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Curious minds select the most fascinating podcasts from around the world. Discover hand-piqd audio recommendations on your favorite topics.
piqer for: Global finds Health and Sanity Doing Good
Bangalore-based Rashmi Vasudeva's journalism has appeared in many Indian and international publications over the past decade. A features writer with over nine years of experience heading a health and fitness supplement in a mainstream Indian newspaper, her niche areas include health, wellness, fitness, food, nutrition and Indian classical Arts.
Her articles have appeared in various publications including Mint-Wall Street Journal, The Hindu, Deccan Herald (mainstream South Indian newspaper), Smart Life (Health magazine from the Malayala Manorama Group of publications), YourStory (India's media technology platform for entrepreneurs), Avantika (a noir arts and theatre magazine), ZDF (a German public broadcasting company) and others.
In 2006, she was awarded the British Print-Chevening scholarship to pursue a short-term course in new-age journalism at the University of Westminster, U.K. With a double Masters in Globalisation and Media Studies from Aarhus Universitet (Denmark), University of Amsterdam and Swansea University in Wales, U.K., she has also dabbled in academics, travel writing and socio-cultural studies. Mother to a frisky toddler, she hums 'wheels on the bus' while working and keeps a beady eye on the aforementioned toddler's antics.
Counting Sheep? Maybe This Podcast Will Help You
The fact that a podcast exists exclusively to help us sleep better speaks volumes about how widespread insomnia is.
Recent studies have indicated that up to 50 per cent of the world's population suffer from some form of insomnia. Statistics of course do not tell the whole story. The problem of sleep deprivation is compounded by a rise in those suffering from anxiety, depression and chronic stress. Add to this mix the rampant use of technology and insomnia takes on monstrous proportions.
In this context, this podcast from the NPR stable tries to bring in a sense of easy balance and clarity to help tackle your sleep issues. Although at the outset the podcast declares that sleeping is too complicated a matter to attempt any simplification, the episodes work as pointers to proven techniques for attaining sleep and do some virtual hand-holding while you (hopefully) drift off.
I found all three episodes that are up currently highly useful and to the point. The one on things you can implement throughout the day to ensure a good night's sleep especially. The second episode in the series discusses how effective traditional bedtime rituals such as counting sheep and sleep medicines are, while the most recent one focuses on how you can train yourself to 'think your way out of insomnia'. Host Allison Aubrey often chats with sleep specialists and psychologists and extracts from them the techniques that work and those that don't. There is also an interesting discussion on whether Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is the most effective treatment for insomnia.
Next time you are tossing and turning, maybe a 20-minute listen of one of these three episodes might help.
