361 episodes

Forrest Hanson is joined by clinical psychologist Dr. Rick Hanson and a world-class group of experts to explore the practical science of lasting well-being. Conversations focus on the key insights from psychology, science, and contemplative practice that you need to build reliable inner strengths, overcome your challenges, and get the most out of life. New episodes every Monday.

Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson Rick Hanson, Ph.D., Forrest Hanson

    • Health & Fitness
    • 4.8 • 1.9K Ratings

Forrest Hanson is joined by clinical psychologist Dr. Rick Hanson and a world-class group of experts to explore the practical science of lasting well-being. Conversations focus on the key insights from psychology, science, and contemplative practice that you need to build reliable inner strengths, overcome your challenges, and get the most out of life. New episodes every Monday.

    10 Things We Wish We Knew in Our 20s

    10 Things We Wish We Knew in Our 20s

    Our 20s are a unique decade filled with opportunity…including the opportunity to make a lot of mistakes. On today’s episode, Dr. Rick and Forrest share (roughly) 10 things they wish they’d known back then. They explore the balance of enjoying freedom with the compounding value of effort, a framework for finding meaning and purpose, and some of the common pitfalls that keep us stuck. Regardless of where you are in life, you’ll learn how to find and embrace your natural talents, appreciate meaningful relationships, and see things in a new light. 
    You can watch this episode on YouTube.
    Key Topics:
    0:00: Introduction 
    1:35: The importance of the choices you make in your 20s
    4:45: Balance the freedom of youth with the value of action
    8:00: Embrace mentorship
    13:40: Find the Three Circles: Talent, Enjoyment, and Values
    21:30: Try things, and let yourself change
    24:20: Avoid getting stuck (and codependent relationships)
    27:35: Identify useful feedback
    31:00: Avoid swerving away from natural talents, kindred spirits, good advice, and failure
    36:05: The intrinsic value of creating, and lightening up about results
    38:25: Focus on where you have agency
    44:45: Appreciate relationships based on shared values
    46:55: You get to decide what your relationships look like
    47:50: Showing appreciation for your younger self
    49:50: Recap
    Forrest is now writing on Substack, check out his work there. 
    Support the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link.
    Sponsors
    Get your stand on with UPLIFT Desk! Go to UPLIFT Desk.com/BEINGWELL for 5% off your order of one of their fantastic standing desks or office products.
    Join over a million people using BetterHelp, the world’s largest online counseling platform. Visit betterhelp.com/beingwell for 10% off your first month!
    Trust your gut with Seed’s DS-01 Daily Synbiotic. Go to Seed.com/BEINGWELL and use code 25BEINGWELL to get 25% off your first month. 
    Start each day right with IQBAR’s bars, hydration mixes, and mushroom coffees. Just text BEINGWELL to sixty-four thousand (64-000) and get an exclusive offer of 20% off plus free shipping.
    Connect with the show:

    Subscribe on iTunes

    Follow Forrest on YouTube

    Follow us on Instagram

    Follow Forrest on Instagram

    Follow Rick on Facebook

    Follow Forrest on Facebook

    Visit Forrest's website


    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    • 55 min
    Repairing Self-Abandonment: Anxious Attachment, Healthy Boundaries, and Creating Strong Relationships

    Repairing Self-Abandonment: Anxious Attachment, Healthy Boundaries, and Creating Strong Relationships

    On today’s episode Dr. Rick and Forrest explore self-abandonment, which occurs when we go against our authentic wants, emotions, and boundaries in order to serve others, meet external expectations, or protect ourselves emotionally. They cover where self-abandonment comes from, the psychological function it serves, and the relationship between self-abandonment and similar concepts like anxious attachment, low self-worth, and external referencing. You’ll learn how to set healthy boundaries, stop neglecting yourself, and become more secure from the inside out. 
    You can watch this episode on YouTube.
    Key Topics:
    0:00: Introduction 
    2:00: Common features of self-abandonment
    12:30: Facing the fear of our authentic self being seen
    16:05: Facing shame and self-criticism
    21:00: Self-referencing vs. referencing ourselves in relation to others
    33:10: The belief that safety feels more critical than authenticity
    40:55: Our relationship to nature, and joining with the defense
    50:55: Relationships, openness to change, and bringing parts into awareness
    55:20: Cognitive restructuring, and redefining our self-abandoning beliefs
    58:50: Recap
    Forrest is now writing on Substack, check out his work there. 
    Support the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link.
    Sponsors
    Get your stand on with UPLIFT Desk! Go to UPLIFT Desk.com/BEINGWELL for 5% off your order of one of their fantastic standing desks or office products.
    Join over a million people using BetterHelp, the world’s largest online counseling platform. Visit betterhelp.com/beingwell for 10% off your first month!
    Trust your gut with Seed’s DS-01 Daily Synbiotic. Go to Seed.com/BEINGWELL and use code 25BEINGWELL to get 25% off your first month. 
    Start each day right with IQBAR’s bars, hydration mixes, and mushroom coffees. Just text BEINGWELL to sixty-four thousand (64-000) and get an exclusive offer of 20% off plus free shipping.
    Connect with the show:

