Simplify

In this episode of Simplify, Caitlin asks Randolph Nesse why he believes that humans have evolved to experience hardships such as depression, anxiety and grief. As it turns out, while many of our most painful emotions often do not serve a proper function in our modern world, they may have a history that allowed for our ancestors to survive.  Randolph Nesse reveals the ways in which the fields of p...

Creating joy in your daily life is much simpler than you’d think. Ingrid Fetell Lee, joy researcher and former IDEO designer, reveals how in transforming our spaces, we also have the power to transform our wellbeing. Find out how color brought life back into a struggling city, how you might be able to cheer up a loved one in the hospital, and how to set up a meeting at work to bring more energy an...

We’ve got good news and bad news: depression might not be all in your head. In this episode of Simplify, journalist and two-time New York Times-bestselling author Johann Hari reveals the cultural causes of depression. Among them are loss of connection to meaningful work, a lack of meaningful relationships, lack of a future that makes sense, plus other factors both political and personal that can’t...

We kick off Season 6 of Simplify with  Susan Cain, author of Quiet, and introversion's biggest rockstar. You'll hear how introverts and extroverts react differently to stimulation, why introverts often end up overlooked, and where the glamour around extroversion came from in the first place.  Cain explains that giving introverts permission to be themselves not only makes them feel better, it can u...

In Season 6 of Simplify, we're going deep. Our authors and experts touch on how to harness joy from the world around us, why a lack of real human connection makes us depressed, and the evolutionary reasons we feel feelings in the first place. You'll hear from Susan Cain, Johann Hari, Sonya Renee Taylor, Ingrid Fetell Lee, and more.  If you haven’t subscribed, make sure to do so before the first ne...

Chris Hirst's new book, No Bullshit Leadership , just hit stores. In it, the CEO of Havas Creative shares his jargon-free, straightforward approach to leadership, developed through years of hands-on experience with cutting the crap to get good work done. In this episode of Simplify Spotlight, Chris Hirst illuminates some things about leadership that you might think you already know, but don't—like...

Big news: Simplify's been nominated for a Webby Award—the internet’s most coveted prize, or the "Emmies of the Internet." Currently, we're in third place and you, dear listeners, can help us win by voting here: https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2019/podcasts/general-podcasts/health-wellness We're in the running for the Best Health & Wellness Podcast, pitted against huge shows like Dan...

Self? Help! is the new podcast out of Blinkist. Host Terence Mickey, Moth Storyteller and creator of Memory Motel, goes deep with people about the books that sparked their life-changing realizations. In season one you’ll hear five bestselling NYT authors—Johann Hari, Paula McLain, and Eli Finkel, to name a few—tell the stories of that moment when they asked themselves who am I? How did I get here?...

Picture a person who uses cannabis regularly. Did you imagine an Olympic medal-winning athlete, or a successful entrepreneur? Or did you think of someone who fits the standard stoner stereotype? If, like most people, you conjured up the latter, then today’s episode of Simplify might challenge some of your assumptions about what cannabis-use looks like, and what it’s used for. In this episode, Cait...

What does whiteness mean? If you're a white person, the occasions on which you've thought about it might be few. If you're a person of color, the time you spend reckoning with its meaning & consequences are likely far too many. Today's episode of Simplify is an invitation to grapple with what white means in the world, and how to have more generative, revelation-ready mindsets and conversations...

Coach & writer Jen Sincero tried every self-help technique out there, then condensed the most powerful practices into one straight-talking bestseller that thousands have used to kickstart their lives. Listen in as Sincero takes you through how to bust your own self-defeating beliefs to become the badass you’ve always known you are. Sincero, author of bestselling book You Are a Badass talks wit...

If you've got a pulse and like eating food, you've likely either been on a diet, or felt obligated to start one. Yet the fact remains that diets, in the traditional cut-and-count-calories format, rarely work long term. That's where Melissa Hartwig Urban comes in. On this episode of Simplify, the co-creator of nutrition phenomenon The Whole30 talks with Caitlin about how to get free of diets foreve...

