How to Age Up
The science around aging is expanding but are our cultural narratives keeping up? This podcast explores the latest research on aging and how our perceptions of getting older are evolving.
Episodes
Why Learn Something That a Machine Can Do for You?
Children still learn long division even though calculators exist, and many people continue to study languages even as AI translation becomes faster and more accurate. Is there a deeper purpose for learning that technology will never touch?
In this episode of How to Touch Grass, hosts Natalie Brennan and Julie Beck hear from Michelle Miller, a cognitive psychologist at Northern Arizona University
The Internet Is More Image-Focused Than Ever
It wasn’t that long ago that “body positivity” was all over the internet. Oppressive beauty standards hadn’t gone away by any stretch, but many people on social media were pushing against limits on what an “ideal” body could look like. Now, things have swung in the opposite direction, with the rapid uptake of GLP-1s and the resurgence of a skinny ideal, combined with a new frankness about plastic
How AI Could Make People More Anxious
Nothing sucks you in quite like the internet. It seems to have a way of figuring out what you’re currently obsessed with and serving you more and more of it, whether that’s cat videos, cookie recipes, or information about your most pervasive and seemingly unshakeable anxiety. (At this point, anyone who’s never spent a late night Googling their worries should be studied by science for their willpow
The Power of Pre-Internet Nostalgia
Back in the ’90s, before everyone had smartphones, were things just … better? Tech-focused nostalgia has become a potent cultural force in recent years, driving sales of “dumbphones,” iPods, CDs, and other retro technology. According to a 2023 survey, 67 percent of Americans wish they could go back to a time “before everyone was ‘plugged in.’” The psychologist behind that survey, Clay Routledge, h
Introducing How To Touch Grass
A common piece of advice for those who are chronically online is to “go touch grass.” This upcoming season of How To, co-hosts Natalie Brennan and Julie Beck will look more closely at the often-fraught, always-changing relationship people have with technology. They’ll explore how people can be more intentional with their devices, rebuild their attention span, and find a way to thrive in this fast-
How to Age Up on a Warming Planet
How should we think about aging when the impacts of climate change can make the future feel so uncertain? That’s a question Sarah Ray, professor and chair of environmental studies at Cal Poly Humboldt, has been helping her students consider. Though climate anxiety can cause some to feel overwhelmed, Ray has tips for how to minimize doom loops and inaction. How to Age Up co-hosts Yasmin Tayag and N
How to Define Old Age
In 2021 Dr. Kiran Rabheru, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Ottawa and a geriatric psychiatrist, found himself at the center of a medical debate. The World Health Organization wanted to officially designate “old age” as a disease, but with more than 40 years of work with aging populations, Rabheru saw this as another example of ageism that needed to be challenged. Dr. Rabheru talks w
How to Age Up Together
In the next 10 years, our society will become more old than young. How do we leverage this time to build stronger intergenerational connections? Eunice Nichols, the co-CEO of CoGenerate, has spent more than two decades bringing older and younger people together to address issues that affect us cross-generationally. She explains how a history of structural policies, some of them great innovations,
How to Fuel Up
Food trends are constantly changing, so can people commit to a long-term nutrition practice? Kera Nyemb-Diop says yes. She is a nutrition scientist focused on breaking down the “rules” of what people think they should eat and focusing instead on being responsive to how our needs change over the course of a life. Co-hosts Yasmin Tayag and Natalie Brennan reconsider their own food habits and which p
How to Wish You Were 66 Instead of 35
We don’t often talk about the benefits of aging. Dr.Karen Adams has a different perspective. From new beginnings to menopausal zest, the director of the Stanford Program in Menopause & Healthy Aging discusses what women can look forward to as they age up.
How do you think about aging? Please leave us a voicemail (at 202-266-7701) with your name, your age, and your answers to the following q
How to Defy Death
Humans have always tried to prolong life and battle mortality, but what do the current influx of biohackers reveal about this era of individual responsibility?