    Subscribe on iTunes

    Follow Forrest on YouTube

    Follow us on Instagram

    Follow Forrest on Instagram

    Follow Rick on Facebook

    Follow Forrest on Facebook

    Visit Forrest's website


    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    • 1 hr 6 min
    Hunger, Habits, and Changing Your Relationship with Food with Dr. Jud Brewer

    Hunger, Habits, and Changing Your Relationship with Food with Dr. Jud Brewer

    There are as many ways to have a difficult relationship with food as there are ways to eat. It’s hard to get conversations about these challenges right, but today we’re taking the plunge and exploring the habit of eating when we’re not hungry with psychiatrist Dr. Jud Brewer. 
    Dr. Rick, Forrest, and Dr. Jud start by discussing our often flawed approach to conversations about eating patterns, shame spirals, and the many problems with diets. They then move the conversation from what we eat to how we eat, applying Dr. Jud’s work on habits and craving to the challenge of emotional eating. Specific topics include the neuroscience behind how our hunger cues and emotional cues get mixed up, common habit loops related to food, reward value and the importance of creating a prediction error, the nature of craving as wanting without liking, mindfulness-based tools, and how we can create a bigger, better offer for our brains.
    About our Guest: Dr. Jud Brewer is a psychiatrist, the director of research and innovation at Brown University’s Mindfulness Center, a professor in Behavioral and Social Sciences at the School of Public Health and Psychiatry at the School of Medicine at Brown University, and a research affiliate at MIT. He’s also the bestselling author of a number of books, including The Craving Mind, Unwinding Anxiety, and his most recent book The Hunger Habit.
    Disclaimer: If you struggle with a serious restrictive eating disorder like anorexia or bulimia nervosa, the material in this conversation will not support your needs. Please consider working with your doctor or mental health clinician, or using the free resources at www.nationaleatingdisorders.org. If you need immediate help, call the ANAD hotline at 1-888-375-7767.
    You can watch this episode on YouTube.
    Key Topics:
    0:00: Introduction and disclaimer
    2:40: The surprising finding from Jud’s smoking cessation program
    6:05: What Jud’s new book is not about, and information vs. behavior
    11:05: The mental health impact of dieting, and the problem with willpower
    18:05: Hedonic hunger, and food-mood wiring
    24:15: Bringing awareness to how we eat, and our cultural conditioning
    31:50: Developing freedom of choice, and the MBSR raisin exercise
    36:20: A walkthrough of mindful eating
    44:25: When you don't want to let go of a behavior, and finding the bigger better offer
    52:50: Kindness, curiosity, and other tools for improving interoception
    57:00: Ways to find the bigger better offer
    1:07:45: Caring for our future self
    1:11:30: Recap
    Forrest is now writing on Substack, check out his work there. 
    Support the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link.
    Sponsors
    Get your stand on with UPLIFT Desk! Go to UPLIFT Desk.com/BEINGWELL for 5% off your order of one of their fantastic standing desks or office products.
    Join over a million people using BetterHelp, the world’s largest online counseling platform. Visit betterhelp.com/beingwell for 10% off your first month!
    Want to sleep better? Try the Calm app! Visit calm.com/beingwell for 40% off a premium subscription.
    Trust your gut with Seed’s DS-01 Daily Synbiotic. Go to Seed.com/BEINGWELL and use code 25BEINGWELL to get 25% off your first month. 
    Start each day right with IQBAR’s bars, hydration mixes, and mushroom coffees. Just text BEINGWELL to sixty-four thousand (64-000) and get an exclusive offer of 20% off plus free shipping.
    Connect with the show:

