100 episodes

If time is tight, what's the one thing that you should be doing to improve your health and wellbeing? Michael Mosley reveals surprisingly simple top tips that are scientifically proven to change your life.

Just One Thing - with Michael Mosley BBC Podcasts

    • Health & Fitness
    • 4.6 • 989 Ratings

If time is tight, what's the one thing that you should be doing to improve your health and wellbeing? Michael Mosley reveals surprisingly simple top tips that are scientifically proven to change your life.

    Yoga

    Yoga

    Although yoga is thought to have been practised for over 5,000 years, its myriad benefits for our health and wellbeing are still being uncovered. Professor Rima Dada from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi reveals the extraordinary findings into the benefits of yoga - how half an hour a day can slow down ageing at a cellular level by protecting your mitochondria and your DNA. It can also improve your brain health and even reduce symptoms of depression. Just a few sessions are enough for our volunteer James to catch the yoga bug!
    Series Producer: Nija Dalal-Small
    Editor: Zoë Heron
    A BBC Studios production for BBC Sounds / BBC Radio 4.

    • 14 min
    Read a poem

    Read a poem

    Reading poetry can reduce stress and help give you words to express the things you're feeling. And reading a poem out loud has been shown to be a surprisingly simple way to activate your relaxation response and bring about a sense of calm. It’s all to do with the way it slows and controls your breathing rate, which in turn stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system and can lead to many beneficial effects. Michael Mosley speaks to Dietrich von Bonin from the Swiss Association of Art Therapies, who says as little as 5 minutes of rhythmic poetry read aloud can be even more effective than slow-paced breathing at relaxing your body and mind. Our volunteer Colm dives into the world of Irish poetry and incorporates reading it aloud into his bedtime routine.
    Series Producer: Nija Dalal-Small
    Editor: Zoë Heron
    A BBC Studios production for BBC Sounds / BBC Radio 4.

    • 14 min
    Deep Calm - Episode 5: Using Music

    Deep Calm - Episode 5: Using Music

    Sit back, leave behind the cares of the day and take a sonic journey with Dr Michael Mosley. In this new podcast series, designed to help you let go and unwind, each episode focuses on a scientifically-proven technique for activating the body’s built-in relaxation response, and takes a deep dive to explore what’s happening inside as we find stillness and calm.
    Most of us instinctively know that music can have a huge impact on our mood. But it can also be an effective tool to tap into your body’s relaxation response. Plus thought loops, soundwaves and an encounter with the Organ of Corti.
    Guest: Stefan Koelsch, professor at the University of Bergen in Norway.
    Series Producer, sound design and mix engineer: Richard Ward
    Researcher: William Hornbrook
    Production Manager: Maria Simons
    Editor: Zoë Heron
    Specially composed music by Richard Atkinson (Mcasso)
    A BBC Studios Audio production for BBC Sounds / BBC Radio 4.

    • 15 min
    Deep Calm - Episode 4: Using the Power of Nature

    Deep Calm - Episode 4: Using the Power of Nature

    Sit back, leave behind the cares of the day and take a sonic journey with Dr Michael Mosley. In this new podcast series, designed to help you let go and unwind, each episode focuses on a scientifically-proven technique for activating the body’s built-in relaxation response, and takes a deep dive to explore what’s happening inside as we find stillness and calm.
    What is it about the natural world that has such a positive impact upon our physiology - slowing our heart rate and blood pressure, settling our thoughts and so much more? One theory is that it’s connected to the repeating patterns in nature - fractals - and Michael discovers that we live in a fractal universe.
    Guest: Richard Taylor, professor at the University of Oregon.
    Series Producer, sound design and mix engineer: Richard Ward
    Researcher: William Hornbrook
    Production Manager: Maria Simons
    Editor: Zoë Heron
    Specially composed music by Richard Atkinson (Mcasso)
    Extract from "Fractal compositions No.1” composed by Severin Su in collaboration with 13&9 Design.
    A BBC Studios Audio production for BBC Sounds / BBC Radio 4.

    • 14 min
    Deep Calm - Episode 3: Using Your Imagination

    Deep Calm - Episode 3: Using Your Imagination

    Sit back, leave behind the cares of the day and take a sonic journey with Dr Michael Mosley. In this new podcast series, designed to help you let go and unwind, each episode focuses on a scientifically-proven technique for activating the body’s built-in relaxation response, and takes a deep dive to explore what’s happening inside as we find stillness and calm.
    If you imagine yourself somewhere safe and relaxing, using something called Guided Imagery, you can activate the body’s relaxation response. Plus brainwaves, pupils and thought-birds.
    Guest: Katarzyna Zemla, PhD candidate SWPS / PJATK Universities in Warsaw.
    Series Producer, sound design and mix engineer: Richard Ward
    Researcher: William Hornbrook
    Editor: Zoë Heron
    Specially composed music by Richard Atkinson (Mcasso)
    A BBC Studios Audio production for BBC Sounds / BBC Radio 4.

    • 13 min
    Deep Calm - Episode 2: Relaxing Your Body

    Deep Calm - Episode 2: Relaxing Your Body

    Sit back, leave behind the cares of the day and take a sonic journey with Dr Michael Mosley. In this new podcast series, designed to help you let go and unwind, each episode focuses on a scientifically proven technique for activating the body’s built-in relaxation response, and takes a deep dive to explore what’s happening inside as we find stillness and calm.
    Deliberately tensing and then relaxing groups of muscles all through the body is a potent technique for engaging your body’s relaxation response. We also encounter the magnificently named Golgi tendon organ afferent nerve cells, and the interconnected nodes of the brain.
    Guest: Ian Robertson, professor at Trinity College Dublin.
    Series Producer, sound design and mix engineer: Richard Ward
    Researcher: William Hornbrook
    Editor: Zoë Heron
    Specially composed music by Richard Atkinson (Mcasso)
    A BBC Studios Audio production for BBC Sounds / BBC Radio 4.

    • 14 min

Customer Reviews

4.6 out of 5
989 Ratings

989 Ratings

jenn cavendish ,

Fantastic

My new fave podcast! Great concise advice, informative and easy to listen to. Bravo!

MickC1910 ,

Science-based Inspiration

A quick listen each week but so much to be learnt. I have tried and incorporated many of the healthy tips into my life: I’ve even come to enjoy green tea! We only get one life so it it falls upon us all to take care of our minds and bodies and stay healthy for as long as possible. There no better advice and evidence out there than this podcast.

Liitlemissfitty ,

A quick listen with huge benefits

An excellent podcast with that’s quick and easy to understand. I love the evidence based and practical suggestions for enhancing health. All so accessible.

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