Timothy Caulfield, a professor and the research director at the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta, studies how health and science are represented in the public sphere. The lines between wellness culture, longevity, an
Introducing: How to Age Up
Our scientific understanding of the aging process may be expanding, but is our cultural thinking about aging keeping up? In the new season of The Atlantic’s popular How To series, co-hosts Yasmin Tayag and Natalie Brennan explore the cultural gamification of aging, the obsession with defying this inevitable process, and how we might shift our understanding of aging to embrace the beauty of being m
Best of “How To”: Make Small Talk
This new season of How To is a collection of our favorite episodes from past seasons—a best-of series focused on slowing down, making space, and finding meaning in our hectic lives. This episode is the last in the collection and is from our fourth season, How to Talk to People. The episode features host Julie Beck in conversation with hairstylists and self-described socially anxious people about h
Best of “How To”: Identify What You Enjoy
This new season of How To is a collection of our favorite episodes from past seasons—a best-of series focused on slowing down, making space, and finding meaning in our hectic lives. This episode, from our first season, How to Build a Happy Life features host Arthur Brooks and the psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb in conversation about how the first step in making room for more joy in your life is lear
Best of “How To”: Waste Time
Our latest season of How To is a collection of our favorite episodes from past seasons—a best-of series focused on slowing down, making space, and finding meaning in our hectic lives. This episode, from our fifth season, How to Keep Time, features co-hosts Ian Bogost and Becca Rashid in conversation with Oliver Burkeman to explore what it can look like to let go in a culture preoccupied with produ
Best of “How To”: The Infrastructure of Community
This new season of How To is a collection of our favorite episodes from past seasons—a best-of series focused on slowing down, making space, and finding meaning in our hectic lives. This episode, from our fourth season, called How to Talk to People, features host Julie Beck in conversation with Eric Klinenberg and Kellie Carter Jackson to explore how both physical structures and cultural habits ca
Best of “How To”: Rest
This new season of How To is a collection of our favorite episodes from past seasons—a best-of series focused on slowing down, making space, and finding meaning in our hectic lives. This episode, from our fifth season, called How to Keep Time, features host Ian Bogost in conversation with Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, the author of several books on rest and a director at 4 Day Week Global. The two explor
Best of “How To”: Spend Time on What You Value
This new season of How To is a collection of our favorite episodes from past seasons—a best-of series focused on slowing down, making space, and finding meaning in our hectic lives. This first episode, from our third season called How to Build a Happy Life, features the Harvard Business School professor Ashley Whillans in conversation with host Arthur Brooks. The two explore how to think different
How to Know What's Real: How to Know What’s Really Propaganda
Peter Pomerantsev, a contributor at The Atlantic and author of This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality, is an expert on the ways information can be manipulated. For this special episode, Megan talks with Peter about the role of propaganda in America and how to watch out for it.
Looking for more great audio from The Atlantic? Check out Autocracy in America, hosted by Peter P
How to Know What's Real: How to be Immortal Online
With digital spaces regularly evolving and updating, and the infinite scroll beckoning to us at all times, this episode questions if we have, as a culture, fully embraced the end of endings. Hanna Reichel, an associate professor of reformed theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, helps illuminate how the emergence of godlike AI and the rise of creator culture compare with the reformations and
How to Know What's Real: How to Win at Real Life
Games can serve as an escape from reality—but they can also shape our understanding of trust, collaboration, and what might be possible IRL. Megan Garber talks with C. Thi Nguyen, an associate philosophy professor at the University of Utah, to better understand how games can help us safely explore our current reality and shape new realities, too.
Write to us at howtopodcast@theatlantic.com.
Music
How to Know What's Real: How to Keep Watch
With smartphones in our pockets and doorbell cameras cheaply available, our relationship with video as a form of proof is evolving. We often say “pics or it didn’t happen!”—but meanwhile, there’s been a rise in problematic imaging including deepfakes and surveillance systems, which often reinforce embedded gender and racial biases. So what is really being revealed with increased documentation of o
How to Know What's Real: How to Trust Your Brain Online
This episode explores the web’s effects on our brains and how narrative, repetition, and even a focus on replaying memories can muddy our ability to separate fact from fiction.
How do we come to believe the things we do? Why do conspiracy theories flourish? And how can we train our brains to recognize misinformation online?
Lisa Fazio, an associate psychology professor at Vanderbilt University,
How to Know What's Real: How to Live in a Digital City
While the vibrance, innovation, and cacophony of online life can feel completely unlike anything humanity has ever created before, its newness isn’t wholly unprecedented. Humans reckoned with many similar challenges to life as they knew it while navigating a different kind of social web: the city.
In this episode, Danah Boyd, a partner researcher at Microsoft Research and Distinguished Visiting
How to Know What's Real: How to Know Who’s Real
Social media has made it easier to build more parasocial relationships with celebrities and influencers. What impact are those connections having on our relationships IRL? And how do they shift our understanding and expectations of intimacy and trust?
Florida State University assistant professor Arienne Ferchaud defines parasocial relationships and discusses how new technologies are changing the
Introducing: How to Know What's Real
What is “real life,” now that the internet and AI are integrated into so much that we do? In the new season of The Atlantic’s popular How To series, co-hosts Megan Garber and Andrea Valdez explore deepfakes, illusions, and misinformation, and how to make sense of where things are really happening. How to Know What’s Real examines how technology has altered our sense of connectedness and how to det
How to Keep Time: Can We Keep Time?
