These days, professionals, thought leaders, therapists, and doctors are making their own podcasts that revolve entirely around topics like happiness, building healthy habits, anxiety relief, procrastination, and spirituality. The following list includes 21 of the best self-help podcasts that are made with one purpose in mind—to help you lead a more meaningful life.
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Best Self-Help Podcasts for General Happiness
Looking for encouragement and ways to boost your mood? These podcasts explore various elements of happiness and general ways to make your life more meaningful.
1. The One You Feed
This podcast uses the well-known parable of two wolves—one dark, one light—at battle inside of us to kick off a discussion on how to live skillfully and meaningfully throughout life’s challenges. Each week, host Eric Zimmer converses with authors, psychologists, thought leaders, public figures, and others on how they lead more fulfilling lives. Zimmer and his guests give listeners practical advice and tools they can implement in their day-to-day lives to experience less suffering and feel more joy.
2. The Happiness Lab
Dr. Laurie Santos, host of The Happiness Lab, uses her experience as a professor of psychology at Yale University to deliver a compelling podcast focused on improving college students’ mental health. However, her episodes are applicable to listeners of any age. Slightly reminiscent of a TED Talk, The Happiness Lab makes cerebral subjects like meditation more accessible to those who are interested in reaping the benefits.
3. Life Kit
NPR’s Life Kit explores a wide range of topics including how to find a mentor, breaking difficult news to your children, leaving a job well, getting enough sleep, and coping with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Its value is in its straightforward advice from the experts, operating under the belief that “everyone needs a little help being human.” This is the perfect podcast for anyone who feels overwhelmed and could use a little guidance or a nudge in the right direction.
4. The Rich Roll Podcast
This podcast by ultramarathon-runner Rich Roll has recently surpassed a significant milemarker—500 two-hour episodes. It functions as a platform for successful athletes, scientists, and thought leaders to express their opinions in a comfortable, conversational setting. Roll draws on his past experiences with alcoholism and addiction to bring a high level of empathy to his interviews. In doing so, he allows his listeners to walk away from each episode with a renewed sense of hope, motivation, and curiosity.
5. Under the Skin
This podcast asks the questions, “What’s beneath the surface?” Using a healthy dose of humor and introspection, it delves into the lives of the people we admire, ideas that have changed the world, and the history we’re taught. Under the Skin brings together guests from all over the world to talk about popular culture, arts, and the sciences, helping listeners find the deeper truth beneath what can sometimes be a facade.
6. Balanced Black Girl
Balanced Black Girl is a podcast dedicated to a slow, more conscious exploration of wellness and general happiness. It rejects the idea of “hustle culture” that seems to have a hold on society. Host Les Alfred takes on a “big sister” role, advising her listeners on how to recognize and own their worth. Balanced Black Girl also intersects general wellness with race, adding a more nuanced lens that’s often missing from similar health and self-help podcasts.
Best Self-Help Podcasts for Building New Habits
Building healthy habits can be challenging, but learning new strategies from experts and hearing others’ success stories can help you achieve your goals.
7. The Habit Coach with Ashdin Doctor
Are you trying to make a change in your life that just won’t stick? Well, each episode of The Habit Coach with Ashdin Doctor is completely centered around providing advice and motivation to form new, helpful habits that actually have a lasting and positive impact on your life. You’ll learn about topics like health, nutrition, sleep, fitness, and productivity—the building blocks of a more meaningful life. The best part is, you can consume these episodes quickly and regularly as they’re only 10 minutes long.
8. Tiny Leaps, Big Changes
Building new habits requires us to make many small choices over time. That brings us to the title of this podcast: Tiny Leaps, Big Changes. Host Gregg Clunis takes a good long look into common human behaviors and how they lead to positive or negative results, bringing listeners along on an episodic journey to personal development.
9. Routines & Ruts
Routines & Ruts, known for its aesthetic imagery, has built a well-executed concept to determine the originality of people’s “mundane” routines. Host Madeleine Dore talks to creative folks like writers, artists, and designers, acknowledging that the same old routines don’t work for everyone. Dore herself says it’s about “resilience and rejection, motivation and procrastination, successes and setbacks—and how extraordinary lessons can be found amongst it all.”
Best Self-Help Podcasts for Anxiety
When anxiety rears its ugly head, hearing from others who have had similar experiences can be a godsend. These podcasts balance stories with real-life, manageable advice.
