Midlife Crises
Two Generation X guys, an epidemiologist and a chemistry professor, explore the challenges and humor of midlife crises. They share personal anecdotes and insights, hoping to entertain and educate listeners, even those who haven't experienced a midlife crisis yet. The podcast invites audience interaction through email and Facebook.
Episodes
E32: Finding Happiness & Purpose in the Second Half of Life
In this episode, we discuss the book "From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, & Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life" by Arthur C. Brooks. In the opening segment we get a brief report from Alvin on his recent adventure in the canyonlands of Utah, and we do a Gen Z Word of the Day segment in which we see if Alvin knows what the word "cracked" means. In the
E31: Trends in Midlife Vitality Across Generations & Countries
After a long absence from the podcast we are back. In the first segment we read a glowing review of the podcast, we report on our recent midlife crises in action, and give one area where we are optimistic about the future. In the main segment (16:30) we discuss an article in which a group of psychologists report on how Gen X midlifers compare to the previous generations in terms of quality of life
E30: The Birthday Episode - The Impact of Reaching a New Decade in Life on the Search for Meaning & Purpose?
We are excited to be back for our 30th episode and to celebrate our 2nd year anniversary of the podcast. In the opening 10 minute segment we reflect on how the podcast has helped us cope with midlife issues, and Jack tells a story about a recent grad student who recently quit a job in industry to pursue a career in teaching. In the main segment (11:30) we discuss a paper where researchers try to f
E29: Coping with Aging Parents (with special guest host Carolyn Lambert)
In this episode we have brought on special guest host Carolyn Lambert to tackle the topic of coping with aging parents. Carolyn is a certified parent coach who was a guest on the podcast back in episode 11, and she is currently acting as a caregiver for her father who recently sustained a serious physical injury.In our opening segment Jack reports to Alvin and Carolyn whether the book Grapes of Wr
E28: The Holiday Blues - Myth or Reality? (And an Unexpected "New" Christmas Movie)
We apologize for the delay between pods, but as you'll hear in this episode Alvin experienced some chaos over Christmas and New Year's, so we were delayed in putting out our annual holiday special. Though this is coming out a little late, this should be a nice way for you to reflect on the holidays and think about some potential New Year's resolutions.In the opening segment we hear from Alvin abou
E27 - Physical Maintenance and Growth in the Midlife and Beyond: Review of "Younger Next Year"
In this episode we tackle the issue of physical decline by reviewing the book "Younger Next Year" by Chris Crowley and Dr. Harry Lodge.In our opening segment we report on our informal Facebook poll about whether folks cry more from reading books or watching movies (5:45), briefly discuss the recent revelations about Cormac McCarthy's underage muse (9:50), hear a story from Alvin about one of his c
MLC Mini-pod: Nostalgia for Elections Past & Silver Linings (we hope) for 2024
In this mini-pod we give you our rapid response to the 2024 election. We reminisce about the elections from the 1990's and early 2000's and give some brief perspective on last week's election. We hope that reflecting back on past elections and realizing many state-level elections diverged from the presidential election will help reduce the anxiety many folks might be feeling right now.
Email: mid
E26 - MLC at the Movies: Barbie's Ultimate Existential Crisis (Plus a Debate on the Most Influential Art Forms)
In this episode we are excited to bring you our second Midlife Crises movie review, in which we explore themes of existential identity and death in the 2023 movie Barbie.
After a brief reflection of our recent Halloween experiences, Alvin and Jack debate in the opening segment what the most impactful forms of art are. We end up comparing and contrasting movies vs. books, and we try to figure out w
E25 - Cognitive Decline & Learning as Older Adults (Interview with Professor Rachel Wu)
In this episode we are excited to bring you our interview with Dr. Rachel Wu, a professor of psychology at the University of California-Riverside. She is a developmental cognitive neuroscientist investigating how we learn across the lifespan. Dr. Wu has received more than two dozen awards and grants, including a Rising Star award from the Association for Psychological Science and an NSF Career a
E24 - The Happiness Hypothesis, Improving Happiness in the Midlife, and Childless Cat Ladies
In this episode we continue our series on happiness, focusing on how one might improve happiness in the midlife. In our opening potpourri/grab-bag segment, Jack gives a quick take on the movies Defending Your Life and Joe vs. the Volcano, which were on our top 5 list of movies related to existential happiness from our last episode. Jack also recommends an episode from The Nietzsche Podcast in whic
E23 - Causes of Youth Unhappiness and What to Do About It? (And Our Top 5 Movies on Existential Happiness)
In this episode we follow up our interview with Dr. Danny Blanchflower by discussing the possible causes of the observed decreased happiness among America's youth.After Alvin tells a brief story about an internet scam he encountered while selling his car, we have a research discussion on the possible causes of the unhappiness epidemic (12:53). We discuss Jonathan Haidt's hypothesis about how smart
E22 - Interview with Danny Blanchflower: Father of the Happiness Curve (Plus a Discussion of the Decline in Youth Happiness)
In this episode we are pleased to bring you our interview with David, aka Danny Blanchflower, who is a professor of economics at Dartmouth College, research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, adviser to the United Nations, and former external member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee.
