There’s nothing as personal as your health and wellness. But all too often, life comes along and takes you away from the ideal path, whether through a bad diet, a lack of quality sleep, or the various mental health issues that plague society. This collection of our best 15 health and wellness podcasts could be where your journey takes a much more positive direction. Whether your goals are for health & fitness, healthy eating, healthy living, or just general healthcare, these podcasts can help get you in shape and optimal health. The information and habits that these wellness experts and personal trainers teach could entirely possibly change your life if you decide to take the correct path. Check out this list of podcasts and our sleep collection for the best health and wellness tips!
1.Just Sleep – Bedtime Stories for Adults
Life can be hectic, and with so many distractions, worries and stimulations, it can be impossible to get into the relaxation zone when it’s time for bed. That’s why Taesha Glasgow created Just Sleep – Bedtime Stories for Adults. With gentle music and a calming delivery, these classic stories are spoken so that your brain shifts focus to the story, and for most people, sleep is never far away at that point. These stories are already classics of their time, so they are well written and flow at a perfect pace, so why not try one of these calming listens to help you drift away into a peaceful sleep?
Dr. Andrew Huberman is a Professor of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. His expertise in the nervous system is about as high as possible. But with this health podcast, he’s on a mission to educate the world on this essential element of the human body in an accessible and helpful way. Huberman Lab takes you through practically every part of the human experience, from feelings to attraction to sleep to addiction. He describes how your diet is linked to all sorts of things. From cravings and anxiety to your general wellbeing, they are linked to the gut and brain. This podcast is no magazine-style health guide – it’s science, and it’s presented in such a straightforward way that you will end up being able to make educated life choices based on your listening.
3.Guided Sleep Meditation Sleep Hypnosis from Sleep Cove
Self-hypnosis can be an effective way to shake off the tensions and anxieties of life, but the tone has to be perfect. In these guided meditation sessions, the narrator’s calming, meditative voice and some subtle musical accompaniments combine to help you enter a state of utter relaxation and self-awareness. Then, if you’re lying comfortably, you’ll probably find yourself drifting, drifting away into a deep sleep, perhaps your first for many weeks. This podcast is not the thing to listen to when you’re driving or looking after someone, but we think it can be enormously helpful in a safe, relaxing space.
Yes, Audible is primarily a spoken word medium. Still, it would be a shame if we couldn't put our sound technology's incredible clarity and fidelity to other uses from time to time (Amazon Music never needs to find out). For one, it allows us to bring these recordings to your ears. They blend the most tranquil music imaginable and some other ambient sounds known to help you drift off to sleep or relax in blissful wakefulness. Put one of the Sleep and Relaxation Sounds on, set the sleep timer for an hour, and see where you end up.
After struggling with her mental health for years, Louisa Jewell went back to school to follow a Master's Degree in Positive Psychology. It changed her life. She's now a firm advocate of the incredible power that we all have within us to turn our mental health around for the better. In The Awesome Project podcast, she invites guests to talk about their struggles, and through it, she finds ways to help you with your own. As founder and President of the Canadian Positive Psychology Association and sometime co-host of a health radio show on CIUT.FM, she's well placed to help you become a better person, able to cope with life and feel better, and thrive.
6.Tmsoft’s White Noise Sleep Sounds
Don't be put off by the title – this is not a collection of types of white noise, like detuned radios or TVs with the source unplugged. An extensive series of recordings are a few examples of such sounds, but they're in the minority. Most of the recordings are of everyday sounds, from crackling fires to the sea lapping against the shore, from distant sports crowds to engines ticking over. The idea is that these sounds are just stimulating enough to hear and drown out other sounds that can be distracting and keep you awake. Anyone taking their baby for a drive to send them off to sleep will get the picture, but it's a phenomenon that lasts into adulthood. And that's what makes Tmsoft's White Noise Sleep Sounds a perfect listen to send you off to a calm, deep sleep.
Do you find it difficult to calm your mood at bedtime? If you're one of the millions of women for whom life doesn't seem to switch off when your head hits the pillow, this could be the women's health podcast. It's all about making you feel relaxed and comfortable within yourself. It features a mixture of calming orchestral and instrumental music, meditative talk by female voices, and prayers to help your confidence, balance, and positivity. All you need to do is put your chosen podcast on, set the sleep timer and see where the audio experience takes you. With hundreds to choose from in Sleep Meditation for Women, you can use a familiar one repeatedly or cycle through them, whichever you prefer.