It can be tough to face our own mortality. Keeping diaries, posting to social media, and taking photos are all tools that can help to minimize the discomfort that comes with realizing we have limited time on Earth. But how exactly does documenting our lives impact how we live and remember them?
In this episode, diarist and author Sarah Manguso reflects on the benefits and limitations of keeping
How to Keep Time: Time Tips From the Universe
Time can feel like a subjective experience—different at different points in our lives. It’s also a real, measurable thing. The universe may be too big to fully comprehend, but what we do know could help inform the ways we approach our understanding of ourselves, our purpose, and our time.
Theoretical physicist and black-hole expert Janna Levin explains how the science of time can inspire new think
How to Keep Time: How to Rest
Between making time for work, family, friends, exercise, chores, shopping—the list goes on and on—it can feel like a huge accomplishment to just take a few minutes to read a book or watch TV before bed. All that busyness can lead to poor sleep quality when we finally do get to put our heads down.
How does our relationship with rest impact our ability to gain real benefits from it? And how can we
How to Keep Time: How to Leave Work Time at Work
Before laptops allowed us to take the office home and smartphones could light up with notifications at any hour, work time and “life” time had clearer boundaries. Today, work is not done exclusively in the workplace, and that makes it harder to leave work at work.
Co-hosts Becca Rashid and Ian Bogost examine the habits that shrink our available time, and Ignacio Sánchez Prado, a professor of Lat
How to Keep Time: How to Look Busy
Many of us complain about being too busy—and about not having enough time to do the things we really want to do. But has busyness become an excuse for our inability to focus on what matters?
According to Neeru Paharia, a marketing professor at Arizona State University, time is a sort of luxury good—the more of it you have, the more valuable you are. But her research also revealed that, for many A
How to Keep Time: How to Waste Time
Co-hosts Becca Rashid and Ian Bogost explore our relationship with time and how to reclaim it. Why is it so important to be productive? Why can it feel like there’s never enough time in a day? Why are so many of us conditioned to believe that being more productive makes us better people? Author Oliver Burkman offers some insights.
This episode was co-hosted by Becca Rashid and Ian Bogost. Becca Ra
Introducing: How to Keep Time
Why can it feel like there’s never enough time in a day, and why are so many of us conditioned to believe that being more productive makes us better people? On How to Keep Time, co-hosts Becca Rashid and contributing writer Ian Bogost talk with social scientists, authors, philosophers, and theoretical physicists to learn more about time and how to reclaim it. How to Keep Time launches December 202
How to Talk to People: ‘Everyone Used to be Nicer,’ And Other Persistent Myths
A lot of people are plagued by the feeling that society used to be better, that neighbors were more helpful, that strangers once talked to you. Some people channel that belief into political action, as in the Make America Great Again movement. A new study explains why the sense that people and the culture have gotten worse is a psychological illusion. This special episode features Hanna Rosin, the
How to Talk to People: How to Not Go It Alone
The values of individualism that encourage us to go it alone are in constant tension with the desire for community that many people crave. But when attempting to do things on our own, we may miss out on the joys of coming together.
This season’s finale conversation features writer Mia Birdsong, who highlights the cultural and philosophical roots of Americans’ struggle to build community. In a cult
How to Talk to People: How to Know Your Neighbors
Are commitment issues impacting our ability to connect with the people who live around us? Relationship building may involve a commitment to the belief that neighbors are worthy of getting to know.
In this episode of How to Talk to People, author Pete Davis makes the case for building relationships with your neighbors and wider community and offers some practical advice for how to take the first s
How to Talk to People: What Makes a House a Home
What motivated two families to engage in the organized chaos of shared living and how did they learn to talk through, and shape, new expectations for their family life at home?
In this episode of How to Talk to People, we hear from Deborah Tepley and Luke Jackson, who remember when they first asked their best friends to buy a house with them. The Flemings—soon to be expecting their first child—did
How to Talk to People: What do we owe our friends?
The terms of friendship are both voluntary and vague—yet people often find themselves disappointed by unmet expectations. In this episode of How to Talk to People, we explore how to have the difficult conversations that can make our friendships richer and how to set expectations in a relationship defined by choice.
This episode was produced by Rebecca Rashid and is hosted by Julie Beck. Editing by
How to Talk to People: The Infrastructure of Community
Coffee shops, churches, libraries, and concert venues are all shared spaces where mingling can take place. Yet the hustle and bustle of modern social life can pose challenges to relationship-building—even in spaces designed for exactly that.
