Health is Everything™

Unmuted: Burnout, Boundaries, and the Power of Saying Yes

Thu, 03 Apr 2025 09:00:00 -0400

What if burnout isn’t a personal failure—but a signal that something deeper is asking to be heard? In this powerful episode, Dr. Charles Raison sits down with Rachel Druckenmiller, a nationally recognized keynote speaker, and workplace wellness expert, for a raw and energizing conversation about what it means to unmute yourself—learning to speak up, show up, and live more fully aligned with who you really are.

Rachel shares her deeply personal story of going from a shy, rule-following child to becoming a dynamic speaker helping others find their voice. Along the way, she opens up about the irony of burning out while leading wellness initiatives—and the inner excavation that helped her reimagine success, purpose, and worth.

Together, Charles and Rachel unpack the deeper roots of workplace burnout, why so many wellness programs fall short, and how small but meaningful conversations can create psychological safety and re-humanize the workplace. Rachel also introduces actionable tools—from the “rose reflection” to the “immunity to change” process—that help people challenge perfectionism, rewire limiting beliefs, and step more fully into their potential.

Whether you're a leader, a people-helper, or simply someone trying to balance purpose and pressure, this episode is full of insight, empathy, and inspiration. Get ready to rethink burnout—not just as something to fix, but as something that, when listened to, can lead to a more honest, fulfilling way of living and working.

Featuring:

Rachel Druckenmiller: keynote speaker and wellness expert on "unmuting yourself" to speak up and live authentically.

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

About Emory University's Center for the Study of Human Health:

The Emory Center for the Study of Human Health was developed to expand health knowledge and translate this knowledge to all aspects of life – for the individual and populations as a whole. The Center assembles the extraordinary faculty, researchers and thought leaders from across disciplines, departments, schools and institutions to bring this knowledge to Emory University students and inspire them to become leaders for the next generation in meeting challenges facing human health.

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Blog: Exploring Health
Facebook: @EmoryCSHH
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Twitter: @EmoryCSHH

Psychedelics and the Future of Mental Health: Science, Faith, Hype and Healthcare Innovation with Fayzan Rab

Fri, 07 Feb 2025 10:00:00 -0500

What happens when the worlds of technology, medicine, and spirituality collide? In this fascinating episode, Dr. Charles Raison sits down with Fayzan Rab, a former Silicon Valley tech professional turned medical student and researcher, to explore how psychedelics are reshaping mental health as well as our understanding of the role of spiritual experience in mental health more generally. Fayzan shares his personal journey from being a Google product manager to becoming a key member of Emory University's Center for Psychedelics and Spirituality.

The conversation dives deep into groundbreaking research on how psychedelics can transform not only the mental health care of individuals but entire models of care. We discuss a recent paper written by Fayzan that uses advanced health economics strategies to show that many millions of Americans with major depression might be able to benefit from psychedelic-based treatments, should such treatments be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. We then discuss studies involving cancer patients and group therapy dynamics, during which Fayzan offers insights into what these models may tell us about creating scalable, accessible treatments. He also reveals his passion project: understanding how psychedelics are perceived in the Muslim community—an area previously untouched by research—and how these experiences are prompting deep questions about faith and identity.

We then tackle the growing trend of CEOs and entrepreneurs using psychedelics for personal and professional breakthroughs. Is it all hype, or is there genuine potential for innovation and healing? Fayzan hints at upcoming studies to get real answers, bringing scientific rigor to a space often dominated by anecdotes and media buzz.

If you're curious about how psychedelics are poised to influence medicine, spirituality, and even the business world, this conversation is not one to miss. Expect surprising insights, heartfelt stories, and a fresh look at how ancient practices are finding new relevance today.

Featuring:

Fayzan Rab, a former Silicon Valley tech professional turned medical student and researcher

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Exploring Consciousness with Christof Koch, PhD: The Mystery of the Mind

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 11:00:00 -0500

In this thought-provoking podcast, Christof Koch, Chief Scientist at the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, delves into one of humanity's most profound questions: What is consciousness, and where does it come from? With decades of experience studying the brain's mysteries, Koch offers insights into why consciousness is central to our existence and why understanding it is so challenging.

Koch explains that consciousness encompasses everything we feel, think, and perceive—it’s the very essence of being. Yet, science struggles to explain how physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experiences. He discusses historical and modern theories, including Integrated Information Theory (IIT), which posits that consciousness emerges from the brain's complex connectivity and its ability to process information holistically.

The conversation also touches on the ethical implications of artificial intelligence. As machines become more intelligent and capable of mimicking human behavior, Koch cautions that they lack consciousness—the ability to "feel" or "be." This raises concerns about how we interact with increasingly human-like AI and the moral dilemmas of attributing consciousness to machines.

Koch reflects on his collaborations with prominent scientists, including Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA's structure, to pioneer the search for the neural correlates of consciousness. He describes groundbreaking experiments and the ongoing quest to map how specific brain regions generate conscious experiences.

The podcast concludes with a discussion of the future—whether AI could ever achieve consciousness and how our understanding of the brain might evolve. Koch’s message is clear: while consciousness remains a mystery, exploring it brings us closer to understanding what it means to be truly human.

Featuring:

Christof Koch, Chief Scientist at the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Dr. Mandy Bekhbat: Immune System, Metabolism, and Depression

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 17:00:00 -0500

How Your Immune System and Metabolism Shape Depression with Dr. Mandy Bekhbat

In this episode, Dr. Mandy Bekhbat, a neuroscientist and assistant professor in the Emory University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, takes us on a deep dive into the surprising relationship between the immune system, metabolism, and mental health. Her groundbreaking research is reshaping how we think about depression by exploring how these interconnected systems influence our mood, energy, and overall wellbeing.

Dr. Bekhbat explains how psychological stress can trigger chronic, low-grade inflammation, even in individuals without infections or medical conditions. This inflammation doesn’t just affect the body—it has profound effects on the brain. When coupled with metabolic disturbances, such as obesity or energy imbalances, it creates a perfect storm that can lead to a unique subtype of depression called “immunometabolic depression.” People with this condition often experience fatigue, increased appetite, slowed movement, and diminished motivation, driven by disruptions in how their immune cells and brain handle energy.

The podcast explores cutting-edge insights into how immune cells “consume” energy differently during inflammation, resembling metabolic patterns seen in cancer cells. These discoveries open up exciting new possibilities for treatment, from targeting immune cell metabolism with therapies borrowed from cancer research to lifestyle interventions like fasting or ketogenic diets, which naturally shift the body’s metabolic processes.

Key Takeaways:

The Immune-Metabolism Connection: The immune system and metabolism are deeply intertwined, influencing how stress, energy, and inflammation affect mental health.
A Unique Depression Subtype: Immunometabolic depression highlights the role of inflammation and metabolic issues in driving symptoms like fatigue and overeating.
Promising Treatments: Therapies that recalibrate immune cell metabolism, alongside lifestyle strategies like fasting, could revolutionize mental health care.

Join this fascinating conversation to learn how these discoveries are unlocking new approaches to treating depression and improving overall mental health.

Featuring:

Dr. Mandy Bekhbat, a neuroscientist and assistant professor in the Emory University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Roman Palitsky: The Risks of Meditation and Psychedelics

Mon, 28 Oct 2024 15:00:00 -0400

Exploring The Often Under-Appreciated Risks of Meditation and Psychedelics: a Conversation with Roman Palitsky, PhD

In this episode, Dr. Roman Palitsky, a clinical psychologist and Director of Research Projects for Emory Spiritual Health, dives deep into the complex interplay between spirituality, meditation, and mental health. Drawing from his extensive research, Palitsky highlights the lesser-known risks of meditation and psychedelics—two practices often celebrated for their transformative benefits but rarely discussed for their potential challenges.

