Whether you’re curious about getting healthy, the Big Bang or the science of cooking, find out everything you need to know in under 30 minutes with Instant Geni...
Healthy Start: How small behavioural changes help manage stress
Whether it’s due to deadlines at work, an upcoming exam or a rocky personal relationship, we’ve no doubt all felt stress at some point in our lives. And while a certain amount of stress can help to motivate us and make us more productive, if things get too much, stress can have a significant effect on both our mental and physical health.
In this episode, we speak to Despina Djama, a psychologist and stress researcher based at the University of Plymouth.
She tells us what happens in our brains and bodies when we experience stress, explains how the reaction stems from our evolutionary fight or flight response and shares some tips and techniques we can all use to help us get through stressful times.
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30:15
How music therapy can heal our bodies and brains
Many of us listen to music every day, perhaps to help us relax in the evening after a hard day’s work, get us through a tough workout or maybe even to allow us to feel closer to absent loved ones. There can be no doubt that music plays a huge part in what it means to be human.
In this episode, we catch up with neuroscientist and musician Daniel Levitin to talk about his latest book Music as Medicine: How We Can Harness Its Therapeutic Power.
He tells us what happens in our bodies and brains when we listen to music or play an instrument, explains the unique relationship between music and memory, and details how music can be used as a powerful therapeutic tool to help patients struggling from everything from Alzheimer’s disease to post traumatic stress disorder.
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36:21
Healthy Start: How taking up new hobbies can boost your mental health
Whether it’s a sport, painting or spending hours buried in puzzles, there is a clear link between our experience of hobbies and our mental health. Part of our Healthy Start series, we spoke to Karen Mak, a senior research fellow at UCL about how hobbies can bolster our mental health.
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26:01
How science can help us tackle racism
Most of us like to think we live in an equal society that offers the same opportunities to all. But unfortunately, hundreds of scientific studies say otherwise. Racial bias is essentially everywhere, often hiding in plain sight.
For example, did you know that black people are as much as 50 per cent less likely to be called in for a job interview than a similarly qualified white person? Or that children of colour are more likely to be viewed as troublemakers at school?
In this episode, we speak to Prof Keon West about his latest book The Science of Racism – Everything You Need to Know but Probably Don’t – Yet.
He tells us how racism is so deeply baked into many of our societal systems, explains the issues surrounding the concept of ‘colour blindness’ and how we can all benefit from simply interacting with more people from different ethnicities and backgrounds.
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44:58
Healthy Start: How to cut down your social media use
With a smartphone in our pockets at all times, social media is only ever a few clicks away. With this, problematic social media use is easy to fall into. As part of our Healthy Start series, we spoke to Niklas Ihssen, an associate professor at Durham University about what this means and how to avoid it.
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Whether you’re curious about getting healthy, the Big Bang or the science of cooking, find out everything you need to know in under 30 minutes with Instant Genius. The team behind BBC Science Focus Magazine talk to world-leading experts to bring you a bite-sized masterclass on a new subject each week.
New episodes are released every Monday and Friday and you can subscribe to Instant Genius on Apple Podcasts to access all new episodes ad-free and all old episodes of Instant Genius Extra.
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