve been curious about the mind-body axis for a while, and then I read The Expectation Effect by the awar

The myth of the ‘baby brain’ with Chelsea Conaboy

Oct 13th, 2022 43m 43s

Did you find yourself scrambling for words, losing your keys, forgetting basically everything, when you had a baby? Perhaps you witnessed it in your best friend, your sibling, your partner. The jokes about how women are lobotomised by motherhoo

What we get wrong about sleep, with Russell Foster

Oct 6th, 2022 45m 13s

Tired all the time? Worried you’re not getting the fabled ‘8 hours’ ? You’re not alone: we’ve become a nation of orthosomniacs. But panic not, because sleep scientist Russell Foster is here to help. The University of Oxford neuroscientist an

The many myths of fast fashion, with Venetia La Manna

Sep 29th, 2022 44m 59s

I’ve been wanting to do an episode on the many myths of fast fashion since I wrote an essay titled Get The Look, for my 2020 essay collection (which this podcast series first spun off from). And Venetia La Manna, a presenter and podcaster campa

What we get wrong about knife crime, with Gary Younge

Sep 22nd, 2022 50m 16s

What do you know about knife crime? It’s something that happens in gangs and on the streets. It’s something you’ve never had to worry about. Right?Gary Younge is an author, broadcaster and a professor of sociology at the university of Manche

The myth of gendered emotion, with Praga Agarwal

Sep 15th, 2022 41m 3s

Professor Pragya Agarwal is a data and behavioural scientist, a visiting professor of social inequities and injustice at Loughborough University and the founder of a research think tank, The 50% Project. She is also the author of five books, mo

What we get wrong about dementia, with Wendy Mitchell

Sep 8th, 2022 41m 41s

There are 50million people living with dementia worldwide. By 2050, it’s likely to rise to 152 million. But how much do you know about dementia? When it’s a disease so rapidly on the rise, why aren’t we talking more about it?Wendy Mitchell i

The myth of good skin, with Jessica DeFino

Sep 1st, 2022 53m 43s

Jessica DeFino is not your regular beauty journalist. After finding her pieces were regularly rejected from newspapers and magazines for being too incendiary, or dissing beauty brands who advertised, she founded her newsletter, The Unpublishabl

The nuances of grief, with Cariad Lloyd

Oct 27th, 2021 47m 56s

I'm so pleased to bring you this s2 bonus episode sponsored by Sage Appliances, with Cariad Lloyd, which we recorded in front of a live audience a month ago. Cariad is a comedian and writer and the creator of the cult podcast, Griefcast, where

How to be sad, with Helen Russell

Oct 20th, 2021 48m 13s

Helen Russell is a journalist, podcaster and author of How To Be Sad, a part memoir/ manifesto which argues that we can’t talk about happiness, without making space for sadness. But why are we so scared of being sad? We discuss ‘warm glow givin

Re-thinking self-care, with Pooja Lakshmin

Oct 13th, 2021 45m 29s

Pooja Lakshmin MD is a psychiatrist and writer, specialising in women's mental health. The founder of digital women's health platform Gemma, she is a regular contributor to The New York Times, where she writes about wellness and self-care (amon

The lonely economy, with Noreena Hertz

Oct 6th, 2021 48m 41s

Noreena Hertz is an economist and thought leader and the author of The Lonely Century, a fascinating and sprawling study of the epidemic of loneliness. We discuss why loneliness is higher in cities where people walk faster, how robots can be a

Introverts and Extroverts, with Arthur Brooks

Sep 29th, 2021 47m 33s

Arthur Brooks is a social scientist, Harvard professor and author of multiple books, who writes a column for The Atlantic about happiness. After his column on introverts and extroverts caught my attention (I am fascinated in personality theorie

What the law gets wrong, with Alexandra Wilson

Sep 22nd, 2021 53m 16s

Alexandra Wilson is a criminal and family law barrister, the founder of Black Women In Law and the author of Black & White: a young barrister’s story of race and class in a broken justice system. We discuss the bar’s diversity and access probl

Could a 4-day week ever work? with Alex Pang

Sep 15th, 2021 41m 37s

Alex Pang is a futurist and tech consultant who has spent twenty years studying our relationship with work. In Shorter, he argues that you get more done, when you work less. We discuss the problem with open-plan working, why 90% of meetings ar

Understanding autism, with Naoise Dolan

Sep 8th, 2021 44m 51s

Naoise Dolan is the author of the best-selling novel Exciting Times, who explores through her journalism what it means to be neurodiverse and what allistic people often misunderstand about autism. We discuss hidden disabilities, the problem wi

Let‘s talk about sex, with Amia Srinivasan

Sep 1st, 2021 46m 48s

Amia Srinivasan is the Chichele Professor of social and political theory at Oxford University and the author of thought provoking new collection of essays, The Right To Sex. We talk about incel culture, The metric of ‘fuckability’, dating apps,

Trusting your gut, with Stacey Dooley

Aug 23rd, 2020 50m 6s

Stacey Dooley is a broadcaster and presenter, known for making more than 80 documentaries for the BBC on subjects including spy cam sex in South Korea, child abuse in the Philippines, female suicide bombers in Nigeria and sex slavery in Islamic

Yoda wasn‘t chill all the time, with Alain de Botton

Aug 16th, 2020 50m 1s

Alain de Botton is a philosopher who has written on work, sex, leisure, architecture - and every other subject in between. I first discovered Alain's work in the early noughties, when I inhaled his debut novel, Essays in Love, which he wrote ag

Arrival fallacy, with Raven Smith

Aug 9th, 2020 27m 46s

Raven Smith is a British Vogue columnist, an Instagram personality and the author of the essay collection, Trivial Pursuits. I have long admired Raven's ability to move between the trivial and the weighty, with ease: writing about IKEA meatball

Why do we hate change? with Julia Samuel

Aug 2nd, 2020 31m 46s

Julia Samuel is a psychotherapist, the founder/patron of Child Bereavement UK and the author of two acclaimed non-fiction books, Grief Works and her new one, This Too Shall Pass. A book about why human beings find it so hard to navigate change,

Optimism vs. hope, with Rutger Bregman

Jul 26th, 2020 41m 54s

Rutger Bregman is a Dutch historian with a radical new idea: what if human beings are not innately savage and selfish, but compassionate and kind? I talk to Rutger about his uplifting new book, Humankind; the difference between optimism and hop

The age of outrage, with Dotty Charles

Jul 20th, 2020 45m 42s

Ashley 'Dotty' Charles is a writer and broadcaster. The first solo female to host 1Xtra Breakfast for the BBC, she is the author of a new book, which lands at the time we need it most. Outraged: Why Everyone is Shouting and No One Is Talking is

Seeking inclusivity, with Sinead Burke

Jul 12th, 2020 49m 38s

Sinéad Burke is a force for good. An educator and disability advocate in the field of fashion and design, she is solutions-driven in her desire to make society more inclusive. The first little person to appear on the cover of Vogue, to attend t