Dr. Palitsky's journey into this field began with a fellowship to study mystics in India, where he noticed that meditation was approached more cautiously in its original cultural context than it is in the West. This observation sparked his ongoing exploration into the risks associated with meditation, which he pursued further during a post-doctoral fellowship at Brown University. There, he analyzed data from the Varieties of Contemplative Experience Study, uncovering that some meditators experience adverse effects like heightened anxiety, panic attacks, and dissociative symptoms. These challenges, he notes, can disrupt daily functioning and may require individuals to seek professional help or pause their practice.

Building on this work, Dr. Palitsky has expanded his focus to the risks associated with psychedelics, another spiritual tool that carries both profound benefits and potential pitfalls. While recognizing the tremendous therapeutic potential of these agents, he emphasizes the importance of recognizing the spiritual and existential risks these substances can pose. Palitsky and the team at Emory's Center for Psychedelics and Spirituality are working on new frameworks to assess and manage these risks, aiming to make psychedelic therapies safer and more effective.

This conversation is essential listening for anyone interested in the deeper, more nuanced aspects of meditation and psychedelics.

Featuring:

Dr. Roman Palitsky, a clinical psychologist and Director of Research Projects for Emory Spiritual Health

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Glenn Auerbach: In Search of Good Sauna

Fri, 06 Sep 2024 10:00:00 -0400

In Search of Good Sauna: Heat, Tradition and Connection, with Glenn Auerbach, Founder and Editor of Sauna Times

Heat is really having a moment. And not just heat, but cold, too. Saunas and cold plunges, sweat lodges, and swimming in freezing oceans. Infrared home saunas and cold showers. In the last year, all of these and more have been featured in every conceivable form of media. Why the sudden fad?

While there is likely more than one answer to this question, a major reason for the popularity of exposure to heat and cold is the purported health benefits of these practices, everything from treating depression to reducing the risk of developing dementia or dying of a heart attack. Unlike many flash-in-the-pan health fads, data supports these claims. Not that heat or cold treatments will solve all our health problems, but they actually do appear to hold promise as a means of enhancing mental and physical health.

As more and more of us either contemplate or actually begin to expose ourselves to hot and cold therapies, the question of how to optimally do this becomes increasingly relevant. That is where this podcast comes in. Today we speak with Glenn Auerbach, Founder and Publisher of SaunaTimes.com and a leading expert on what makes for “good sauna”. He joins us to explore the question of what are the elements that make the traditional use of heat and cold as emotionally and physically effective as possible?

Featuring:

Glenn Auerbach, Founder and Editor of Sauna Times

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Dr. Ira Bedzow: Life on Purpose

Thu, 11 Apr 2024 09:00:00 -0400

Life on Purpose: Insights on well-being and education from Ira Bedzow, PhD, Executive Director of the Emory Purpose Project

Purpose and meaning are foundational to any definition of the good life. They are also a trendy topic these days. Like all trendy topics, they risk being trivialized by our intense hunger for easy answers to life’s difficulties. Enter Ira Bedzow, PhD, Executive Director of the Emory Purpose Project, one of the signature elements of the University’s Student Flourishing Initiative. In this podcast, Dr. Bedzow provides an inspiring, holistic, and challenging take on how to bring the power of purpose into our lives and educational systems. We learn that purpose starts not with answers but rather with questions that help identify our deeper, unique motivations for doing what we want to do in life and whether our chosen goals actually satisfy these motivations. We discuss purpose as one’s self-defined long-term life intention that is both meaningful and impactful, that will guide one’s decisions, behavior, and goals, that will provide a sense of direction, and help infuse life with a sense of meaning. This definition points to the fact that purpose, properly understood, is integral to all aspects of human life, including education. This perspective has pragmatic implications for college education that form the bedrock of the Emory Purpose Project. Rather than seeing purpose as an add-on that can be cordoned off into a separate class, Dr. Bedzow outlines a vision that seeks to infuse purpose-based analyses and perspectives into the entire spectrum of university disciplines.

In addition to his role as Executive Director of the Emory Purpose Project, Ira Bedzow is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine, a core faculty member of Emory’s Center for Ethics, a senior fellow in the Center for the Study of Law and Religion, and the unit head of the International Chair in Bioethics at Emory University.

Featuring:

Ira Bedzow, PhD, Executive Director of the Emory Purpose Project

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Dr. Chantelle Thomas: Sanity in the Wild New World of Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy

Tue, 20 Feb 2024 09:00:00 -0500

Sanity in the Wild New World of Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy

The buzz about psychedelics is everywhere these days, especially in the mental health space, where these compounds are being hailed as the greatest potential therapeutic breakthrough of the last 50 years. What was once elemental to the hippie movement of the 60s and then stigmatized and forgotten is now all over the news. Billions of dollars have flowed into companies wanting to cash in on the financial potential of new miracle cures for mental illness. The drive to get psychedelics into use is so intense that states are beginning to bypass the rigamarole of FDA approval and are directly legalizing psychedelics for both personal betterment and to treat the current epidemic of mental illness that is afflicting the United States. And eager not to be left out, clinicians of all stripes are paying significant fees to receive training in “psychedelic-assisted therapy” even though none of the extant programs—of which there are many—can in any way guarantee that program completion will be of any practical import whatsoever in either FDA approved or legalized psychedelic treatment contexts.

Into this heady mix comes Chantelle Thomas, PhD, Executive Director of Windrose Recovery & Integrata, a substance abuse program that uses ketamine-assisted therapy as a strategy for helping individuals recover from drug and alcohol use disorders. In addition to her many years of working with ketamine as a psychedelic agent, Dr. Thomas has spent the last 10 years delivering psychedelic-assisted therapy in the context of clinical trials of both psilocybin and MDMA. Most recently she has taken a leadership role in psychedelic assisted training programs sponsored by Usona Institute, a non-profit medical research organization conducting studies that if positive will support a “new drug indication” from the FDA for psilocybin as a novel treatment for major depression.

This podcast will be of huge interest to anyone who wants to get an insider’s view of the current psychedelic world in general and the risks, challenges, and deep satisfactions that can come from working with psychedelics in a therapeutic context in particular. You will never look at psychedelics the same after listening to our discussion with Dr. Thomas. And for more from Dr. Thomas, check out her podcast at: https://windroserecovery.com/podcast/

Featuring:

Chantelle Thomas, PhD, Executive Director of Windrose Recovery & Integrata

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Dr. Sue Carter: Oxytocin the Human Hormone: A Report from a Life in Science

Tue, 19 Dec 2023 09:00:00 -0500

Oxytocin the Human Hormone: A Report from a Life in Science

If you are not holding the hormone oxytocin in the highest regard now, you will after listening to this episode’s guest, Sue Carter, PhD, as she explains how this remarkable hormone may hold the key to much of what makes us who we are. In particular, Dr. Carter describes the myriad ways that oxytocin allows humans to feel safe enough in the world and with each other to engage in the many types of bonding/sharing behaviors that have allowed us to create the world in which we live. The science is fascinating and highly relevant to our health and well-being, but in this podcast, Dr. Carter reaches further into our shared humanity to tell the tale of how she discovered the power of oxytocin when she was given the hormone to help induce labor during her first pregnancy and how her body’s intense response to the hormone made her realize how little medical uses to induce labor captured the more profound aspects of oxytocin’s effects on the human brain and body. From that beginning, Dr. Carter describes how she overcame many of the challenges that she faced and that women devoted to a career in science continue to face.