8.Nothing much happens: bedtime stories to help you sleep
You might be someone who listens to horror stories, action yarns, or bodice-rippers to send you off to sleep. If so, move along – there's nothing to hear here. Nothing Much Happens describes these stories perfectly, as they can practically bore you to sleep. While that might sound a little unkind, it's what they were designed to do. Beautifully written and narrated by Kathryn Nicolai, they're everyday stories of life in the village of Nothing Much, where the mundane becomes the story's whole point. This podcast is the material that most great writers would edit to speed up the story, but not this great writer – it's all there in its everyday detail, and listening to it is like being wrapped in a warm, soft blanket.
We've all been there. Stuck with a proper bore at a dinner party. Heavy eyelids in the business meeting probably should have been an email but might have risked sending your computer into sleep mode. If only you could bottle that feeling and take a swig at night while lying in bed, wide awake. Well, in Sleep With Me, somebody has. You're invited to listen to someone describing the most inane things, whether they're talking about a TV show in minute detail or reading out the contents of a mail-order catalogue. If that doesn't send you off to sleep after the busiest of days, nothing will.
10.Sleepy
Too many of us struggle to sleep at night, and if the silence doesn't help, we'll often put on the radio, some music, or an audiobook to help us off. But usually, they are recorded to be stimulating – and that's the opposite of what you need at 1 o'clock in the morning. Here's an idea, though – excerpts of classic stories read by a narrator whose effort isn't focused on making the words sound exciting but to make them relax. Otis Gray has just the right kind of voice to do that, and his delivery is pitch-perfect for removing the stimulation that these famous stories are known for. Tuck yourself in, get comfy, and start listening to Sleepy. We bet you don't make it to the end.
11.Meditation Station Sleep Hypnosis
Meditation Station has racked up tens of thousands of subscribers on YouTube and is one of the most compelling examples of the self-hypnosis phenomenon. The downside of that medium is video-based, which means you might find it difficult to play just the audio, especially on the phone by your bed, without the screen on. That's why Mr. J Black now proudly uses Audible to host his meditations, and it's the perfect way to listen, eyes closed, to his words. There's a mix of targeted meditations (e.g., giving up smoking) and more general relaxation-based themes to listen to and send you entranced. This podcast is not one for driving or operating machinery.
12.Gutfull What to Eat for a Happy Gut
Dr. Joanna McMillan is a Ph.D. qualified dietitian, nutrition scientist, bestselling author, speaker, and TV presenter and has created this life-changing 10-part podcast to help get you and your diet back on track. Unlike many diet podcasts, this isn't just about weight loss or muscle building; it's about the holistic way your gut and your brain interact in what is still an emerging branch of scientific study. Under Dr. McMillan's guidance, you'll learn how what you eat affects everything, from your physical health to your moods and mental wellbeing. It's fascinating, educational, and inspiring – and you'll come out the other end of Gutfull a much better person. The science here is more compelling than the magazine nutritionists you've undoubtedly read in the past. It's the perfect first step toward self-care.
With 21 Days of Meditation, you'll learn all you need to know about this ancient technique for achieving oneness and cleaning your mind. The podcast will guide you through the various techniques that every beginner should pick up, from mantras to breathing exercises, so you're better placed to find the one that suits you and your goals. Finding those goals is perhaps the most essential part of meditation, and in these 21 practical sessions, you'll learn how to give purpose to your enhanced state of mind, which helps with every element of your life, especially your mental health. You'll be in a very different place by the end of the three weeks.
Wilderness therapy is the latest thing but also the oldest. After all, our ancestors lived in the wilderness, and that's how humans are programmed to live. It's easy to forget that we are not in nature, but we are, in fact, part of nature, just as much as the trees, the breeze, and the creatures that call it home. The 3-Day Effect podcast is in six parts and guides you through the way nature is helping to heal people with real-life traumas that they are trying to work through. It's an uplifting, inspiring, and perhaps even essential listen, which is almost guaranteed to have you putting that sandwich and apple in your backpack and heading off into the mountains, forests, and rivers that surround you.
15.Tip the Scales Introduction to Body Weight
Scientists can find it hard to communicate, and journalists can often be swept down rabbit holes of misinformation, and that's perhaps never as prevalent as in the world of diet. Fads, oversimplification, overcomplication, and downright mistruths colour the whole conversation. Enter Dr. Giles Yeo, a health expert from Cambridge University's Department of Clinical Biochemistry, and Olly Mann of LBC and BBC 5 Live, two major UK radio stations, who have had his struggles with weight. Together, they'll guide you through fact and fiction, with Mann's inquisitive nature being perfectly balanced by Yeo's scientific bedrock. In Tip the Scales: Introduction to Body Weight, you'll find out the root causes of unhealthy diets and which lifestyles do work. It's more than a fitness podcast — it's a journey to self-love and living your best life.