10. The Hardcore Self Help Podcast
In the Hardcore Self-Help Podcast, psychologist Robert Duff discusses what its like to live with and effectively treat mental health conditions. He answers difficult questions about anxiety, depression, relationships, OCD, PTSD, eating disorders and more, breaking things down so they’re easier for the average person to understand. In addition to his regular episodes, Duff goes live every Thursday to delve back into these important topics.
11. Not Another Anxiety Show
Host Kelli Walker describes her podcast as a listening and learning experience “for all.” As someone who is interested in mental health but not an expert, Walker brings a relatability to her interviews with psychologists and doctors, giving listeners practical, usable guidance and tips to manage the struggles that emerge from being on the anxiety spectrum. Not Another Anxiety Show prides itself for being a show that anyone can tune into and follow along.
12. Unlocking Us With Brené Brown
Brené Brown has been a guest on many podcasts since she developed her now well-known theories on vulnerability. Now, she is the host of her very own: Unlocking Us. Her personality, knowledge, and interview style make it an authentic experience for anyone who needs comfort in these troubling times we live in. The breadth of her topics sweeps from science to spirituality, making plenty of pit stops along the way.
13. Pulling the Thread with Elise Loehnen
Pulling the Thread with Elise Loehnen is a collection of 45-minute conversations that investigate what some of the best minds have to say about self-improvement, self-love, and general wellness. Authors, experts, doctors, and scientists give their input on how to heal emotional wounds, build a better world, and establish boundaries with our own perfectionistic tendencies. Listeners will enjoy a thoughtful, studious approach to topics surrounding spiritualism, philosophy, and psychology.
Best Self-Help Podcasts for Procrastination
Feel like your to-do list keeps getting longer but your motivation is lacking? Get unstuck with these podcasts.
14. The Joy of Procrastination
The Joy of Procrastinationtakes a different approach than its peers in the category of self-help podcast. Dean Jackson and Dan Sullivan co-host with the mutual belief that procrastination can be reframed and viewed as a positive thing. In doing so, they believe that you remove a significant amount of shame from the subject and can actually increase your productivity. So, is procrastination positive? You’ll find out when you listen to The Joy of Procrastination.
15. Beyond the To-Do List
Procrastinators, rejoice! Beyond the To-Do List is all about implementing productivity techniques and strategies to get unstuck. Host Erik Fisher asks the tough questions about why most of us are not meeting our goals, diving deep with his guests to break down bad habits of procrastination. Ultimately, Fisher says he wants to help his listeners lead more meaningful and productive lives.
16. The High Performance Zone
Hosted by global leader in keynote speeches, John Foley, The High Performance Zone is dedicated to improving performance, promoting success, and adopting fearlessness. It covers all sorts of diverse areas related to business and relationships, including teamwork, strategy, mindfulness, and how to focus on the benefits of quitting procrastination.
17. The Mel Robbins Podcast
The Mel Robbins podcast is compelling and concise, offering a blueprint for self-help, including best practices, “lessons,” and “rules.” Drawing from personal experience, Robbins helps her listeners reconnect with their families, find stability amidst chaos, and feel more empowered in their careers. One reviewer calls Robbins “like a Brené Brown for Californians: emotionally intelligent, pragmatic, and likable.”
18. Terrible, Thanks For Asking
Terrible, Thanks For Asking, a show by author Nora McInerny, promotes people being honest about their emotional state. In an effort to help listeners feel less alone, the show strikes a relatable balance between sad and funny. McInerny offers advice through a narrative structure, interviewing guests and contextualizing their stories in a way that allows listeners to better see themselves in the conversation.
19. The Chasing Joy Podcast
Georgie Morley speaks honestly about her own battles with depression, bipolar II, and an eating disorder, working through new topics each week for finding wellness, spirituality, and personal growth. The Chasing Joy Podcast leaves its listeners feeling understood, energized, and connected. Morley accomplishes this by taking her listeners on a journey from “burn out to burning bright.”
20. Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations
You’ve probably heard this host’s name before in the midst of a conversation about purpose, charity, or spiritual growth. Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations brings in incredible guests together to discuss the topics that keep people up at night: Are you living your best life? What’s your purpose? Will it ever get better? Her listeners call it a unique take on spiritual wellness that combines wisdom with entertainment, bringing together all-star guests like Grethen Rubin and Brené Brown.
21. Vibe Higher With Taylor Stone
In this spiritual self-help podcast, host Taylor Stone aims to help women remember their inherent power, learning how to live out their purpose and engage in their own healing. Stone, a leader in higher consciousness, self-mastery, and energetics provides her listeners with a wide array of modalities and techniques to tap into their potential and impact the world around them. Vibe Higher also focuses on topics like empowerment, vibration, frequency, and energy healing.