Dr. Carter is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia and a Distinguished Research Scientist and Rudy Professor Emerita of Biology at Indiana University. She has held Professorships at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Maryland, College Park (where she was a Distinguished University Professor), and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Between 2014 and 2019 she was the Executive Director of the Kinsey Institute. Dr. Carter’s research was integral to discovering the relationship between social behavior and oxytocin. She was the first person to detect and define the endocrinology of social bonds through her research on the socially monogamous, prairie vole. These findings helped lay the foundation for ongoing studies of the behavioral and developmental effects of oxytocin and vasopressin and a deeper appreciation for the biological importance of relationships in human health and well-being.

Featuring:

Dr. Sue Carter, Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia, Distinguished Research Scientist and Rudy Professor Emerita of Biology at Indiana University

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Dr. Don Noble: Part 2 - Want to Change Your Life? Take a Breath

Mon, 23 Oct 2023 13:00:00 -0400

Want to Change Your Life? Take a Breath, Part 2

This conversation between host Charles L. Raison and Donald J. Noble, PhD, picks up where the first part of this series left off by extending our discussion of the potential health benefits of breathing into more esoteric domains. We explore breathholding and its role in advanced Tibetan Buddhist meditation practices before turning to a discussion of the psychedelic effects of rapid breathing, especially as exemplified by holotropic breathwork, a practice that reliably induces experiences akin to those occasioned by drugs such as LSD or psilocybin. Finally, we return to Dr. Noble’s primary area of research, which is the health benefits and neurological effects of slow deep breathing. We conclude by pondering the possibility that spiritual practices such as chanting, saying the rosary, and repeating mantras may function to entrain the brain in ways that promote neuroplasticity and thereby enhance brain health and emotional well-being.

This episode is Part 2 in a two-part series.

Featuring:

Dr. Don Noble, Instructor at Emory University's Center for the Study of Human Health

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Chris Lindley: How One Valley Changed the Equation

Tue, 12 Sep 2023 10:00:00 -0400

How One Valley Changed the Equation: A Roadmap for Transforming Behavioral Healthcare in the United States

It’s no secret that the United States is in the midst of a mental health crisis. There are a number of reasons why this is occurring, but none is more important than the fact that good mental health care is often somewhere between difficult and impossible to find. And when one can get in to see a provider the services offered are often inadequate: visits are short, help is usually unavailable to address all the problems of life that make us depressed or drive us to drugs or alcohol, and the answer to our psychiatric issues is usually a pill.

If ever there were places that might be immune to these problems one might guess that beautiful Rocky Mountain resort towns like Vail, Colorado, would be outstanding candidates. The landscape is beautiful, and the active and outdoor lifestyle the mountains offer is the envy of all those living in less blessed locations. No surprise that people flock to places like Vail in hopes of tapping into the paradise that these places seem to be.

But there is a paradox in paradise. The ski resort towns of the American West have suicide rates so high that the area has been dubbed a suicide belt. Vail and surrounding areas of Eagle County, Colorado, were no exception. In 2017 the area had one of the highest suicide rates in the United States with almost nothing in the way of services for many people struggling with mental health issues. No providers took private insurance and no treatment facilities were available for people who were acutely suicidal. These people were either shipped to cities several hours away or were booked and then housed in the local jail. Things were bad, with no clear path forward.

Then a remarkable series of events occurred that have utterly transformed mental health care in Eagle County. Today Eagle Valley Behavioral Health, a new non-profit mental health entity overseen by Vail Health, has 150 clinicians at its disposal, all committed to providing a continuum of care, early intervention, and programs aimed at preventing the development of mental illness. A new state-of-the-art inpatient facility that will have 14 beds for adults and 14 beds for adolescents is nearing completion. All residents of Eagle County are eligible to receive six free psychotherapy sessions a year. And multiple wellness and preventive health programs are on offer.

Join us in this podcast for a fascinating conversation with Chris Lindley, Executive Director of Eagle Valley Behavioral Health and the primary architect of the remarkable changes in mental health care that have occurred under his leadership. Mr. Lindley’s recounting of how he and his team revolutionized behavioral health care will provide a wealth of ideas that will be of interest to healthcare administrators, clinicians, patients, and anyone who cares for someone struggling with mental illness. Although Eagle County had an even steeper uphill climb than

Dr. Boadie Dunlop & Dr. George Grant: Part 2 - Transcendent Experience and the Psychedelic Renaissance

Fri, 14 Apr 2023 09:00:00 -0400

Transcendent Experience and the Psychedelic Renaissance: A Conversation with the Co-Founders of the Emory Center for Psychedelics and Spirituality, Part 2

Anyone interested in mental health knows about the so-called psychedelic renaissance that has been gathering steam for the last half-decade. Compounds such as LSD and psilocybin lauded for their mind-expanding potential in the 60s, and then demonized for a generation, have returned to the scene with a vengeance, fueled by an increasing number of studies showing the remarkable therapeutic potential of these previously stigmatized substances.

While this psychedelic renaissance has been garnering all the headlines, a complimentary and far quieter revolution has also been occurring in medicine, which is the recognition of the importance of spirituality for health and disease. Along with a network of collaborators, the Department of Spiritual Health at Emory Healthcare has played a leadership role in this quieter revolution, training chaplains to implement evidence-based compassion-based practices for both patients and the clinicians who care for them.

In the first part of this podcast, Boadie Dunlop, MD, and George Grant, MDiv, PhD, joined host Dr. Charles Raison to provide an overview of the mission and vision of the newly-formed Emory Center for Psychedelics and Spirituality. In this second part of the podcast, Drs. Dunlop and Grant—co-founders of the new center—dive deeper into the role of spirituality in human health in general and in psychedelic-assisted therapy, or PAT, more specifically. A lively discussion ensues around a range of related topics, including spirituality as an evolved human capacity, strategies for enhancing the benefits and minimizing the risks of bringing spirituality more directly into healthcare and the need to explore the role of spirituality in PAT with novel scientific approaches. The podcast concludes with a provocative discussion of whether neurobiological understandings are really required to understand how to optimize the role of spirituality in PAT, or whether spirituality can be taken at face value as a phenomenon worthy of scientific study on its own terms.

This episode is Part 2 in a two-part series.

Featuring:

Dr. Boadie Dunlop, Co-founder of the Emory Center for Psychedelics and Spirituality
Dr. George Grant, Co-founder of the Emory Center for Psychedelics and Spirituality

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Dr. Boadie Dunlop & Dr. George Grant: Part 1 - Transcendent Experience and the Psychedelic Renaissance

Tue, 21 Mar 2023 14:00:00 -0400

Transcendent Experience and the Psychedelic Renaissance: A Conversation with the Co-Founders of the Emory Center for Psychedelics and Spirituality, Part 1

Anyone interested in mental health knows about the so-called psychedelic renaissance that has been gathering steam for the last half-decade. Compounds such as LSD and psilocybin lauded for their mind-expanding potential in the 60s, and then demonized for a generation, have returned to the scene with a vengeance, fueled by an increasing number of studies showing the remarkable therapeutic potential of these previously stigmatized substances.

While this psychedelic renaissance has been garnering all the headlines, a complimentary and far quieter revolution has also been occurring in medicine, which is the recognition of the importance of spirituality for health and disease. Along with a network of collaborators, the Department of Spiritual Health at Emory Healthcare has played a leadership role in this quieter revolution, training chaplains to implement evidence-based compassion-based practices for both patients and the clinicians who care for them.

