We’ve selected three great podcasts to kickstart your year with happiness and calm!
by Julia Migné
Looking for a way to start the year with some good vibes and new happiness habits? Look no further, we’ve got you covered.
Whether you are sitting comfortably at home or you’re stuck in traffic heading to work, just plug your headphones, turn Spotify on and get ready to be inspired and entertained by these three podcasts.
1. Happier – Gretchen Rubin and Elizabeth Craft
Happier is like a ray of sunshine delivered to your ears twice a week. This podcast is hosted by an energic duo composed of Gretchen Rubin, the author of several New York Times bestsellers including The Happiness Project and The Four Tendencies, and her sister, American television screenwriter and producer, Elizabeth Craft.
Every Monday Gretchen provides her listeners with Little Happier, a two to three minutes dose of inspiration to kickstart the week. The longer version of the podcast then comes out on Wednesdays and the two sisters share manageable advice about happiness and good habits.
Full of useful ‘happiness hacks’, the podcast also offers the listeners the opportunity to share their own tips.
The dynamic duo ends the podcast by giving themselves ‘demerits’ or ‘gold stars’ reflecting on what they have achieved or failed at achieving in relationship to their happiness goals.
Fun to listen to, this podcast will make you want to start your own happiness project to put all those useful hacks into practice.
2. By The Book – Jolenta Greenberg and Kristen Meinzer
Half reality-show and half-self help, By The Book is a hilarious podcast hosted by comedian Jolenta Greenberg and award-winning host and commentator Kristen Meinzer.
The concept came to life when Jolenta decided to change her life by living by self-help books and she convinced her down-to-earth friend Kristen to follow her on her quest so that they could discuss their experiences.
From The Secret to Pantsdrunk, the two New-York based friends have already gone through a variety of self-help books. For each book they read and consequently live by, they distil the key message into a set of rules and follow them for two weeks straight.
Recording audio diaries of themselves and their husbands, they then report back on what the experience was like and what they loved/hated about the book.
They don’t hold back when it comes to reporting sexism, privileges and the fact that many self-help authors seem to be ‘straight white men’.
Funny and insightful, this podcast will make you laugh out loud while summarising the principles of bestselling self-help books and it might even make you want to live by some of them!
3. Happy Place – Fearne Cotton
Hosted by English radio presenter and writer, Fearne Cotton, Happy Place will give you a warm feeling and will make you want to wrap yourself in a blanket with a hot chocolate in hand.
The series is a collection of in-depth interviews with people ranging from world-famous artists such as Melanie C to English fashion consultant Gok Wan.
The discussions taking place during the podcast are focused on mental health issues and are an important reminder that depression, anxiety and eating disorders can affect anyone.
Fearne is a brilliant interviewer and gets people to share how they take care of their mental health in a very relatable way no matter how famous the person being interviewed is.
Listen to this podcast if you want to get tips on how to take care of your mental health and also discover a different side of the story of various celebrities.
Julia Migné is a multimedia journalist and wildlife photographer specialising in environmental issues and odd hobbies. She has written for Africa Geographic and BBC Wildlife among others. An endless traveller, she swears that she would visit one country for each letter of the alphabet.