In this episode of How to Talk to People, we analyze how American efficiency culture holds us back from connecting in public, whether social spaces create a
How to Talk to People: How to Make Small Talk
Making small talk can be hard—especially when you’re not sure whether you’re doing it well. But conversations are a central part of relationship-building.
In this first episode of How to Talk to People, we explore the psychological barriers to making good small talk and unravel the complexities of the mutual discomfort that comes with talking to people we don’t know well.
The social scientist Ty
Trailer: How to Talk to People
On How to Talk to People we explore the barriers to relationship building and why—in a world of endless potential for connection—so many people still feel alone. From the struggle to prioritize non-romantic relationships, to just feeling uncertain of what to talk about with strangers, host Julie Beck and producer Rebecca Rashid unravel the complexities of putting yourself out there—in hopes of rev
Introducing Holy Week
Holy Week: The story of a revolution undone.
The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, is often recounted as a conclusion to a powerful era of civil rights in America, but how did this hero’s murder come to be the stitching used to tie together a narrative of victory? The week that followed his killing was one of the most fiery, disruptive, and revolutionary, and is nearly
How To Build a Happy Life: A New Formula for Happiness
We often follow a misguided formula for happiness—pushing us toward material wealth and other worldly successes. But when our expectations set us down the wrong path, it may be time to reorient ourselves around something new: universal happiness principles we can practice at any age.
In our finale episode of this season, a conversation with psychiatrist Robert Waldinger provides a scientific insi
How To Build a Happy Life: The Right Choices in Parenting
The mandates of modern parenting can be dizzying. But in the effort to optimize our parenting, we may lose sight of the values we hope to impart to our children—and the skills necessary for individual decision making.
A conversation with economist Emily Oster helps with understanding the nuances of choice-making in parenthood.
This episode was produced by Rebecca Rashid and is hosted by Arthur Br
How To Build a Happy Life: Subtraction as a Solution
From how we build our cities to how we shop, it can seem as though our natural human tendency is to add. But a culture of accumulation may be exactly what holds us back from the simple solution in front of us: taking things away.
University of Virginia professor Leidy Klotz helps us analyze the benefits of subtraction and how less may create the space for what we truly desire.
This episode was p
How To Build a Happy Life: Spend Time on What You Value
We try to use our time wisely—both at work and in leisure—but we often waste it. We may blame work for stripping us of recreation, but when valuable free time comes around, we can often revert back to more work.
What explains the gap between how we use our time and how we want to use our time? A conversation with Harvard Business School professor Ashley Whillans helps us analyze our complex relati
How To Build a Happy Life: The Complexities of Human Love
Dating apps show us what we want—a relationship—without always accurately reflecting the experience of it. Our expectation that tech will create anything more than opportunities for social connectedness may overlook the hard work of coexisting with another human being.
A conversation with University of Kansas social psychologist Omri Gillath helps us parse the divide between what tech promises a
How To Build a Happy Life: When Virtues Become Vices
When the behaviors we thought would make us happy don’t, we’re forced to bridge the gap between where we are and where we want to be. But our happiness goals are often stifled by the disease of addiction—and its complex neurochemical influence on our desires.
A conversation with psychiatrist Anna Lembke helps us understand the gap between the cravings that drive us and the happiness we seek.
Thi
How To Build a Happy Life: When Expectations Don’t Meet Reality
In our pursuit of a happy life, we build, we structure, and we plan. Often, we follow conventional wisdom and strategize. But what happens when our plans fall through and expectations don’t meet reality—when the things that should make us happy don’t?
In season 3 of our How To series, Atlantic happiness correspondent Arthur Brooks and producer Rebecca Rashid seek to navigate the unexpected curves
How to Start Over: Forgive Ourselves for What We Can’t Change
When we regret our past, it can feel like we’re incapable of changing our future. But it may be our past “mistakes” that help us realize there is room to evolve.
In the finale episode of How to Start Over, we explore how regret can be a catalyst of change, what holds us back from self-forgiveness, and how to reconcile our past mistakes—and move forward for good. Conversations with Shai Davidai, a
How to Start Over: The Misgivings of Friend-Making
In the post-social-distancing era, some of us can’t remember how to make a new friend. But for many, making friends has always been a challenge—left as an unfulfilled desire without any clear course of action.
In this episode of How to Start Over, we explore the barriers to friendship formation in adulthood, how to navigate conflict, and why starting over as a better friend begins with getting ou
How to Start Over: When Can a Marriage Be Saved?