This podcast explores a marriage between these two revolutions in the form of the newly created Emory Center for Psychedelics and Spirituality or the ECPS for short. Join host Dr. Charles Raison for a lively discussion with Boadie Dunlop, MD and George Grant, MDiv, PhD, co-founders of the ECPS. We hear how the center reflects a fully collaborative effort between perspectives often seen as separate or even conflictual: biomedical psychiatry and spiritual health. Drs. Dunlop and Grant take a deep dive into the many implications of taking the spiritual effects of psychedelics seriously. Among the many topics covered in this podcast, they discuss the role of spiritual experience in the long-term therapeutic benefits of psilocybin, how spiritual experience differentiates psychedelics from standard antidepressants, and how the risk of harm from psychedelic treatment may be increased if the spirituality-related effects of these drugs are not taken seriously.

This episode is Part 1 in a two-part series.

Featuring:

Dr. Boadie Dunlop, Co-founder of the Emory Center for Psychedelics and Spirituality
Dr. George Grant, Co-founder of the Emory Center for Psychedelics and Spirituality

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Dr. Christine Whelan: Demystifying Purpose with Emory’s New Purpose Professor

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 09:00:00 -0500

Demystifying Purpose with Emory’s New Purpose Professor: What Matters Most to You and How to Make it Happen

Purpose is one of those big ideas that we muse about in late-night conversations … and promptly put aside in the light of day. It’s a concept that can feel a little daunting, but research points to the fact that boosting our sense of purpose is good for our health and well-being. Living purposefully leads to more fulfilling relationships, better sleep, better sex, and even more rewarding and profitable careers.

Host Charles Raison is joined by Dr. Christine B. Whelan, Emory University’s new purpose professor for a podcast that will demystify and define the concept of purpose. They will take you through the steps to create your own personal purpose statement and frame the questions so that you can anticipate the practical and emotional obstacles on your path to purpose.

Featuring:

Dr. Christine Whelan, Author, Professor, Speaker

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Dr. Rosalind Watts: Psychedelics as the Start, and Not the Ending, of the Journey of Healing

Thu, 03 Nov 2022 09:00:00 -0400

Psychedelics as the Start, and Not the Ending, of the Journey of Healing

After decades of stigmatization, psychedelic medicines have re-emerged onto the world stage as the most promising new mental health treatments in a half-century. Our guest for this podcast, Dr. Rosalind Watts, has played an outsized role in these remarkable developments. Dr. Watts is internationally recognized as a leader in the study and implementation of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. She developed and led the psychedelic-assisted therapy program used in two of the first modern studies of psilocybin for the treatment of depression. More recently, she is the founder of Acer Integration (https://acerintegration.com/), an international, year-long integration community developed for connecting to the self, others, and the natural world. In this podcast we trace Dr. Watts’ journey in the psychedelic world, listening to her describe her initial hope that psychedelics might routinely cure mental illness give way to a growing concern that increasingly unrealistic hopes for these medicines were distorting both their risks and benefits. The podcast concludes with Dr. Watts laying out a vision for integrating psychedelics into more holistic ways of promoting mental health and building healing communities.

Featuring:

Dr. Rosalind Watts, Clinical Psychologist, Founder of Ace Integration

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Dr. Don Noble: Part 1 - Want to Change Your Life? Take a Breath

Thu, 20 Oct 2022 09:00:00 -0400

Want to Change Your Life? Take a Breath, Part 1

Breathing is the most natural thing in the world; we do it all the time and pay no attention to it. And yet, this simple act holds huge potential for enhancing our physical and mental wellness. In this podcast, host Charles L. Raison discusses the health benefits of breath work with Donald J. Noble, PhD, an instructor in the Center for the Study of Human Health at Emory University, continuing a conversation started in a prior “Health is Everything” podcast. In this installment Raison and Noble open up a wide-ranging discussion on topics ranging from how breathing changes brain function on a moment-by-moment basis to the potential of both slow-deep and rapid breathing to improve well-being, along the way providing a quick guide to the bodily mechanisms involved in various therapeutic breathing strategies.

This episode is Part 1 in a two-part series.

Featuring:

Dr. Don Noble, Instructor at Emory University's Center for the Study of Human Health

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Dr. Chikako Ozawa de Silva: Explorations Into the Lonely Society

Thu, 06 Oct 2022 09:00:00 -0400

If You Are Lonely, You Are Not Alone: Explorations Into the Lonely Society

This podcast brings us face to face with one of the most distressing issues of the modern world. Despite unprecedented wealth, security and opportunity, rates of suicide have risen more or less continuously over the last generation. Young people, who have their entire lives before them, have been especially hard hit. Although we usually think of suicide as an individual problem, in this podcast Chikako Ozawa de Silva, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Emory University, shows how intimately suicide is connected with aspects of modern life that generate loneliness. We discuss her recent book, The Anatomy of Loneliness: Suicide, Social Connection and the Search for Relational Meaning in Contemporary Japan (University of California Press, 2021) which chronicles how a growing sense of alienation within Japanese society has resulted in problems ranging from hikikomori, the practice of young people shutting themselves away from the world, to internet group suicide, in which people voluntarily choose to commit suicide as a group so they can die in the company of others to avoid enduring a natural death so completely alone. We talk about how Japan may be a worrying bellwether for other developed nations in which loneliness increasingly means being unseen, unrecognized, unsafe and unloved. And although there are no magic bullets, Dr. Ozawa de Silva’s unique perspective offers hope for ways we can work together as a society to reduce many of the sources of alienation that drive so many people to end their lives.

Featuring:

Dr. Chikako Ozawa de Silva, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Emory University

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

No Kidding | Dr. Charles Raison: Kids' Mental Health

Thu, 08 Sep 2022 09:00:00 -0400

It’s time for some “real talk” about kids’ mental health. This week Eleanor and Dr. Raison discuss the evolution of depression and tools to help kids cope with depression.

Featuring:

Dr. Charles Raison, Psychiatrist & Depression Researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Host of Health is Everything Podcast

Host:

Eleanor Barrett, 5th Grader

No Kidding | Juan Carlos Avila: The HappiLyfe App

Thu, 01 Sep 2022 09:00:00 -0400

Juan Carlos Avila, founder and creator of HappiLyfe, and Eleanor discuss how taking small steps to make positive changes can impact one’s quality of life.

Featuring:

Juan Carlos Avila, Founder and Creator of HappiLyfe, a purposeful living and wellness aggregator app for all ages (including teens!).

Host:

Eleanor Barrett, 6th Grader

Rev. Maureen Shelton: Part 2 - Spirituality, Health, and Compassion

Thu, 11 Aug 2022 09:00:00 -0400

Spirituality, Health and Compassion: a Conversation with the Reverend Maureen Shelton, Part 2

More than other healthcare professions, chaplaincy is undergoing profound change, and nowhere is this change more apparent than in the Emory Department of Spiritual Health, where chaplaincy is being transformed from an ancillary hospital offering to an integral component of the healthcare system. In this second part of a two-part series Maureen Shelton, M.Div, joins host Charles L. Raison, MD, to continue their conversation on the role that rigorous training in compassion has played for development of spiritual health as a scientific discipline. In particular, Reverend Shelton brings us into the world of Compassion-Centered Spiritual Health (CCSH™), a novel program designed at Emory with the goal of optimizing the ability of spiritual health clinicians to care for their patients while also building the resilience within themselves needed to thrive in the emotionally taxing environments in which chaplaincy so often occurs. Reverend Shelton shares the core concepts of CCSH, bringing these to life in a series of beautiful vignettes of patient-chaplain meetings, or in the parlance of spiritual health—at the place of vulnerability where care seeker and care provider can meet in ways that impact emotional and physical health. Maureen Shelton is the System Director of Education and Director of the Division of CCSH in the Department of Spiritual Health at the Woodruff Health Sciences Center.

This episode is Part 2 in a two-part series.