    Subscribe on iTunes

    Follow Forrest on YouTube

    Follow us on Instagram

    Follow Forrest on Instagram

    Follow Rick on Facebook

    Follow Forrest on Facebook

    Visit Forrest's website


    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    • 1 hr 21 min
    Somatic Tools for Self-Regulation with Elizabeth Ferreira

    Somatic Tools for Self-Regulation with Elizabeth Ferreira

    One of the most important skills we can learn is how to regulate ourselves, riding the emotional waves without either ignoring or being overwhelmed by them. Associate therapist Elizabeth Ferreira joins Forrest to explore how we can feel our feelings while staying calm, collected, and in control. They walk through two examples of under- and over-regulation, and Elizabeth offers specific practices that might help in each common situation.
    You can watch this episode on YouTube.
    Key Topics:
    0:00: Introduction
    1:50: Creating safety and connection with a new client
    6:30: Therapy as an opportunity for reparative experiences
    9:45: Learning to regulate when you have traumatized parts
    16:55: What’s helped Elizabeth heal patterns of overregulation and dissociation
    23:50: A hypothetical dialogue with an overregulated client
    29:10: Titration and traumatic release
    33:05: Labeling and accepting emotions, and empowering the “wise adult”
    40:15: A hypothetical dialogue with an underregulated client 
    46:30: Celebrating when we notice our patterns
    49:30: Movement, tapping, tremoring, journaling, and other practices
    53:55: Finding a supportive community
    57:10: Being with your body, and following your curiosity
    58:55: Recap
    Forrest is now writing on Substack, check out his work there.
    Support the Podcast: We're on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link.
    Sponsors
    Start each day right with IQBAR’s brain-and-body-boosting bars, hydration mixes, and mushroom coffees. Just text BEINGWELL to sixty-four thousand (64-000) and get an exclusive offer of 20% off plus free shipping.
    Trust your gut with Seed’s DS-01 Daily Synbiotic. Go to Seed.com/BEINGWELL and use code 25BEINGWELL to get 25% off your first month. 
    OneSkin focuses on delivering more than superficial results for your skin. Get started today with 15% off using code BEINGWELL at oneskin.co. 
    Join over a million people using BetterHelp, the world’s largest online counseling platform. Visit betterhelp.com/beingwell for 10% off your first month!
    Want to sleep better? Try the Calm app! Visit calm.com/beingwell for 40% off a premium subscription.
    Connect with the show:

    Subscribe on iTunes

    Follow Forrest on YouTube

    Follow us on Instagram

    Follow Forrest on Instagram

    Follow Rick on Facebook

    Follow Forrest on Facebook

    Visit Forrest's website


    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    • 1 hr 4 min
    Build Strong Relationships and Heal in Community with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford

    Build Strong Relationships and Heal in Community with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford

    Our relationships are some of the most important parts of our life, and our happiness is often directly correlated to the strength of those relationships. Dr. Joy Harden Bradford joins the podcast to explore how we can apply lessons from group therapy to build stronger friendships. Forrest and Dr. Joy focus on how we can build the trust necessary for vulnerability, how attachment issues show up in friendships, and the common friend roles you might be placing yourself into without realizing it.
    About our Guest: Dr. Joy is a Licensed Psychologist based out of Atlanta, Georgia, the host of the wildly popular podcast Therapy for Black Girls – which has more than 34 million downloads - and the author of the recently released book Sisterhood Heals: The Transformative Power of Healing in Community. 
    Forrest is now writing on Substack, check out his work there.
    You can watch this episode on YouTube.
    Key Topics:
    0:00: Introduction
    1:20: What group therapy is like, and some its unique advantages
    5:50: Creating a safe container for vulnerability
    11:50: Trust, loyalty, respect, and gender dynamics
    19:55: Attachment patterns in friendships
    25:50: The Wallflower, the Leader, the Peacemaker, and the Firecracker
    33:30: Navigating social circles with differing levels of openness to change
    36:35: Challenges identifying, accepting, and expressing our needs
    41:40: Specific challenges for black women in getting needs met
    46:15: How stigma around therapy has changed over time
    48:55: Curiosity, and guidelines for global sisterhood
    52:00: Recap
    Support the Podcast: We're on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link.
    Sponsors
    Visit airdoctorpro.com and use promo code BEING to receive up to $300 off air purifiers! When you use our code, you’ll also receive a free 3-year warranty on any unit, an $84 value
    Join over a million people using BetterHelp, the world’s largest online counseling platform. Visit betterhelp.com/beingwell for 10% off your first month!
    Want to sleep better? Try the Calm app! Visit calm.com/beingwell for 40% off a premium subscription.
    Trust your gut with Seed’s DS-01 Daily Synbiotic. Go to Seed.com/BEINGWELL and use code 25BEINGWELL to get 25% off your first month. 
    OneSkin focuses on delivering more than superficial results for your skin. Get started today with 15% off using code BEINGWELL at oneskin.co. 
    Connect with the show:

    Subscribe on iTunes

    Follow Forrest on YouTube

    Follow us on Instagram

    Follow Forrest on Instagram

    Follow Rick on Facebook

    Follow Forrest on Facebook

    Visit Forrest's website


    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    • 1 hr
    How to ADHD with Jessica McCabe

    How to ADHD with Jessica McCabe

    ADHD is one of the most common - and most misunderstood - conditions out there, and today we’re setting the record straight with author and YouTuber Jessica McCabe. Jessica joins Forrest to explore her journey with ADHD, dealing with common challenges like self-criticism, shame, and sensitivity, and how we can work with our unique brain, not against it. 
    About our Guest: Jessica McCabe is the creator of the popular YouTube channel How to ADHD and author of the new book How to ADHD: An Insider’s Guide to Working with Your Brain, Not Against It. 
    Forrest is now writing on Substack, check out his work there. You can watch this episode on YouTube.
    Key Topics:
    0:00: Introduction
    1:15: Jessica’s history with ADHD, and how she wrote her book
    7:15: Stigma, pride, self-criticism, and letting others help you
    12:05: Dealing with shame
    14:55: Self-advocacy, self-acceptance, and asking the right questions
    24:40: Believing in your experience
    27:45: Common misconceptions about ADHD
    31:40: The relationship between ADHD and emotional sensitivity and regulation
    36:05: Creating a sense of community
    39:25: Advice for partners, family, and friends of people with ADHD
    47:25: Recap 
    Support the Podcast: We're on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link.
    Sponsors
    Join over a million people using BetterHelp, the world’s largest online counseling platform. Visit betterhelp.com/beingwell for 10% off your first month!
    Want to sleep better? Try the Calm app! Visit calm.com/beingwell for 40% off a premium subscription.
    Trust your gut with Seed’s DS-01 Daily Synbiotic. Go to Seed.com/BEINGWELL and use code 25BEINGWELL to get 25% off your first month. 
    OneSkin focuses on delivering more than superficial results for your skin. Get started today with 15% off using code BEINGWELL at oneskin.co.
    Connect with the show:

    Subscribe on iTunes

    Follow Forrest on YouTube

    Follow us on Instagram

    Follow Forrest on Instagram

    Follow Rick on Facebook

    Follow Forrest on Facebook

    Visit Forrest's website


    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    • 55 min

Customer Reviews

4.8 out of 5
1.9K Ratings

1.9K Ratings

E94903 ,

A great podcast

This took me a little while to appreciate and now I look forward to episodes. There’s something comforting to Forest and I appreciate how he breaks down complicated issues with the expertise of his dad, Rick Hanson. While, I knew of Rick’s work which drew me to listening, it’s Forest and the many helpful topics that keeps me returning. Thank you for the work you do it’s very helpful.

Turnip O'Houlihan ,

Smile

I love this podcast. Such relevance and from such knowledgeable people. I love when Forests voice changes in the way that you can tell he is smiling

JohnPatrick'sMom ,

Friends you are happy to hear from 🥰

I have been listening to the podcast for over a year. I really enjoy listening to Forrest and Rick--as they are easy to listen to and have comforting voices. If a podcaster naturally talks too fast, I get nervous (slowing the speed hasn't helped). Forrest and Rick speak at my ideal speed and I enjoy their occasional banter. Listening to Being Well is a comforting part of my week--I feel like they are my friends and are talking TO ME a lot of the time. The topics have been so interesting and very helpful to me and I have shared and recommended so many episodes to friends. I also love that Forrest summarizes the episode at the end😀

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