Why Add A Mental Health & Wellness Podcast To Your Morning Routine?

It can be beneficial to start each day with a positive morning routine that may help you find peace of mind, get organized, and learn tips to address life's challenges. If you're interested in cultivating a healthier routine to start each day, adding a health and wellness podcast to your morning may be an effective start. Below is an overview of the potential benefits of listening to a health podcast each morning, suggestions for podcasts to try, and ways you can get personalized support from an online therapist.

Benefits of incorporating a wellness podcast into your morning routine

A healthy morning routine before you start your day may help improve your physical, mental, and emotional health. Listening to a wellness podcast is part of the morning routine for some people. Below are a few benefits of this practice.

Setting the tone for the day

Increasing your productivity 

An organized, healthy morning routine may increase your productivity throughout the day, allowing you to accomplish more tasks. Several wellness podcasts advise listeners on cultivating productivity and focusing on priorities. By beginning your day with purpose and spending each moment on valuable and meaningful tasks, you may be able to continue with that mindset throughout the day. 

Reducing daily stress

If you begin your day feeling rushed and disorganized, you may feel stressed about all the tasks you must complete. You might also get irritable when your schedule doesn't go as planned. Adding a wellness podcast into your routine may help you start your day feeling focused, relaxed, and calm before daily stressors arise. 

Also, many wellness podcasts center around mindfulness meditation, a practice that can promote a healthier, clearer mindset. From this place, you can prioritize the tasks you need to complete and create a plan to ensure they finish. Instead of feeling unprepared, you may approach the day with confidence. Due to the power of the mind-body connection, daily mindfulness meditation may also help you relax more easily and sleep better at night, which could help reduce fear and stress during the day.

Improving your relationships

People may vent their frustrations on the people closest to them when stressed. Wellness podcasts may teach you how to reduce your stress, potentially reducing the chance of you projecting that tension onto your loved ones. In addition, many wellness podcasts tend to give insightful advice surrounding relationships. Adding a wellness podcast to your morning routine may also help you prioritize your time, potentially giving you more time to devote to your relationships.

Finally, the storytelling aspect of many podcasts may bring interpersonal benefits as well. Listening to the stories, advice, and honest conversations of others in the morning may help you feel a stronger sense of human connection, potentially helping reduce feelings of loneliness. Learning from other people’s personal stories and experiences and joining a community of regular listeners might also help you feel a sense of joy and belonging or inspire you to cultivate more connection in your daily life.

Creating healthier habits 

A wellness podcast in your morning routine can help you start the day with at least one positive habit. When you begin to see the brain and body benefits of healthy habits, you might be inspired to develop more while also ridding yourself of those that may be unhelpful or harmful. Over time, listening to a wellness podcast in the morning may also help you build coping skills and resilience—through both the insights and education offered in the show as well as the repetition of a self-care habit. For additional, personalized support in this area, consider working with an online therapist.

Promoting mindfulness

If you're new to mindfulness meditation, many podcasts can teach you how to practice it. Practicing mindfulness can have many benefits for your mental health. Podcasts that help teach it, therefore, may help reduce stress, decrease ruminating thoughts, boost memory and focus, and lower emotional reactivity. By incorporating a morning mindfulness podcast into your morning routine, you may have more clarity and awareness of the tasks of greatest importance that you need to accomplish that day. 

Building practical skills

The primary intention of many wellness podcasts is to offer insights that you can apply to your daily life. Credible health podcasts may help you:

• Implement personal growth strategies
• Find your individual power and motivation
• Learn about breaking new health and wellness research
• Consider the real reason you may struggle to meet certain goals
• Get tips on how to do hard things and make positive change in your life

For example, a podcast might offer advice on how to approach common relationship conflicts or share practical tools for time management.

Popular wellness podcast themes to explore

The category of wellness podcasts is broad, with shows covering a wide variety of topics within this category. Depending on your interests, you might look for podcasts that discuss:

• Mental wellness, personal development, and self-improvement
• Physical fitness, nutrition and food, and body image
• Relationships, intimacy, and sexual health

Almost every podcast focuses on a particular aspect of wellness, offering many options for you to explore.

Considering credibility

Keep in mind that podcasts are typically not intended to constitute medical advice or replace professional mental health care, which you may be able to receive in-person or online. That said, it can still be important to make sure that the podcast’s host(s) are credible and offer helpful, science-based insights that align with modern psychological science. 

Health and wellness podcasts to try

If you want to create a healthy morning routine by adding a health and wellness podcast to it, you may have a plethora of options from which to choose. Hundreds, if not thousands, of different podcasts could meet your needs. Whether you're searching for guided meditations, mindfulness tools, tips for time management, or advice for boosting your productivity and mood, you can find many of these topics online. Below are a few popular options to get started. 

