Are you listening to podcasts yet?

If you have a mobile device and a set of headphones the chances are you already know how great podcasts are to listen to on the run, on the bus or even while you do the ironing! It’s a great way to get entertained and informed while doing something else. I mostly listen to podcasts (and audiobooks) when I’m travelling and usually, if I’m not driving, I can get some knitting done at the same time.

So many people are producing podcasts now are  its hard to work out what to listen to. You can stick with old favourites like This American Life or Radio Lab, enrich your literary experience with short stories from the New Yorker (the New Yorker Fiction podcast), follow investigative journalists as they delve into unsolved crimes (eg Unravel, Someone Knows Something, The Teacher’s Pet) or listen to popular dissections of world events (eg Russia, Are You Listening). You can also lift your mood by focusing on comedy podcasts such as Friday Night Comedy from the BBC or No Such Thing as a Fish from the team of researchers that provide the facts for televisions QI.

You can also improve your professional knowledge and hear discussions of issues pertinent to your practice.

So are you listening to our podcasts yet?

Black Dog Institute has a whole range of podcasts about mental health for professionals and non-professionals. There are condensed versions of our webinars, recordings of Expert Insight meetings and, the jewel in the crown, the Being Well podcast.

Being Well is a collection of true-life stories. In each podcast someone we know and admire tells their own story. Each person we have invited to be part of the podcasts has experienced difficulties with their mental health at some time in their life. It may have been a single event, a series of events or the background to their whole life, but each person tells a fascinating story of surviving and flourishing despite, or even because of, their mental health difficulties.

Who’s been on the Being Well Podcast?

So far, we’ve talked to a whole range of interesting people.

Evie has found way to live after gender reallocation;

Wayne, formerly a famous rugby league player, survived severe depression and has committed himself to teaching others about mental health;

Fiona, a well-known poet, has struggled with an unusual form of eating disorder;

Jocelyn is a GP who uses her own life experience to coach doctors experiencing burnout;

Molly, the Director of Medical Services and Miwatj Health Aboriginal Corporation, who grew up in Australia’s first self sustaining village, (her family is pictured in the image above) and

Percy, another famous rugby league player in past years, who is an Indigenous Elder working to  support the social and emotional well being of his people.

We know a lot of people with interesting stories and we haven’t run out of stories yet!

If you’d like to listen you can find the podcasts on the Black Dog Institute website or by typing “Black Dog Institute” into your podcast app.

We hope you enjoy listening to these stories. Each one is different and there is something important to learn from all of them.