Featuring:

Maureen Shelton, M.Div, System Director of Education and Director of the Division of Compassion-Centered Spiritual Health (CCSH) at Emory University

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Rev. Maureen Shelton: Part 1 - Spirituality, Health, and Compassion

Thu, 04 Aug 2022 08:00:00 -0400

Spirituality, Health and Compassion: a Conversation with the Reverend Maureen Shelton, Part 1

“Spirituality is a seeking and discovery of one’s sacred values; values that are influenced by connectedness to self, others and earth; the aspiration to realize ideals; and the journey of asking the profound questions of life.”

Thought of in this way, it is not hard to grasp why spirituality has become increasingly recognized as an essential, but often missing, component of optimal healthcare. No one is better trained and positioned to meet the need of better integrating spirituality into the American medical system than hospital chaplains, who play an increasingly outsized role in supporting the emotional and physical health, not just of patients, but of medical staff as well. Join us on this podcast as Maureen Shelton, M.Div engages us in a wide-ranging discussion about chaplaincy in general, and more specifically about remarkable developments in the Emory Department of Spiritual Health, for which she serves as System Director of Education and Director of the Division of Compassion-Centered Spiritual Health (CCSH). In particular, we discuss how the addition of compassion training to chaplaincy education has begun to transform the ability of spiritual health clinicians to meet the spiritual, emotional, and social needs of patients and personnel within the Emory Healthcare system. In this first of a two-part series, Reverend Shelton walks us through the steps of Cognitively-Based Compassion Training (CBCT®), which forms the first step of training in the clinical practice of CCSH, a research-supported approach to spiritual health that is our focus in the second podcast of this series.

This episode is Part 1 in a two-part series.

Featuring:

Maureen Shelton, M.Div, System Director of Education and Director of the Division of Compassion-Centered Spiritual Health (CCSH) at Emory University

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

No Kidding | Dr. Makeba Williams: Puberty & What to Expect

Tue, 24 May 2022 09:00:00 -0400

Dr. Makeba Williams, Director of the Division of Academic Specialists in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, specializes in the changes that women go through at the various stages of their life. Dr. Williams and Eleanor discuss puberty in children and what to expect.

Featuring:

Dr. Makeba Williams, Director of the Division of Academic Specialists in Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Host:

Eleanor Barrett, 5th Grader

Dr. Andrew Miller: Part 2 - Inflammation and Depression

Thu, 05 May 2022 09:00:00 -0400

Inflammation and Depression: From Evolutionary Understandings to the Discovery of New Treatments

In our first podcast with Dr. Andrew H. Miller, we explored links between inflammation and mental illness. But we left unanswered several key questions. Why as a species we should be so prone to inflammatory disorders? Why, from an evolutionary point of view, should inflammation so readily cause depression? In this podcast we cover these questions and more, exploring why humans have an inflammatory bias, why the link between inflammation and depression likely enhanced survival and reproduction across human evolution and why the absence of co-evolved bacteria, viruses and worms in the modern world is making both inflammation and depression worse. Finally, we turn to cutting-edge research underway in Dr. Miller’s laboratory that seeks to harness the link between inflammation and depression to create better, and more personalized, treatments for mental illness. Andrew H. Miller, MD, is the William P. Timmie Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University. His discoveries have played a leading role in our current understanding of immune-brain interactions relevant to mental health.

This episode is Part 2 in a two-part series.

Featuring:

Dr. Andrew Miller, William P. Timmie Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Dr. Andrew Miller: Part 1 - Inflammation, Stress and Depression

Thu, 17 Mar 2022 09:00:00 -0400

Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know About Inflammation, Stress and Depression

The realization that inflammation contributes to most modern illnesses has been called one of the most important medical discoveries of the last century. Inflammation contributes to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and dementia. We now know that inflammation also plays a central role, not just in physical illness, but also in psychiatric disorders. Increased inflammation has been repeatedly observed in individuals with depression, manic-depression, schizophrenia and most other mental disorders. If you’ve ever wondered what this all means, in this podcast Dr. Andrew H. Miller joins host Charles Raison to talk about what inflammation is and how its association with mental illness was discovered. Dr. Miller, who is the William P. Timmie Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University, has been a world leader in unraveling how inflammation produces depression and how addressing inflammation might help identify new treatments for this disabling condition. Join us on this podcast to hear the history of this psychiatric and medical revolution from someone who made much of it happen.

This episode is Part 1 in a two-part series.

Featuring:

Dr. Andrew Miller, William P. Timmie Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Dr. Carla Haack: A Surgeon’s Journey to the Heart of Health

Thu, 02 Dec 2021 09:00:00 -0500

A Surgeon’s Journey to the Heart of Health: Yoga as a Means of Physical, Mental and Spiritual Health

Medicine in general, and surgery in particular, can seem so mechanical and cold. In a world in which bodies are seen as biological machines and medical appointments consist of sitting quietly while the doctor sits with her back to you typing into a computer, the voice of Dr. Carla Haack is both refreshing and inspiring. Dr. Haack has been a towering presence in the Emory University School of Medicine. Among her many titles are Assistant Professor of General and GI surgery, Medical Director for Care Coordination for Emory University Hospital and Emory University Orthopedic and Spine Hospital and Henry B. Tippie Clinician Scholar, all of which fail to do justice to the outsized impact she has had on the University’s medical community. In this podcast, we join Dr. Haack to discuss the beauty of surgery when set within the larger psychospiritual context informed by Dr. Haack’s long-term commitment to yoga as a means of physical health and emotional well-being. Join us as we explore the many surprising ways in which yoga and surgery can inform each other to provide an inspiring vision of medicine characterized by a commitment to healing the body, mind, and spirit.

Featuring:

Dr. Carla Haack, Assistant Professor of General and GI Surgery, Medical Director for Care Coordination at Emory University Hospital and Emory University Orthopedic and Spine Hospital, Henry B. Tippie Clinician Scholar

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

No Kidding | Heather Krug: Understanding Dyslexia in Children

Thu, 11 Nov 2021 08:00:00 -0500

Heather Krug, Clinical Associate Professor in Speech-Language Pathology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Eleanor discuss dyslexia in children and useful practices to help improve speech, reading, writing, and more.

Featuring:

Heather Krug, Clinical Associate Professor in Speech-Language Pathology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Host:

Eleanor Barrett, 5th Grader

No Kidding | Peter Locke: The Importance of Education in a Healthy Life

Thu, 28 Oct 2021 09:00:00 -0400

Peter Locke, Head of High School at Madison Country Day School in Wisconsin, and Eleanor discuss why school is important and how school can help social and emotional development in children.

Featuring:

Peter Locke, Head of High School at Madison Country Day School

Host:

Eleanor Barrett, 5th Grader

Dr. Richard Davidson: Meditation Made Easier

Mon, 11 Oct 2021 09:00:00 -0400

Meditation Made Easier: The New Science of Wellness, Compassion and Mindfulness

Have you wanted to meditate but can’t seem to commit to sitting quietly and trying to concentrate for 20 or 30 minutes a day? Or have you tried to meditate, but find that the standard mindfulness practices of focusing on the breath or on bodily sensations produce little more than a desire to fidget with boredom or drift off into daydreams? If you identify with these or other challenges, this podcast will provide exciting alternatives. If you have mastered meditation, you will still find plenty here to inspire you to optimize your contemplative practice.

Richard Davidson, PhD, is the William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Founder and Director of the Center for Healthy Minds. Long before he was the world’s leading meditation researcher, Dr. Davidson was internationally recognized for his work exploring the relationship of brain function with emotional well-being and depression. This commitment to science has inspired him to continue exploring ways that meditation can be made more effective and attractive for wider and wider groups of people.

