When you start your day with a cup of tea or coffee you are ingesting a consciousness-altering drug, which you are quite likely to be addicted to. That drug of course is caffeine, the stimulant used by 90 per cent of people on earth, and it is one of three mind-altering molecules that bestselling author Michael Pollan has been investigating for his new book ... Show More
Nov 24
Does modern medicine need to drop the distinction between mental and physical health? With Professor Edward Bullmore
For centuries, mental and physical health have been divided - disorders of the mind and body have been treated as if they were poles apart. This deep-rooted division has shaped medicine, psychiatry, and society. But what if this mind/body split is not only outdated - but dangerou ... Show More
47m 33s
Aug 2022
Gwyneth Paltrow x Michael Pollan: On Drugs
“All societies have drugs that they’re okay with and they draw these lines and they draw them in ways that can seem very arbitrary,” says Michael Pollan, New York Times–bestselling author of This Is Your Mind on Your Plants and host of the new Netflix series, How to Change Your M ... Show More
55m 10s
Aug 2022
Caffeine, the untapped potential of plants and intermittent fasting with Michael Pollan
To kick off the new podcast, I’m joined by acclaimed author and journalist Michael Pollan. Michael is widely known for his work demystifying the food and agriculture industry and is now opening new frontiers in the highly controversial field of plant psychedelics, and their poten ... Show More
39m 14s
Apr 2023
The mind-numbing medicine
This episode will render you oblivious, conked out and blissfully unaware. It’s about anaesthetics: those potent potions that send you into a deep, deathly sleep. Listener Alicia wants to know how they work, so our sleuths call on the expertise of consultant anaesthetist Dr Fiona ... Show More
28m 2s
Dec 2022
Can Psychedelic Therapy Reset Our Social Media Brains?
When you look at the world, it can feel like we're in a precarious moment. If you’ve listened to past episodes, you know we call this the meta-crisis — an era of overlapping and interconnected crises like climate change, polarization, and the rise of decentralized technologies li ... Show More
42m 51s