Hanna Rosin is a journalist and the host of Radio Atlantic, The Atlantic’s flagship show. Previously she was the editorial director of audio at New York magazine. She started her audio career at NPR, serving as a co-host of Invisibilia. Before switching to podcasts, she was a newspaper and magazine writer for outlets such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and New York magazine. She is also the author of two books, most recently The End of Men. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her partner, her teenage son, and a ragtag collection of pets with human names. She recently started doing pottery, just to conform to cliché. Pickleball seems inevitable.
I love self-help; I hate self-help. What I mean is: I am very particular about how I want my self-help advice delivered, and I imagine other people feel the same way. I want a show that doesn’t just tell me to “breathe” and “stay connected,” but offers real insights. Ever since I co-hosted NPR’s Invisibilia, I’ve tried to guide people toward taking emotions as seriously as they would any intellectual endeavor—and I still do today, as the host of Radio Atlantic. So, here are my chosen guides:
The Blindboy Podcast
The voice alone of Blindboyboatclub, the author and artist who hosts this show, is better than any aromatherapy. He can teach me deep life lessons in a single story about a biscuit.
Untold: The Retreat
Don’t meditate before you listen to this! Seriously! Who knew meditation could mess with your head like this?
The How To series
The Atlantic’s How To series offers the best kind of unexpected self-help. You go in anticipating useful hints on time management, but stay for the wandering, warm, philosophical journey.
The 13th Step
The worst is when vulnerable people, at their most vulnerable, visit a place for help and get taken advantage of. The reporter Lauren Choolijan goes to great lengths to show how that happens in the addiction-treatment industry.
Search Engine: Why’d I Take Speed for Twenty Years?
In this episode of PJ Vogt’s genius new podcast, he explores his own experience going on and coming off ADHD medications. It feels raw and real and sensitive and crucial at a moment when millions more are starting these meds.
Poog with Kate Berlant and Jacqueline Novak
Kate Berlant and Jacqueline Novak (funny people and best friends) start with the premise that the world of wellness is full of hard and soft scams. And they dive in anyway. Hydrafacials, crystals, matcha—they live through it all.
Chutzpod!
My other podcast. This is true self-help with rigor. Every week, my co-host, Rabbi Shira Stutman, and I read listener’ questions about polyamory, Passover, dogs, best friends, whatever. Then Rabbi Shira applies ancient Jewish texts and modern psychology to puzzle through some advice. At the end, we call the letter writer to get their reaction.
99% Invisible: Autism Pleasantville
In this episode of Roman Mars’s show about design, the reporter Lauren Ober—who also happens to be my partner—takes us to Mesa, Arizona, a supposedly autism-friendly city. What we learn about instead is the difference between box-checking to be helpful and open to difference—and actually figuring out how to be helpful and open to difference.
The Dream
If, like me, you are naturally suspicious of life coaches, self-styled gurus, cult leaders, and schemes of all kinds, then this is the show for you. The host, Jane Marie, has a knack for spotting charlatans and their victims.
How to Be Fine
I love a social experiment. The hosts choose a different self-help book and live by its rules for a defined period of time. I can’t tell you how much I wish I could do this myself.
Voices in the River
Rebecca Auman has the voice. She is a self-proclaimed witch and uses a lot of terms I usually tune out—empower, leader, and destiny—yet somehow, when Auman says it, I believe it.
Pocket Casts Blog