In this podcast, Dr. Davidson describes exciting findings from a recent study of a free, widely available app-based wellness intervention developed by Healthy Minds Innovations. Dr. Davidson and colleagues found that even 5 minutes a day practicing a series of meditation-inspired wellness practices produced striking improvements in participant well-being. Even better, most of these practices can be done in the midst of daily life, while driving, walking, washing dishes…..We draw pragmatic lessons from these findings before concluding the podcast with a discussion of ways that compassion can supercharge our ability to meditate.

Featuring:

Dr. Richard Davidson, William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Founder and Director of the Center for Healthy Minds

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Dr. Robyn Fivush: We Are the Stories We Tell Ourselves

Thu, 07 Oct 2021 09:00:00 -0400

We Are the Stories We Tell Ourselves: The Role of Self and Family Narratives in Human Well-Being

It's no accident that most of us crave stories, in books, in movies on the internet. In many ways, our lives are created by the stories we tell others— and ourselves. And we don’t just tell stories, we live them, and not infrequently we are willing to die for them. Stories have beginnings, middles, and ends. Research has shown that endings are especially important for how we think about our lives. Did we fail or succeed, try or avoid trying? Stories that go wrong are one of the strongest drivers of depression and anxiety in our lives.

But what about people without enough personal stories in their lives, or who lack stories about their families? Welcome to the research of Robyn Fivush, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Psychology and Director of the Institute for Liberal Arts at Emory University. Dr. Fivush has spent a career studying the role of memory and narrative in forming our adult selves. Her work points to the importance of developing coherent, detailed stories of ourselves and of our family heritage. And she has shown how important it is for parents to help young children began to craft these types of stories about themselves and their families. More recently, she has identified disturbing trends in how the COVID-19 pandemic has begun to change the stories young adults are telling themselves about who they are and what their futures might or might not hold. Join us on this podcast as Dr. Fivush describes her work and gives pointers on how stories can promote our well-being.

Featuring:

Dr. Robyn Fivush, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Psychology and Director of the Institute for Liberal Arts at Emory University

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Dr. Christina Gavegnano: Creativity in Biomedical Science

Thu, 23 Sep 2021 09:00:00 -0400

Creativity in Biomedical Science: How a Drug Never Expected to Work is a Life-Saver for COVID-19 and People Living with HIV

Medical science has come under a lot of criticism lately for waffling on its understandings of the COVID-19 virus and of how we can best protect ourselves. Why the confusion? The answer this points to one of science’s greatest gifts to humanity: the ability to change our minds and behavior based on new evidence. Unlike many religions, science never provides certainty. What it does provide is surprise, because the world we live in is far stranger and more creative than our limited imaginations can conjure.

This podcast with Christina Gavegnano, assistant professor in the Emory University Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, illustrates this beautifully.

Many of the most important scientific discoveries in history initially had to buck conventional wisdom to change the world. As a young researcher, Dr. Gavegnano realized that patients struggling with human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, might benefit from drugs that blocked a particular immune pathway. The problem was that conventional wisdom at the time held that blocking this pathway could never be safe in patients with severe viral infections. Dr. Gavegnano persevered and eventually proved that not only were Jak inhibitor drugs that blocked this inflammatory immune pathway safe, but they were highly effective. These things might have stood, had the COVID-19 pandemic not come along. But once again, Dr. Gavegnano was able to see the type of novel connections that science gives us. The drugs she initially pioneered for use in HIV have now been given emergency use approval by the FDA for the treatment of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 requiring oxygen. Join us as Dr. Gavegnano gives us a window into the creativity and patience that led to this story of scientific discovery.

Featuring:

Dr. Christina Gavegnano, Assistant Professor in the Emory University Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Dr. Don Noble: Harnessing the Breath for Health and Well-Being

Thu, 06 May 2021 08:00:00 -0400

As you read this, you are breathing and taking no notice of this. After listening to this podcast, we think you may never completely ignore breathing again. In fact, like us, you might become fascinated with the potential breathing holds for changing how we think about ourselves and the world around us.

Few scientists understand this better, both professionally and personally than Don Noble, our guest for this podcast. Dr. Noble has devoted his research career to understanding how breathing—especially slow deep breathing—contributes to the benefits of meditation and yoga techniques. Many people study meditation, but Dr. Noble has done so with a twist, having developed an animal model for the physical benefits of meditation by training rodents to slow their breathing, as happens when humans meditate. In addition to his research, Dr. Noble has been at the forefront of developing novel experiential classes that explore mind-body wellness practices for the Emory Center for the Study of Human Health.

Join us as we explore with Dr. Noble how to harness the mysteries of breath to improve our mental and physical health.

Featuring:

Dr. Don Noble, Instructor at Emory University's Center for the Study of Human Health

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Dr. Chris Lowry: The Emerging Role of Bacteria in Our Mental and Physical Health

Thu, 22 Apr 2021 09:00:00 -0400

Most of us who lived through the back half of the 20th Century forgot about infections. We had vaccines for the terrible diseases of childhood and antibiotics for the scary diseases of adulthood. When we caught an infection, it was usually a cold. Certainly, AIDS sent shock waves of grief through many communities, but then antiretroviral medications converted it from a death sentence to a chronic condition. In general, we feared the things that killed most of us: heart disease, cancer and dementia.

But how times change. The COVID pandemic has taught us that our human world is inextricably linked to the world of pathogens. Indeed, just as our civilization requires that we interact successfully with each other, so does it demand that we find intelligent ways forward in our relationship with the microbial world.

Few scientists are better positioned to discuss ways to optimize our relationships with the microbial world than Christopher A. Lowry, PhD, Associate Professor of Integrative Physiology at the University of Colorado Boulder. Dr. Lowry is famous for his work investigating how bacterial species we co-evolved with effect the brain in ways that promote an antidepressant effect. Building on this work, he has published widely on ways to optimize health and well-being by re-establishing more ancient and appropriate connections with the bacterial worlds within and without us.

Join us as Dr. Lowry brings this expertise into a practical discussion of how our relationships with the microbial world can be harnessed to promote well-being.

Featuring:

Dr. Christopher A. Lowry, Associate Professor of Integrative Physiology at the University of Colorado Boulder

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Dr. Tessa Roseboom: The Child is the Father of the Man: Impacts of Childhood on Adult Health

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 09:00:00 -0500

Dr. Tessa Roseboom is famous for her groundbreaking studies of the long-term effects of babies born during the World War II Dutch famine. Those studies showed unequivocally that the diets of pregnant women affect the health of their children in later life. Subsequent studies have shown that a wide variety of negative exposures in the womb or in childhood exact lasting costs in terms of poor mental and physical health.

So what can be done?

Join us for this podcast as we explore this and other related questions with Dr. Roseboom. We cannot describe Dr. Roseboom’s work any better than to quote her website: “I am scientist, teacher and advocate. As a biologist, I am fascinated by the wonder of life. In the past 25 years, I have investigated how the early environment in which humans grow and develop affects later development and health throughout life. By teaching students, professionals and (future) parents I share knowledge and increase awareness about the fundamental importance of a good start in life. Ultimately, my goal is to contribute to giving each child the best possible start in life to allow it to develop to its full potential in order to create a healthier more equal future for all.”

Featuring:

Dr. Tessa Roseboom, Professor of Early Development and Health at the University of Amsterdam’s (UvA) Faculty of Medicine

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Dr. Steve Cole: Exploring the Immunology of Well-Being

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 09:00:00 -0500

It’s common knowledge that stress can make you sick. But why? It’s also becoming increasingly understood that it is the body’s own inflammatory system that is responsible for most COVID deaths. Why does the immune system get so confused?

