Mind Body Health & Politics

Richard L. Miller
  • 4.8 (24)
  • Science
  • Updated Weekly

Dr. Richard Louis Miller is an American Clinical Psychologist, Founder of Wilbur Hot Springs Health Sanctuary, and broadcaster who hosts the Mind Body Health & Politics talk radio program from Mendocino County, California. Dr. Miller was also Founder and chief clinician of the nationally acclaimed, pioneering, Cokenders Alcohol and Drug Program. Dr. Miller’s new book, Psychedelic Medicine, is based on his interviews with the most acclaimed experts on the topic. Mind Body Health & Politics radio broadcast is known for its wide ranging discussions on political issues and health. The program’s format includes guest interviews with prominent national authorities, scientists, best-selling authors, and listener call-ins. The programs offer a forum and soundboard for listeners to interact with the show and its guests. We invite you to listen to the latest broadcasts below or visit our many archived programs. We’d love to hear from you on political and health issues! www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org

  1. 6d ago

    The Sun: Adverse Effects

    In this episode — Five minutes on sun exposure and skin cancer — three diagnoses, one melanoma that nearly didn’t end well, and the one habit that changes the odds. Chapters 0:01 — Another entry in his “raining on your parade” series: this one’s about the sun 0:27 — The sun is fantastic, and it comes with adverse effects 0:56 — Hanging out in the sun through his teens, twenties, and thirties 1:24 — A teenage sunburn with his girlfriend Marguerite Davis, at a lake near Champaign, Illinois, that ended in the hospital 1:52 — Decades later, the first skin cancers: basal and squamous cell 2:19 — Five years ago: a nodular melanoma diagnosis 2:47 — How his immune system bought him the time to get it cut out 3:15 — The real tradeoff: sun now, or the dermatologist later 3:42 — Why SPF 50+ sunscreen is the compromise he’s landed on 4:11 — Closing thought and sign-off This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/subscribe

  2. Aug 25

    Fertility: What you need to know

    In this episode — Fertility specialist Gabriela Rosa joins to talk about couples the healthcare system has given up on: two-plus years trying with multiple failed IVF cycles. They cover her seven-year study of 544 patients (78.8% took home a healthy baby), why infertility gets diagnosed by a stopwatch instead of an investigation, the real success rates behind IVF and egg freezing, and why male fertility is half the equation. Guest: Gabriela Rosa, DrPH, MPH (Clinical Effectiveness, Harvard T.H. Chan School), MScM (Reproductive Medicine & Human Genetics, University of Sydney), BHSc (ND) — fertility specialist; founder and clinical director of The Rosa Institute; author of Fertility Breakthrough: Overcoming Infertility and Recurrent Miscarriage When Other Treatments Have Failed (2019) and Eat Your Way to Parenthood. @gabrielarosafertility on Instagram. Chapters 00:00 — Who fertility treatment is really for (cold open) 01:11 — Welcome and introduction 02:47 — Gabriela’s path into fertility 07:00 — Two patients who changed everything 12:32 — The cohort study: 544 patients, seven years 17:17 — Trying, perseverance, and pleasure 19:08 — When trying to conceive kills your sex life 23:06 — Reframing the fertility timeline 24:16 — Population fertility and the egg-freezing pitch 29:11 — IVF’s real success rate 31:56 — Male fertility and age 38:30 — Sperm banking, and why men don’t think about it 40:08 — Life expectancy and deferred maintenance 42:01 — “What is new under the sun? Nothing.” 45:34 — Unexplained infertility: a diagnosis based on time 48:18 — The leaking toilet 52:19 — Richard’s hospital story 54:19 — Existence vs. non-existence 56:08 — Close This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/subscribe

  3. Aug 18

    Tools for Isolation & Loneliness

    Dr. Richard Louis Miller discusses the causes of social isolation, alienation, and loneliness, especially in the context of socioeconomic stratification and the COVID pandemic. He offers practical solutions to foster human connection and combat these issues. Chapters 00:00 Introduction: The epidemic of loneliness and its causes 02:10 The importance of human contact and the effects of social distancing 02:40 Solutions overview: universal access to anti-loneliness tools 03:05 Tool 1: Making weekly phone calls to friends and family 04:04 Tool 2: Initiating small contact in daily life with strangers 05:56 Closing remarks: collective action to rebuild connection This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/subscribe