In our opening segment we review our previous discussions of the u-shaped lif
E21 - Optimism in the Face of Adversity: Alvin's Story of Midlife Crisis (and is Jack too optimistic?)
This episode was inspired by a revelation that Alvin recently made to Jack in an offline discussion, and Alvin was convinced to share this story to help us do a more thorough evaluation of where we fall on the continuum of the classic midlife crisis.
Given that the theme of this episode is "optimism in the face of adversity" we decided to open with a segment in which we evaluate whether or not Jac
E20 - Divorce Stories: Attachment Theory & Relationship Compatibility (Plus the Gen Z Word of the Day)
In this episode we follow up our recent conversation on personality and personality change with a discussion of attachment theory and how different attachment styles might impact relationship compatibility.
In the opening segment we briefly revisit the issue of the reported youth mental health crisis, discuss Jonathan Haidt's new book "The Anxious Generation", and Jack quizzes Alvin on his knowled
E19 - Interview with Brent Roberts (Destroyer of Myths) Part 2: Personality Impacts on Relationships, Divorce, and Parenting (and Dungeons & Dragons Personality Types?)
In this episode we are excited to bring you part 2 of our interview with Dr. Brent Roberts, Professor of Psychology and renowned personality psychologist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
In our opening segment, Alvin shares some survey
data about which Dungeons and Dragons personality types people associate with and we discuss which of these character traits we identify with most (4
E18 - Interview with Brent Roberts (Destroyer of Myths) Part 1: Personality Change Over the Lifespan & The Life Happiness Curve
In this episode we bring you part one of our interview with Dr. Brent Roberts, a renowned personality psychologist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
We open the epidsode by summarizing our online personality test results, discuss the different domains covered in the Myers-Briggs test, and then reflect on how our personality traits may have shifted over the past 25 years (4:10-27:00)
E17 - Progress By A Thousand Thoughts: The Philosophy of Nietzsche & The Lust for Life
In this episode we are excited to have on Keegan Kjeldsen, a touring doom metal musician and host of The Nietzsche Podcast.
We open the episode explaining why we sought out Keegan for an interview, and then Alvin gives a quick history of Nietzsche's life. If you're more familiar with Nietzsche and would like to skip straight to the interview, that starts around minute 22:00 in the audio feed.
We
E16 - Midlife Crisis on the Interwebs: What is a Midlife Crisis According to Wikipedia and Reddit? (and reminiscing about New Year's Y2K)
Happy new year and welcome to season two of the Midlife Crises podcast. Since we just rang in the new year, we thought it would be fun to open up season two by reminiscing about the Y2K scare and New Year's 2000 in our Where Were You When segment.
In our main segment we decided to begin by identifying what the definition of a midlife crisis is and whether midlife crises are just a myth, and then A
E15 - Season Finale...Top 5 Holiday Movies List & Goals/Resolutions for 2024
In this episode, we come up with the Midlife Crises list of top 5 holiday/Christmas movies (and no, Die Hard is not a Christmas movie...), and we reflect on 2023 and the first season of the podcast. We discuss some of the topics we plan to cover in 2024, and identify a couple of personal New Year's resolutions we would like to accomplish in the coming year. We hope everyone has a great holiday sea
E14 - Interview with Women's Midlife Coach Clarissa Kristjansson (and Alvin rescues an injured owl?!)
In this episode we are excited to have on as a guest
Clarissa Kristjansson, a women’s midlife coach who is also the host of the podcast “Thriving Through Menopause.” Before getting to our interview with Clarissa, Alvin and I spend a few minutes discussing an idea for a Saturday Night Live sketch involving Spock from Star Trek, and then hear about a recent situation in which Alvin was called on to
E13 - Does Wisdom Peak in the Midlife? (and Alvin shows off his Zoophilia knowledge?!)