If these questions seem interesting but unrelated, this is the podcast for you. Our guest is Steve Cole, PhD, Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and hero to many of us working in the field of mind-body medicine. Dr. Cole is famous for his work using the expression of genes to examine how stress impacts our immune system to produce mental and physical illness. In recent years he has revolutionized the field by providing the most cogent evolutionary arguments yet advanced for why stress seems to be so bad for us, and conversely, why loving relationships and altruistic mindsets are so beneficial for health. And before the podcast is done we explore how COVID can trick the immune system in ways that look eerily similar to the effects of loneliness. Join us as Dr. Cole explains these fascinating and timely connections.

Featuring:

Dr. Steve Cole, PhD, Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Is fasting good or bad?

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 09:00:00 -0500

If you follow these podcasts you know that Dan Benardot, a nutritional expert, warns us about the many problems of fasting as a weight-loss strategy. How, then, are we to understand the growing popularity of practices like intermittent fasting, not just as a way of losing weight, but as health-enhancing lifestyles? Is fasting good or bad? If it has benefits, what are these and why does it work?

Addressing these questions and many more in this podcast is Dr. Rhonda Patrick, host of the wildly-popular podcast and website FoundMyFitness. Dr. Patrick describes herself as dedicated to the pursuit of longevity and optimal health through a focus on nutrition, aging, and disease prevention. Her legion of fanatically loyal listeners spans the globe and includes everyone from top athletes and movie stars to world-famous doctors and scientists, all drawn by her uncanny ability to translate complex scientific ideas into actionable health practices. This skill is in full display on this podcast, as Dr. Patrick talks about links between nutrition, cellular health and aging, well-being, and weight loss, always with a focus on evidence suggesting that fasting may be a natural human way to eat.

Featuring:

Dr. Rhonda Patrick, Cell Biologist, Cofounder of FoundMyFitness

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Dr. Dan Benardot: Nutrition & Weight Loss

Mon, 08 Feb 2021 09:00:00 -0500

The scale shows you a number you just can’t abide by. Or you swore you would not buy clothes one size bigger…. So you try to diet. You try to be reasonable so you eat less often. Maybe you decide to be au courant so you fast. But no matter what you do, the weight hardly comes off. Or maybe it comes off but then when you ease up, even just a little you immediately gain the weight back. What is going on?

Join us in this podcast to the answers to these and other related questions from Dan Benardot, our guest for this podcast.

Dan Benardot is an internationally-recognized expert on nutrition, especially as nutrition pertains to peak athletic performance. Dr. Benardot has served as nutritionist for a number of US Olympic teams, including Track and Field, Ice Skating and gymnastics. In recognition of this work, he received the Outstanding Educator Award following the US gymnastic team’s 1996 Gold Medal. In 1997, he became the first American appointed to the Medical Commission of the international governing body for gymnastics. Dr. Benardot served for a number of years as nutritionist for the Atlanta Falcons, culminating in the team’s 2017 National Football Conference championship. In addition to teaching, Dr. Benardot has written a number of books, co-authored the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Dietitians of Canada and the American College of Sports Medicine joint position paper on “Nutrition and Athletic Performance, and is the inventor of NutriTiming software, which assesses real-time energy balance and nutrient intake.

Featuring:

Dr. Dan Benardot, Registered and Licensed Dietitian/Nutritionist, Professor of Nutrition at Emory University's Center for the Study of Human Health

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

No Kidding | Dr. Karl Doghramji: The Importance of Sleep

Tue, 22 Dec 2020 15:00:00 -0500

Dr. Karl Doghramji, Medical Director at the Jefferson Sleep Disorder Center at the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, and Eleanor discuss the importance of sleep to keep our lives regular. Dr. Doghramji gives some tips on how to sleep better and fight off insomnia.

Featuring:

Dr. Karl Doghramji, Medical Director at the Jefferson Sleep Disorder Center at the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology

Host:

Eleanor Barrett, 4th Grader

No Kidding | Dr. Charles Raison: Fear & Anxiety During COVID-19

Thu, 03 Dec 2020 09:00:00 -0500

Dr. Charles Raison, host of the Health is Everything podcast, and Eleanor discuss why it’s important to wear your mask and practice social distancing while empathizing with the human need for socialization. Dr. Raison helps explain how to help combat the fear and anxiety that kids are experiencing during this pandemic.

Featuring:

Dr. Charles Raison, Psychiatrist & Depression Researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Host of Health is Everything Podcast

Host:

Eleanor Barrett, 4th Grader

No Kidding | Dr. Rakesh Jain: Understanding Anxiety

Wed, 21 Oct 2020 15:00:00 -0400

Dr. Rakesh Jain is a psychiatrist and researcher. Dr. Jain and Eleanor sit down to discuss anxiety and nervousness, and how allowing yourself to have these feelings is okay. Dr. Jain also explains helpful & easy ways to manage these emotions.

Featuring:

Dr. Rakesh Jain, Psychiatrist, Researcher

Host:

Eleanor Barrett, 4th Grader

No Kidding | Dr. Malia Jones: Schooling During a Pandemic

Fri, 25 Sep 2020 09:00:00 -0400

Dr. Malia Jones is a social epidemiologist with the University of Wisconsin Applied Population Laboratory and the UW-Madison Department of Community and Environmental Sociology. Dr. Jones and Eleanor sit down to discuss what going back to school in the middle of a pandemic will be like and how to navigate those situations.

Featuring:

Dr. Malia Jones, Social Epidemiologist with the University of Wisconsin Applied Population Laboratory and the UW-Madison Department of Community and Environmental Sociology

Host:

Eleanor Barrett, 3rd Grader

Dr. Charles Raison: Maintaining Your Well-Being During COVID

Thu, 06 Aug 2020 09:00:00 -0400

It’s All About Relationships, and Not Just With Other People. What COVID Is Trying To Tell Us About Well-Being

Why are people more frightened by COVID than by global warming? Despite being frightened, why are many of us now choosing to be with other people, even at a risk to our own health? Can we draw lessons from these contradictions that will allow us to deepen our relationships with each other while staying healthy, as individuals and societies? And how can we best use the COVID pandemic to recognize changes we will need to make if we want to continue living in a modern, interconnected world? In this podcast as Professor Christine Whelan interviews “Health Is Everything” host Charles L. Raison, MD, who explores these and related topics through the lens of evolutionary psychology and behavioral immunology. A psychiatrist and researcher, Dr. Raison is the Mary Sue and Mike Shannon Distinguished Chair for Healthy Minds, Children & Families in the School Human Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison and is a Visiting Professor in the Center for The Study of Human Health at Emory University in Atlanta, GA.

Featuring:

Dr. Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Guest Host:

Dr. Christine Whelan, Mother of Eleanor Barrett (Host of Health is Everything No Kidding), Clinical Professor in the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and director of MORE: Money, Relationships and Equality

Dr. John Dunne: Achieving Mental Peace

Thu, 30 Jul 2020 09:00:00 -0400

Life is often wonderful, but it is also difficult. Given how much we want happiness, why can’t we be happy more often in our lives? What stands between us and mental peace? Join us for compelling and challenging answers to these questions courtesy of Dr. John Dunne, our guest on this podcast. Dr. Dunne is a Distinguished Chair of Contemplative Humanities in the Center for Healthy Minds and the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Dunne’s work at the intersection of meditation and cognitive neuroscience has made him a world leader in broadening our understanding of commonalities between modern scientific and Buddhist perspectives on the human condition.