  4. Aug 11

    Dr. Bruce Lipton: The Biology of Belief

    In this episode — Stem cell biologist Bruce Lipton, who brought the word “epigenetics” into the mainstream, returns for a second conversation with Richard. They open on a warning about civilizational collapse, then work through how the first seven years of life program roughly 95% of adult behavior — including the program for how you’re “supposed” to age, which is why Richard says “acting your age is dangerous.” They close on the argument at the heart of Bruce’s forthcoming book, Beyond Darwin — that cooperation, not competition, is evolution’s real survival strategy. Guest: Bruce H. Lipton, PhD—stem cell biologist; author of The Biology of Belief (Hay House, 10th Anniversary Edition) and the forthcoming Beyond Darwin: How Epigenetics, Quantum Science, and Cooperation Shape Humanity’s Future (BenBella Books, August 2026, co-written with Patricia King). Chapters 00:00 — The ten-to-twenty-year collapse warning 00:42 — Welcome back, and how “epigenetics” went mainstream 04:04 — What epigenetics actually means 06:53 — The mind as architect: thought into chemistry into genes 11:13 — The subconscious computer: programmed before birth through age seven 15:38 — Why the conscious mind loses the wheel 19:59 — “We are all Bill”: the programs you can’t see in yourself 24:43 — Two terminal diagnoses, five years later 27:05 — Bruce’s tongue cancer, and the book he’d been avoiding 31:59 — Beyond Darwin: what Darwin missed 34:53 — Placebo, belief, and Ellen Langer’s counterclockwise study 36:34 — Why acting your age is dangerous 40:44 — From the caves to civilization: how domination got wired in 50:16 — The garden is not a battleground 56:31 — Did humanity inherit a dysfunctional childhood? 59:12 — Close This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/subscribe

  5. Aug 4

    Orgasms Aren’t “Reached,” Erections Aren’t “Achieved”

    Diana Richardson, who has studied human sexuality, intimacy, and couples’ relationships with sex for fifty years, returns to the program (her first appearance, “The Power of Slow Sex,” aired March 2022). She and Richard trace how sexual mores have shifted over the last century — more premarital sex, then a modern pullback into isolation, pornography, and falling fertility rates — and why Diana thinks the real problem isn’t how much sex people are having but the mechanical, goal-driven way we’ve been taught to have it. They get into the language attached to sex (“achieving” an orgasm, “premature” orgasm) and what it does to performance pressure, especially for men, and Diana answers Richard’s question about pleasure and connection without an erection. Guest: Diana Richardson — researcher and teacher of conscious sexuality; author of eight books including Tantric Sex for Lovers (the Slow Sex / Tantric Sex for Men / Tantric Orgasm for Women collection, Destiny Books) and The Heart of Tantric Sex (John Hunt Publishing/O Books, 2003). With her partner Michael Richardson, she has run the week-long Making Love Retreat in Europe for over 30 years, with more than 15,000 couples attending. Site and online course: rekindle.love. Chapters 00:00 — Cold open: sensitivity vs. sensation 00:39 — Welcome to Mind Body Health and Politics 01:30 — Welcome back: Diana Richardson 02:17 — Fifty years of change in the sexual field 06:33 — A hundred years of premarital sex, and the 60s revolution 07:48 — Pizza, porn, and the retreat from dating 08:29 — The epidemic of isolation, alienation, and loneliness 09:42 — It’s not the amount of sex, it’s the how 11:23 — Falling fertility rates 12:55 — Writing The Heart of Tantric Sex 14:06 — What “tantra” actually means 15:03 — Conventional sex vs. tantric sex 19:40 — Words that hurt: “achieving” an orgasm 23:38 — Eight books, and how the Making Love Retreat began 26:11 — Thirty years, fifteen thousand couples 28:06 — Bringing the retreat online 28:44 — Pleasure and connection without an erection 32:34 — What could bring young people back to each other 33:34 — Where to find Diana: rekindle.love This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/subscribe

  6. Jul 28

    Psychedelic Crisis: Free Counseling at Fireside Project

    Joshua White left a decade-long career as a San Francisco city attorney to found Fireside Project, a free, anonymous peer-support line for anyone in a psychedelic crisis or working through one from the past. He and Richard, an advisor to Fireside Project, talk about the four gaps Joshua set out to close in the field, what it takes to be a “loving rock” for a stranger mid-trip, reframing the bad trip as a challenging one, the burnout that nearly broke him, and Lucy, a training simulator built from tens of thousands of anonymized calls now used at Mount Sinai and in a New Mexico psilocybin study. Guest: Joshua White — founder and executive director of Fireside Project; former Deputy City Attorney, San Francisco City Attorney’s Office. Volunteer alumnus of the Zendo Project and Safe & Sound’s parental stress line before founding Fireside in 2021. Fireside’s free peer-support app is available on iOS and Google Play; the training tool Lucy is at fireside.training; donate at firesideproject.org/donate. Chapters 00:00 — Cold open: reach out and call somebody 02:25 — Welcome: Joshua White 02:48 — Green smoothies and egg whites 03:41 — From city attorney to psychedelic support 04:42 — Psychedelics, therapy, and the decision to leave the law 07:04 — Testing the waters: the Zendo Project and a parental stress line 08:01 — The four gaps in psychedelic support 10:10 — Fireside Project launches, April 2021 10:22 — Anonymity, legality, and why people call 12:43 — Who answers the phone: the “loving rock” question 17:20 — Reframing the bad trip 18:55 — From bad trip to challenging trip 20:34 — Finding volunteers, finding the public 22:43 — The nonprofit fundraising treadmill 25:34 — Burnout, Ibogaine, and “ten out of ten” 26:37 — Richard’s advisor disclosure: take a vacation 27:28 — The patient who taught Richard about self-care 30:31 — Introducing Lucy and how she trains therapists 35:08 — Forty thousand calls and counting 36:24 — Why there’s no AI avatar yet 37:40 — An ethical data model, by contrast 41:04 — The pitch: why Fireside needs your support 41:35 — How to donate, volunteer, and spread the word 41:55 — Close This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/subscribe