In this episode Alvin and I review a research article that attempts to track how wisdom changes over the life span. This is a little longer than our normal run time, so if you want to break this up into smaller segments, we spend the first 25 minutes catching up and talking about some of our favorite and most hated Christmas songs as we enter the holiday season. In minutes 25-68 we talk about what
Episode 12 - Changing Careers in the Midlife Part 2 (interview with Asheville, NC local legend Kent Purser)
This is the second episode in our series on changing careers
in the midlife. Today’s guest is Kent Purser, a local legend and town eccentric in Asheville, North Carolina. We learn about Kent’s journey, in which he transitioned from living a life of crime to devoting himself to a career in social work. We also talk about how he has always been wary of adhering to societies norms, and how that core
Episode 11 - Changing Careers in the Midlife Part 1 (Interview with Parent Coach Carolyn Lambert)
This is the first in our series of episodes in which we’ll
be interviewing folks who have changed careers in the midlife stage. In this first episode in the series, we interviewed Alvin’s parent coach, Carolyn Lambert. Carolyn has both a law degree and MBA from Duke University, and after gaining over 20 years of experience in conflict management in both industry and
the state university system in
Episode 9 - How Personality Changes Through the Lifespan (and Alvin bottle feeds kittens?!)
In this episode Alvin and Jack wanted to do a follow up on their discussion of changing mindset by looking at how human personalities change over the life span. Previous guest Adina Fox joins us to discuss the findings of a meta-analysis that looks at whether different personality traits change significantly in adulthood. Before we get into that, Alvin gives us an update on how he got hoodwinked i
Episode 8 - Changing Your Ways of Thinking in the Midlife (and yes, more talk about vampires...)
The big theme of this episode is reflecting on how we have changed our mindsets or ways of thinking throughout our adult lives. Before diving into that we spend the first 30 minutes catching up on our recent travels. Alvin tells some interesting stories about his trip to Peru, and in particular he reflects on how traveling to South America has changed since his journey there in his mid-twenties. I
Episode 7: Special Guest - Listener Feedback on the Midlife Crises Podcast (including vampires)
On today’s episode we have on as a special guest Mike Miller. He is a long time friend of Alvin and a loyal follower of the podcast. Mike is a fellow graduate of the University of North Carolina, has been an educator for 25 years and is currently an administrator at a private K-8 school in Asheville, NC, and his listener submitted stories have been twice nominated for a poddy award on the Carolina
Coping with Midlife Issues
In this episode we have on as a guest Adina Fox, a licensed clinical social worker from Ashland, Ohio. After some initial banter about whether we would prefer to identify as Gen Xers or millennials, we talk to Adina about the general notion of midlife crises and whether they would be related to actual mental health disorders, what types of remedies she seeks with her patients, how she determines w
Episode 5: Coping with Death
In this episode Alvin and I catch up on recent life events,
give a run-down of our current podcast listener statistics, quickly discuss a recent news article about unstructured play-time for children (which builds off our previous discussion on helicopter parenting), and introduce the topic of coping with death.
If you are interested in hearing the Making Sense of Death
podcast with Sam Harris
Episode 4: Helicopter Parenting & Introducing the Life Happiness Curve
In this episode we briefly follow up on our iGen/Gen Z discussion and talk about helicopter parenting (3:48), reflect on our podcast venture up this point (23:35), introduce the life happiness curve (37:04), and finish up with a Are You Not Entertained segment (55:47) where we report back on previous streaming recommendations (and provide a couple of new ones as well).
Episode 3: iGen - How Do We Deal with Young People from Generation Z?
Episode 3: In this episode, we introduce a new segment called "Real or Fake" in which we have to guess if ridiculous sounding journal articles are real research articles or fake articles from The Onion. We also discuss a book called "iGen" by Dr. Jean Twenge. We attempt to figure out how to deal with kids and young adults from Generation Z.
Episode 1: Introductory Episode
Episode 1: We briefly discuss (in a non-political way) the recent Cochran Reviews meta-analysis about the impact of masking on Covid-19 transmission, explain our goals for the podcast, introduce your podcast hosts Alvin and Jack, and introduce two of our segments: "Where Were You When" in which we reminisce about a famous day in history important to Generation X, and "Are You Not En
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