My top 5 podcast recommendations

Recently I’ve become somewhat of a podcast junkie. Like reading, which is another addiction of mine, there are not enough hours in the day to listen to the many and varied podcasts out there. But I try! I squeeze them in whenever I can – on my daily walks, in the car, and when I am cleaning the house, although this happens rather infrequently!

I have favourite podcasts that I listen to every time a new episode lands. These include Mamamia Out Loud, No Filter and usually a true crime podcast (Who the Hell is Hamish, The lady who vanished & Phoebe’s Fall, to name a mere few!) And then I have ones that I dip in and out of, depending on the topics (Conversations, Andrew Denton). In this blog post I want to share some of my favourite podcast episodes. I enjoy podcasts on a wide range of genres (true crime, health & wellness, social media, business and parenting). This list is by no means exhaustive, or in any particular order, but here are my top five podcast recommendations. 

1. Anxiety: Mia Freeman No Filter

In this insightful episode, Mia Freeman interviews anxiety specialist, Dr Jodie Lowinger, founder of the Sydney Anxiety Clinic. If you are parenting a child with anxiety or you suffer from anxiety yourself, or someone you love is dealing with anxiety, this is the episode for you. Mia Freeman speaks candidly about her ongoing struggles with anxiety and together with Jodie they unpack the many presentations of anxiety, what causes it and, more importantly, what can be done to treat it. And the good news is there are lots of really effective treatment options. I found it both incredibly interesting and incredibly helpful. “To say ‘don’t worry’ is going against what our brain does. Our brain will worry. We will have thoughts. But it’s changing our relationship with those thoughts and it’s picking and choosing which thoughts we listen to and which thoughts we stand up to.”  Jodie offers advice on “quietening” the mind, addresses body image concerns, perfectionism and the lovely state of being “perfectly imperfect.” I could not have loved this episode more and it has given me skills to help not only myself but also my daughter who suffers from anxiety.

2. John Gottman: Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

John Gottman is an American psychological researcher, and award-winning author and co-founder of The Gottman Institute. In this episode John sits down with Dax to discuss his many decades of research into relationships and predicting marital success. I found it fascinating. I am deeply interested in the psychology behind how we behave in long-term relationships and what are the “key ingredients” to an enduring, respectful and successful partnership. But they discuss a lot more than just relationship advice. John talks about how having a daughter turned him into an instant feminist and the two of them discuss the crucial role a father plays in his children’s lives. It’s a long interview, but it’s not heavy. They share many laughs while tacking some really deep and important issues. Dax is really open about his past and present relationships and it’s quite simply, fascinating.

3. Steve Biddulph on the crisis facing girls: The Juggling Act

OK, so it’s pretty self-explanatory while I inhaled this episode as soon as it landed in my podcast feed. As a mum to FOUR girls I am pretty heavily invested in the current state of raising girls in the 21st century. And there’s no one more qualified to talk on this subject than Steve Biddulph. But while the episode was fascinating, it was deeply troubling. I must admit to feeling quite deflated afterwards, and possibly more worried than ever before. Steve talks about some pretty worrying facts and data. In short, our girls are in trouble and we need to be ready to help them out of the myriad of complicated scenarios modern girls face. Social media is just one of the culprits and the research around this is depressing. But he does offer some really great tips on how to stay connected with our girls as they navigate the rocky road of adolescents. He suggests that girls have lost FOUR years of childhood. So nowadays a 12-year-old girl is really a 16-year-old girl. It’s worrying. But if you are raising girls, In highly recommend you listening to it. This is a short interview, so it’ll be easy to squeeze into your day.

4 How the iPhone rewrote the teenage brain: Conversations.

This isn’t going to an easy listen as the evidence presented is very troubling, but it is SUCH an important topic. It doesn’t matter if you’re raising boys or if you’re raising girls, you have to listen to this episode. In this rather sobering interview, peppered with humour and insight, David Gillespie talks about how Fortnight and Instagram are altering the neural pathways of a generation. Now that may sound scientific and even perhaps a bit alarmist, but this is a real problem facing our young people and digital addiction is on the rise. David talks about how boys tend to seek danger porn (Fortnight and the like) and girl seek “approval porn” (social media likes are their currency). It’s troubling, for sure, but I’d rather be armed with all the knowledge so I can put barriers in place to ensure my kids use technology and social media safely.

5. How emotional labour makes women feel exhausted

This brilliant episode had me nodding my head the whole way along. The wonderful and articulate author, Gemma Hartley, joins Mia Freeman to discuss how a woman’s work is never done. Whether she’s at home or in the office, there’s a whole layer of labour done predominantly by women that most men can’t even see. Sound familiar? I know many mums will relate and I wrote about it myself in this piece about mothering fatigue.

Emotional labour is being the person who notices problems, delegates solutions and makes sure life goes smoothly for everyone around her. This work is invisible and exhausting at the same time. A couple of years ago Gemma Hartley wrote an essay about emotional labour after a particularly disastrous Mother’s Day. It went viral and it led to her writing a whole book on the subject – Gemma’s book is called Fed Up and after listening to this episode I can’t wait to read it.

Now, you may be looking at this list thinking it all looks rather heavy. You haven’t seen my true crime list yet! But these are really important topics and each of these interviews is presented in an easy-to digest way.

So, tell me, what are you listening to? Hit me with your favourite podcasts below. I love discovering more.