Physical Illness

At 49 years old, Chris Garrido weighed 440 pounds, battled type 2 diabetes, and quietly feared he wouldn’t live long enough to see his sons graduate high school. After the devastating loss of his father, Chris faced a hard truth: no one was coming to save him. If he wanted to live, he had to change.

We often associate beautiful memories with nature sounds. Together with relaxation music in 432Hz, these gradually have the effect of lowering blood pressure, breathing becomes more even and thus lead body and mind into a beneficial relaxation. The sounds of nature affect our body in many different ways: they bring us to rest, gradually reduce stress in everyday life, bring us to beautiful thoughts and we can let go of the day's events.

The most fatal virus known to science, rabies kills nearly 100 percent of its victims once the infection takes root in the brain. From Greek myths to zombie flicks, from the laboratory heroics of Louis Pasteur to the contemporary search for a lifesaving treatment, Rabid is a fresh, fascinating, and often wildly entertaining look at one of mankind’s oldest and most fearsome foes.

Meditation makes you more productive because it lets you earn back time. For each minute you spend meditating, you'll earn around nine minutes back, as Chris Bailey - author of The Productivity Project and Hyperfocus - will show in this candid and counter-intuitive guide to the productivity benefits of meditation.

Dream Constellation is an all-night-long soundscape created by sound therapy composer Rich Lucano. Composed to cocoon you in ambient soundscapes and gentle orchestral waves, specially designed to help you relax, fall asleep and stay asleep. Press play to take a gentle sonic journey through the stars.

Film and TV star Keke Palmer tenderly shares the Ojibwe folk tale of the first dreamcatcher and shows how its message of our connection to the natural world persists to this day. Bedtime stories are narrated by the world’s most celebrated voices and written with no beginning, middle, or end so you don’t stay up to hear what happens next. They're interesting enough to give your mind something to focus on, but delivered in a way that encourages sleep.

Unlike canned nature sounds created in a studio, renowned acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton travels the world recording remarkable locations that capture the essence of the place itself. His lifelong mission is to preserve nature through sound, and his soundscapes are produced with such care and quality that you feel as if he has truly brought a slice of the world into your home...

Many know Kimberly Williams-Paisley as the bride in the popular Steve Martin remakes of the Father of the Bride movies, the calculating Peggy Kenter on Nashville, or the wife of country megastar Brad Paisley. But in 2014, Williams-Paisley revealed a tragic secret: Her mother had been diagnosed with a rare form of dementia called primary progressive aphasia at the age of 61.

Sloths are the slowest mammals on earth. They can hardly see. They live in rainforests among jaguars, pumas, and countless other predators. Yet they survive. And they do it by being so incredibly slow, and living a life covered in algae. In this episode, we hang with a sloth in the jungle of Costa Rica as he spends a month digesting one single leaf, and we see the symbiosis and collaboration that surrounds him.

Welcome to our voyage of discovery. In this series we’ll be travelling to many hard to reach places. Some hidden from view entirely: deep waters, high skies, the vastness of space. We’ll fly with a bee across a summer meadow all the way into her hive. Dive deep into the ocean to visit the miraculous Black Smokers. And we’ll even travel on the inside of a water molecule before it turns into a hailstone. We’re on an extraordinary audio journey of imagination – to learn something fascinating about our world and gently relax or fall asleep along the way.

In Anyway You Can, Dr. Bosworth shares her "accidental" discovery of ketosis and its wide array of health benefits as she supplemented her mom's chemotherapy with ketones. Her story of courage, faith, and tenacity helps young and old achieve better physical, mental, and emotional health through ketosis.

Despite the rosy picture painted in the ads of a miracle cure for high cholesterol and its attendant heart disease, the reality of taking statins may be far less pretty. Dr. Barbara H. Roberts, director of the Women’s Cardiac Center at the Miriam Hospital in Rhode Island, discusses both the benefits and health risks of these popular drugs in this comprehensive guide that finally reveals the questionable science behind the research studies. This honest, patient-friendly appraisal of the most widely used medications in the world may shock you, but it may also save your life.

Dream Serenade is an all-night-long soundscape created by sound therapy composer Rich Lucano. Composed to cocoon you in ambient soundscapes and gentle orchestral waves, specially designed to help you relax, fall asleep and stay asleep. Press play to take a gentle sonic journey that will serenade you to sleep.

A political journalist and activist, Cousins was also a professor of medical humanities at UCLA, where he studied the biochemistry of human emotions and their relationship to healing. When Cousins was hospitalized with a debilitating collagen illness, he decided to take his health into his own hands. Cousins and his doctor combated the disease together by creating a regimen of laughter and vitamin C specifically calibrated to his needs. Against all odds, the treatment worked, proving to Cousins that a positive attitude was key to his improvement.

Chronic illness creates many challenges, from career crises and relationship issues to struggles with self-blame, personal identity, and isolation. Beloved author Toni Bernhard addresses these challenges and many more, using practical examples to illustrate how mindfulness, equanimity, and compassion can help listeners make peace with a life turned upside down. In her characteristic conversational style, Bernhard shows how to cope and make the most of life despite the challenges of chronic illness.

Kelly Bouldin Darmofal suffered a severe TBI in 1992; currently, she holds a Masters in Special Education from Salem College, NC. Her memoir, Lost in My Mind: Recovering from Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), tells her story of tragedy and triumph. Kelly will be teaching "TBI: An Overview for Educators" at Salem College. Kelly's "tips" were learned during two decades of recovery and perseverance.

Do you struggle to Sleep Sound? Let Australian musician and swimmer Cody Simpson take you on a journey towards sleep. Featuring a selection of soothing visualisations and immersive soundscapes inspired by the meditative beauty of water. Settle into a comfortable position, relax your body and let the soundscapes wash over you as you escape to sleep.

In this provocative book, Keppe shows how the keystone of mental, physical and social illness is our unconscious resistance to goodness, truth and beauty, and as a result, a battle is waged both within us and against others. Richly demonstrated with examples taken from more than 30 years of clinical research, Keppe uncovers the real reasons we undermine our health, stifle our talents and sabotage our success.

Crows have long been the subject of folklore, likely because they’re strikingly similar to humans, leading lives rich in personality, intelligence, and relationships. In this episode, we fly the streets of Seattle with a crow as she grooms her mate, delivers what appears to be a gift, and finally commutes miles away from her territory to gather and chat with thousands of other crows before it’s time to roost for the night.

Are you exhausted from restless nights, your mind racing with endless thoughts, and stress weighing you down? Do you lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, desperately wishing for sleep to come—only to wake up feeling just as drained as the night before?