Featuring:

Dr. John Dunne, Distinguished Chair of Contemplative Humanities in the Center for Healthy Minds and the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

No Kidding | Dr. Geshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi: Practicing Compassion & Kindness

Thu, 23 Jul 2020 10:00:00 -0400

Geshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi, PhD, is Executive Director of the Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics at Emory University and Director of the Emory Tibet Science Initiative. Dr. Negi and Eleanor sit down to discuss different ways kids can show compassion to their friends and family members, and why being compassionate & kind is so important.

Featuring:

Dr. Geshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi, Executive Director of the Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics at Emory University, Director of the Emory Tibet Science Initiative

Host:

Eleanor Barrett, 3rd Grader

Dr. Dan Benardot: How to Eat to Function At Your Best

Wed, 15 Jul 2020 10:00:00 -0400

Think you should eat less often if you want to lose weight? Think again says Dan Benardot, our guest for this podcast.

Dan Benardot, PhD is an internationally-recognized expert on nutrition, especially as nutrition pertains to peak athletic performance. Dr. Benardot has served as a nutritionist for a number of US Olympic teams, including Track and Field, Ice Skating and Gymnastics. In recognition of this work, he received the Outstanding Educator Award following the US gymnastic team’s 1996 Gold Medal. In 1997, he became the first American appointed to the Medical Commission of the international governing body for gymnastics. Dr. Benardot served for a number of years as a nutritionist for the Atlanta Falcons, culminating in the team’s 2017 National Football Conference Championship. In addition to teaching, Dr. Benardot has written a number of books, co-authored the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Dietitians of Canada and the American College of Sports Medicine joint position paper on “Nutrition and Athletic Performance", and is the inventor of NutriTiming software, which assesses real-time energy balance and nutrient intake.

In this podcast, we explore Dr. Dan’s perspective on the downsides of popular fasting-based diets and discuss what science tells us about how to eat to function at our best. In particular, we discuss his strategies for maintaining consistent blood sugar levels by eating multiple small meals a day and tailoring food intake to the ever-changing energy needs of our bodies.

Featuring:

Dr. Dan Benardot, Registered and Licensed Dietitian/Nutritionist, Professor of Nutrition at Emory University's Center for the Study of Human Health

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Maryn McKenna: Epidemics & Pandemics in the Modern World

Thu, 09 Jul 2020 10:00:00 -0400

Think that COVID-19 virus is the greatest potential infectious threat facing the modern world? Think again.

In this podcast, noted journalist and author Maryn McKenna joins host Charles Raison, MD to discuss why our modern lifestyles make us especially vulnerable not just to viruses, but also to bacteria capable of producing a host of frightening illnesses. Unlike viruses, which are generally best dealt with by vaccination, antibiotics have been our primary defense against bacterial infection for almost a century. But these days of protection are coming to an end. It is against this background that we discuss the health risks posed by antibiotic resistance, why we have been unable to bring new antibiotics to market and what we as a society need to do to avoid a return to the days when a scratch could start a lethal infection.

Featuring:

Maryn McKenna, Award-winning Journalist and Science Writer

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Dr. George Grant: Spiritual Health is Human Health

Thu, 02 Jul 2020 10:00:00 -0400

George H. Grant, PhD, is a psychologist and theologian who serves as Executive Director of Spiritual Health for Emory Healthcare in Atlanta, GA. In this role, Dr. Grant oversees the delivery of chaplaincy care throughout the Emory Healthcare system and guides the country’s largest chaplaincy education program. Join us as we discuss Dr. Grant’s pioneering vision for transforming chaplaincy from an ancillary support role to being an essential resource for shoring up the human face of medicine. We discuss the value of recognizing human spiritual needs and aspirations as important elements in health and disease and explore ways in which clinicians can maximize the provision of compassion within the often impersonal world of modern medicine.

Featuring:

George H. Grant, PhD, Executive Director of Spiritual Health for Emory Healthcare in Atlanta, GA

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

No Kidding | Dr. Dan Benardot: Food for Thought

Thu, 25 Jun 2020 09:00:00 -0400

Dr. Dan Benardot is a Registered and Licensed Dietitian/Nutritionist and Professor of Nutrition at Emory University's Center for the Study of Human Health. From fruits to vegetables to proteins, Dr. Benardot helps us understand what types of food our bodies need and how to get the most out of them.

Featuring:

Dr. Dan Benardot, Registered and Licensed Dietitian/Nutritionist, Professor of Nutrition at Emory University's Center for the Study of Human Health

Host:

Eleanor Barrett, 3rd Grader

Dr. Cassandra Quave: Enhancing Immune Health

Fri, 19 Jun 2020 15:00:00 -0400

Dr. Cassandra L. Quave is an Ethnobotanist, Herbarium Curator and Assistant Professor in the Department of Dermatology and the Center for the Study of Human Health at Emory University in Atlanta, GA. Dr. Quave is widely regarded for her research into the potential of indigenous, plant-based medicines to treat infectious disease and to combat antibiotic resistance. Join us as we focus on the food-medicine continuum and the potential of plant-based diets for enhancing immune health in the age of COVID 19.

Featuring:

Dr. Cassandra L. Quave, Ethnobotanist, Herbarium Curator, Assistant Professor in the Department of Dermatology and the Center for the Study of Human Health at Emory University

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

Dr. Geshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi: Compassion During a Pandemic

Fri, 12 Jun 2020 10:00:00 -0400

Geshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi, PhD, is Executive Director of the Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics at Emory University and Director of the Emory Tibet Science Initiative. Among Dr. Negi’s many accomplishments is developing Cognitively Based Compassion Training, or CBCT, a highly influential meditation program, which is a major focus of our discussion in this podcast, and which forms a foundation for Social, Emotional, and Ethical (SEE) Learning, an innovative K-12 education program being adopted by school systems around the world. In addition to his work with compassion meditation and education, Dr. Negi leads efforts that are revolutionizing Tibetan Buddhist monastic education by introducing training in modern science as a core competency in monastic training.

Featuring:

Dr. Geshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi, Executive Director of the Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics at Emory University, Director of the Emory Tibet Science Initiative

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

No Kidding | Dr. Lindsey Leininger: Policy & Play dates

Thu, 28 May 2020 12:00:00 -0400

Dr. Lindsey Leininger is a public health educator and researcher, and a clinical professor at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business. Eleanor and Dr. Leininger talk about numbers, health and, of course, the global pandemic on this week's episode of Health is Everything: No Kidding.

Featuring:

Dr. Lindsey Leininger, Public Health Educator and Researcher, Clinical Professor at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business

Host:

Eleanor Barrett, 3rd Grader

No Kidding | Dr. Monika Roots: Being a Kid in a Pandemic

Fri, 15 May 2020 13:00:00 -0400

Dr. Monika Roots is a Child Psychiatrist and the Chief Medical Officer of Sanvello Health, a telemedicine startup from United Healthcare. Join the host of the Health is Everything: No Kidding segment, Eleanor Barrett, as Dr. Roots helps give insight on how to navigate the COVID pandemic as a kid and stay emotionally healthy.

Featuring:

Dr. Monika Roots, Child Psychiatrist, Chief Medical Officer of Sanvello Health

Host:

Eleanor Barrett, 3rd Grader

Maryn McKenna: COVID-19, Foresight & Hindsight

Wed, 06 May 2020 17:00:00 -0400

Maryn McKenna is an award-winning journalist and science writer who has spent decades studying pandemics and other issues on the frontline of infectious disease and health. Join guest host, Charles Raison, as Maryn provides insider knowledge on the COVID pandemic. They discuss how COVID compares to past pandemics; how and why the COVID pandemic happened; what we might have done differently to protect ourselves; and what we can do now to minimize the risk of COVID to our health and economy.

Featuring:

Maryn McKenna, Award-winning Journalist and Science Writer

Host:

Charles Raison, Psychiatrist, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Emory University

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