The turning point came for Ayelet Waldman when she found herself frozen before her medicine cabinet, wondering "what's going to kill me fastest?" She knew it was time to try a new tactic to improve her mental health. In this episode, hear this bestselling nonfiction author (who also happens to be a mother, a wife, and a novelist) describe her experience with microdosing LSD and how it improved her...

Do your negative thoughts race faster than Usain Bolt? Do you wish you were calmer, kinder, or more focused? Would you like to meditate, but just don’t think you have time? If you answered yes, then this episode of Simplify is for you. Dan Harris might be best known for his reporting on ABC News, Nightline, and the weekend edition of Good Morning America, but in recent years, this hard-nosed newsm...

In season 5, you’ll learn how easy meditation can be with Dan Harris, how to change your self-defeating beliefs with Jen Sincero, and how to talk about race with Robin DiAngelo. You'll also hear what it's like to microdose LSD for a month and learn the surprising ways a little bit of cannabis can improve your health. If you haven’t subscribed, make sure to do so before the first new episode drops...

If a friend of yours needed to hear an unpleasant truth, would you tell it to them? Or would you gloss over it in order to avoid an uncomfortable conversation? Many of us would probably opt for the latter to avoid hurting someone’s feelings, but sometimes loving criticism is necessary to make people understand that they deserve better — and are capable of achieving it. In conversation with Caitlin...

Effective collaboration, innovative thinking, and constructive problem-solving can be major struggles for many teams, regardless of industry. But for those who really want to fix these issues, it’s time to look beyond how other companies work and turn to improv comedy ensembles for inspiration. After all, they’ve literally taken teamwork and turned it into an art form. Reflecting on years of exper...

Nothing hurts worse than heartbreak. Whether it’s the painful end of relationship or the passing away of a beloved pet, grief and emotional suffering can quickly become all-consuming. And that’s where we blame ourselves and feel guilty for our inability to overcome emotional pain fast enough. Moreover, as psychologist Guy Winch shows, when going through a breakup, it’s not just our mental health t...

Do you consider yourself a night owl or are you a morning person? Regardless of whether you love mornings or not, we all want to make best of them. Everybody has those few things––that certain morning ritual––that if they don't do it, their whole day is ruined. But what’s the best way to start your day off right? Benjamin Spall and his co-author, Michael Xander, have spent five years studying morn...

How much of your life do you spend pleasing those around you? Maybe it’s time to be honest with yourself, invest time in the things that really matter, and start weeding out unnecessary obligations to people you don’t really like. But how exactly are you supposed to do that? In this episode of Simplify, Sarah Knight will help you start a process of mental decluttering and show you how to develop y...

We all like to buy stuff. Endless ads screaming “sale,” “discount," and “free” trick us into believing that we want things that we don’t actually need. In an age of credit cards, Paypal, Venmo, and Apple pay, it has become incredibly easy to spend our hard-earned sheckles and tough to save them. In this episode of Simplify, behavioral economist and cognitive psychologist Dan Ariely explains what’s...

In the first episode of Season 4, Caitlin talks with Cheryl Strayed about how tending to humanity’s toughest quandaries has become her calling, and the three central questions that keep us all up at night. Through years of listening deeply and sensitively to others’ experiences as well as her own, Strayed has unlocked what makes a good advice-giver and friend: sincerity, listening without judging,...

Simplify season 4 launches on August 23rd with an episode featuring bestselling author, memoirist, and internet legend, Cheryl Strayed. This first episode is one of our favorites yet, but as you'll hear in the trailer, there's much more to come. If you want to say hi to Ben and Caitlin before the season really kicks into gear, you can find them on Twitter: @bsto and @CaitlinSchiller . See you next...

Feel like there's never enough time in the day? Then this episode is for you. In this very first Spotlight episode of Simplify, time-management expert Laura Vanderkam offers surprising ideas from her new book Off The Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done to help you overhaul your relationship with time. Here, she tells Emily Phillips about how committing to more activities—not fewer—is the...

Are you slavishly devoted to your to-do list, rushing around to fit every vacant area of time to a task? In this day and age, most of us are—and it's doing no favors to our creativity, our minds, and our very humanity. Something's got to give, and Alan Lightman has a plan. Or, rather, a lack of one. And that's perfect. In this episode of Simplify, the MIT professor, scientist and novelist offers a...