Meditation Minis

For those who want to add mindfulness meditation into their morning routine, the Meditation Minis podcast may be a helpful start. Hosted by hypnotherapist Chel Hamilton, this award-winning podcast provides short, guided meditations that can provide focus, mental clarity, and peace. 

Meditation Minis can be ideal for beginners as well as those with meditation experience. Many of these meditations average around ten minutes in length, which may be helpful if you want to fit in meditation and mindfulness but don't have much time in the morning. Studies suggest that ten minutes of meditation daily may be enough to receive the benefits.

The Mindful Minute

Hosted by Meryl Arnett, The Mindful Minute podcast focuses on overcoming daily challenges and finding peace through various breathing techniques. Beginning each morning with mindful breathing may help you feel calmer and more prepared to take on the day.

Getting Better: Stories of Mental Health

Getting Better: Stories of Mental Health is a podcast led by BetterHelp licensed therapists Micheline Maalouf and Nadia Addesi, who explore the mental health journeys of guests like Ian Somerhalder, Chris Bosh, Meghan Trainor, and more. The podcast recognizes that navigating mental health obstacles can be an extended journey of acceptance and perseverance, and they're determined to be there with you each step of the way.

Mind If We Talk?

Another podcast from BetterHelp, Mind If We Talk?, is hosted by licensed therapist Haesue Jo and focuses on relatable emotional challenges that many people face, especially in the quiet moments of early mornings—like anxiety, grief, imposter syndrome, and procrastination. Structured as two-part conversations with a therapeutic lens, the podcast encourages listeners to reflect deeply and start their day with greater emotional awareness. 

Mindfulness Mode

Mindfulness Mode, hosted by Bruce Langford, is a podcast that focuses on becoming the best version of yourself through effective mindfulness practices. Langford provides helpful, holistic health tools and strategies for reducing stress and anxiety. He also offers advice on how to effectively manage your personal and professional goals to balance your daily schedule. He interviews celebrities, and experts to examine mindfulness comprehensively. 

Happier with Gretchen Rubin

Hosted by the best-selling author of The Happiness Project and Better Than Before, Happier is a podcast that provides practical tips and expert advice about creating healthier habits and overall happiness in your life. If you're struggling with unwanted thinking patterns or find yourself stuck in a rut, you might try this podcast.  

The Daily Boost

Hosted by Scott Smith, The Daily Boost podcast provides valuable episodes on many unique topics. Smith covers overcoming challenges, discovering what you want in life, improving mindset and motivation, reducing procrastination, and tips for becoming happier. Episodes are under 15 minutes, which can benefit those struggling with time management.

Before Breakfast

Before Breakfast is an iHeartRadio podcast hosted by Laura Vanderkam. It provides short, daily episodes under ten minutes, which can easily fit into a morning routine. This podcast explores how to prioritize your time effectively and provides valuable time management tips and strategies to accomplish more daily.

How to choose the right wellness podcast for you

With so many podcasts out there, it might take some exploring to find one that most aligns with your needs and is helpful for your goals. Starting with the recommendations listed here or asking friends and family for their favorites can help you on your search. You might focus on shows with topics that match your long-term wellness goals—or your mood that morning. Try different formats and voices to see what resonates with your style and your own experience. Consider sampling episodes by topic, release date, or rating.

Tips for making podcast listening a form of self-care

A few tips may help you make the most of your morning podcast listening, such as:

• Form a habit. Listening at the same time each morning can help you form a positive habit. Pairing the act of pressing play on your podcast with something else you do each morning, like pouring your coffee or brushing your teeth, could help you remember to do it.
• Listen actively. Rather than listening passively or multitasking while you listen, aiming to pay attention can make you more likely to take in the information and benefit from it.
• Walk and listen. While multitasking may make it harder to focus, walking while listening to your podcast could actually improve memory and retention. 
• Journal afterward. Another way to get the most out of your morning podcast listening is to spend a few minutes journaling afterward to internalize what you learned.

Beyond podcasts: seeking professional mental health support 

While a health and wellness podcast can be a valuable resource to improve mental and overall well-being, it isn't a replacement for professional therapy. Instead, podcasts may be a complementary resource in addition to receiving professional support as needed. 

If you're experiencing mental health concerns that are interfering with your daily life, seeking support from a licensed therapist may be beneficial. Those who enjoy the convenience and ease of a podcast, might find online therapy to be preferable to in-person therapy. Through internet-based platforms like BetterHelp, you can get virtual treatment and support from the comfort of your own home or wherever you have an internet connection, which can be a convenient, accessible way to engage in deeper self-care work over the longer term. 

Multiple studies suggest that online therapy can often be as effective as in-person therapy, with individuals frequently reporting improved symptoms of various mental health concerns after a short period of online care. Researchers have also found it more cost-effective than traditional face-to-face therapy in many cases. Some online therapy platforms are hundreds of dollars less than face-to-face therapy per month.