Romantic relationships often show us the deep divide between expectations and reality. For any relationship struggling to overcome conflict, the first step to starting over may be identifying how your vision of marriage is out of step with your partner’s.
In this episode of How to Start Over, we explore why some marriages can withstand conflict, why most couples struggle to validate their partner
How to Start Over: When Partnership Is Not the Destination
In a society dominated by romantic couples, it can be hard to accept your unpartnered state for what it is. But for the “single at heart,” the desire for partnership is nonexistent—replaced with a sense of self-sufficiency, satisfaction, and robust friendships.
In this episode of How to Start Over, we explore misconceptions about singlehood and what explains a broad perception of it as an unwelco
How to Start Over: 'Parents Are Not All Good and All Bad'
Some families have the frictionless ease of unconditional love and understanding, but for many the stalemate of family tensions can be insurmountable.
In this episode of How to Start Over, we explore what can be done to evaluate the dynamics in lifelong family relationships, find ways to manage our emotional response when tensions boil over, and analyze what it means to change a parent-child relat
How to Start Over: When You Think It's Too Late
A professional change in midlife can provide a much-needed reset—at least when you’re looking for a career that more closely aligns with your passion. But finding what you love, especially once you’ve gone down an entirely different path, can feel impossible. How do we redirect our efforts away from what we’re used to and toward what we want to do?
In this episode of How to Start Over, we explor
Trailer: How To Start Over
In this series, Atlantic staff writer Olga Khazan analyzes what it takes to change our relationships, our work, and our perspective—with a practical approach to one of life’s greatest mysteries: how to start over.
Change can be really hard. Inertia is powerful, mortgages and marriages are long-term, and personality traits can feel pretty hardwired. But we’re in an era characterized by change. Thi
How to Build a Happy Life: Identify What You Enjoy
In adulthood, many of us are forced to recalibrate our relationship with joy. As responsibilities multiply exponentially, time grows limited, and challenges mount, it becomes harder to make time for fun, let alone remember what it feels like. As we explore the key components of happiness—pleasure, joy, and satisfaction—we ask the foundational question: What really brings me joy?
In this special-ed
How to Build a Happy Life: Live When You’re In Pain
As we wind down this series, a paradox remains in our pursuit of happiness—joy comes to those who have known pain. In order to overcome struggle—breakups, illness, even death—we must first accept and acknowledge its inevitability. Exploring the darkness of our suffering may seem counterintuitive, but often it’s the only way to see the light.
In this week’s episode, Arthur C. Brooks sits down with
How to Build a Happy Life: Find the Secret to Meaningful Work
The road to purposeful work is paved with good intentions; but for many, happiness at work can feel like a hopeless cause. What if the secret to happiness at work has less to do with our extrinsic motivations—money, rewards, and personal gain—and more to do with our intrinsic motivations—the meaningful relationships we build, and the ability to be in service to those who need it?
In this episode o
How to Build a Happy Life: Know That You Know Nothing
If there’s one thing we might regret at the end of life, it’s that we missed out on moments that mattered—not because we weren’t physically there, but because our mind wandered off to some unknown place.
In this episode of How to Build a Happy Life, we explore why it’s uniquely challenging to “live in the moment,” how we limit our own curiosity by assuming we know best, and why the illusion of sta
How to Build a Happy Life: Don't Be Your Own Worst Enemy
In the social-media age, we curate images of our lives on a screen—making it especially easy to translate images of perfection as the image of oneself. But the pressure to pretend we are perfect is exactly the thing holding us back from experiencing the happiness we seek—and limiting our ability to be our whole, authentic selves.
In this episode of How to Build a Happy Life, we’ll define what we
How to Build a Happy Life: Know You're Lonely
The irony in loneliness is that we all share in the experience of it. In this episode of How to Build a Happy Life, we sit down to discuss isolated living and Americans’ collective struggle to create a relationship-centric life. As we continue along our journey to happiness we ask: How can I build my life around people?
This episode features Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, the U.S. Surgeon General.
This ep
How to Build a Happy Life: Be Self-Aware
Only when we admit we have a problem can we begin to find solutions. On the first episode of How To Build a Happy Life, we explore the neuroscience of emotional management, practices that help us befriend our inner monologue, and challenges to getting in touch with our feelings. Our journey to happier living starts with the question: How do I feel right now?
This episode features Dan Harris, forme
Trailer: How to Build a Happy Life
Welcome to How to Build a Happy Life! In this series, host Arthur Brooks digs into research and offers tools to help you live more joyfully. Join us for deep conversations with psychologists, experts, and friends of The Atlantic's Chief Happiness Correspondent. For more info, visit www.theatlantic.com/happy
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