  7. Jul 21

    Mendocino: Hippies, Loggers, & the FBI

    British historian Charlie Harris spent years living with his sources in Mendocino County to write Mendo, the first full history of how a logged-out fishing-and-timber county became the cannabis capital of the Americas. He and Richard — a Mendocino resident since 1975 who watched much of it happen — trace the whole arc: the Back to the Land migration, weed as currency, the homestead wars that united hippies and loggers against the government, Reagan’s helicopter raids and the invention of asset forfeiture, the genetics that made California weed famous, and what legalization actually did to prices, potency, and the people who built the industry. Guest: Charlie Harris — historian and writer; eight years with Oxford University’s Global History of Capitalism Project; author of Mendo: How an Unlikely Group of Rebels Turned Cannabis into California’s Cash Crop (Counterpoint Press, June 2026). Available from Counterpoint, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and your local independent bookstore — Charlie asks you to try the indie first. Chapters 00:00 — Cold open: stories that were never written down 00:31 — Welcome: what happened in Mendocino County 02:24 — Picked up hitchhiking, dropped on a pot farm 06:33 — From trimmer to Oxford historian 08:47 — “Get these stories written down before they disappear” 11:42 — Logging, fishing, and the collapse that emptied the land 14:28 — Back to the Land: the largest urban-to-rural migration in history 17:47 — “We couldn’t grow gasoline”: weed becomes currency 20:21 — The homesteading wars: red tags and a common enemy 22:47 — Hippies, rednecks, and the hipnecks 27:46 — Reagan sends in the helicopters: CAMP, 1983 30:40 — Asset forfeiture is invented in Mendocino County 32:01 — “The campaign to aid marijuana prices” 33:19 — Indica genetics: California weed gets good 35:30 — Traffic reports for police convoys 37:30 — Medical marijuana, 1996: everything changes 40:27 — Overproduction and the price collapse 44:24 — Hedge funds, Flow Kana, and the economics of legalization 48:36 — “Nobody wants stronger weed”: the THC arms race 53:04 — What they smoke in England 56:44 — The book: Mendo 58:07 — “I have a lot of hope for America”: gratitude and close This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/subscribe

  8. Jul 8

    Danger Ahead! Don't Act Your Age

    Journalist Abbie Rosner spent several years interviewing thirty-six older adults, most in their sixties, seventies, and eighties, about psychedelic experiences they had quietly, outside the clinic. She and Richard talk about elderhood, conscious aging, what changes when these medicines meet a long life rather than a young one, a disagreement over when "elder" begins, and her pilot vision for small, committed cohorts of older adults growing old together on purpose. Guest: Abbie Rosner, journalist. Author of Psychedelics and the Counterculture of Aging (Park Street Press, 2026, foreword by Dr. Julie Holland). Writes The ELDEREVOLUTION on Substack and a Next Avenue column. abbierosner.com 00:00 The epidemic of isolation 01:45 Conscious aging, what's on Abbie's mind 05:28 What aging actually is, body vs. spirit 10:14 The opportunity of older life, going inward 12:24 The fragility question, screening older adults 15:34 How older adults approach psychedelics today 20:00 Who is drawn to this work, seekers 21:20 Am I an elder at 60, the Julie Holland exchange 27:04 Inside the book, 36 interviews and a book tour 33:11 Elder Vision Circles 38:44 Close This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org/subscribe

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4.8
out of 5
24 Ratings

About

Dr. Richard Louis Miller is an American Clinical Psychologist, Founder of Wilbur Hot Springs Health Sanctuary, and broadcaster who hosts the Mind Body Health & Politics talk radio program from Mendocino County, California. Dr. Miller was also Founder and chief clinician of the nationally acclaimed, pioneering, Cokenders Alcohol and Drug Program. Dr. Miller’s new book, Psychedelic Medicine, is based on his interviews with the most acclaimed experts on the topic. Mind Body Health & Politics radio broadcast is known for its wide ranging discussions on political issues and health. The program’s format includes guest interviews with prominent national authorities, scientists, best-selling authors, and listener call-ins. The programs offer a forum and soundboard for listeners to interact with the show and its guests. We invite you to listen to the latest broadcasts below or visit our many archived programs. We’d love to hear from you on political and health issues! www.mindbodyhealthpolitics.org

Information

  • Creator
    Richard L. Miller
  • Years Active
    2015 - 2026
  • Episodes
    366
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Dr. Richard L. Miller
  • Show Website
    Mind Body Health & Politics

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