Well, Now
We all want to achieve wellness, but how many of us have a clear understanding of what it is or how to measure it? Some believe it’s meeting a certain set of metrics around health. Others see it as becoming a more effective self-advocate when navigating our health challenges, or creating a balance in work, fitness, and family that promotes a sense of well-being. However we define wellness, we can all use advice from thoughtful people about how to find it for ourselves. That’s the mission of Slate’s new podcast ‘Well, Now.’ Each week, our expert hosts will tackle a new issue around wellness, from the latest exercise craze, to the controversy over BMI, to the best ways to promote sleep hygiene. Every episode aims to give listeners a new understanding of wellness, and how to reach it.
Episodes
May 8, 2024 • 41 mins
For many, pregnancy is a time of heightened and joyful anticipation. There are doctor’s appointments, tests, preparation…All with a focus on bringing home a healthy baby.
The other side of pregnancy–the complications–is not readily discussed.
On this week’s episode of Well, Now we discuss all of these potential roadblocks with economist Emily Oster. In her latest book The Unexpected: Navigating Pregnancy During and After Complica...
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May 1, 2024 • 43 mins
Who hasn’t received necessary medical care and got a shockingly high bill for it weeks later?
Even with insurance, many Americans will experience this at some point–including one of the most recognizable doctors in the country: the U.S. surgeon general.
Earlier this year, Dr. Jerome Adams – who served as surgeon general for the Trump Administration – received a bill of nearly $5,000 after being treated for dehydration. What was h...
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April 24, 2024 • 40 mins
A vital component of wellness is taking care of our mental health. But mental wellness is more than just drinking water, doing yoga, and going for a walk.
Author and podcaster Allison Raskin has lived most of her life with diagnosed mental illness.
By navigating her mental health journey over the years, she’s been able to find community and humor through her diagnoses, particularly by writing about her experience with Obsessive Co...
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April 17, 2024 • 40 mins
April is Autism Acceptance Month, and how we’ve come to understand autism has evolved over the past several decades.
For years, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was thought of as something that needed to be cured. Through better data and years of activism, that misunderstanding is changing.
On this week’s episode of Well, Now we discuss that evolution with Sara Luterman, caregiving reporter for The 19th.
Podcast production by Vic Wh...
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April 10, 2024 • 38 mins
As we approach the warmer months and start spending more time outside, healthy skin couldn’t be more important. So how can we best protect our body’s largest organ?
Feel free to stock up on all the products for a 10-step routine if you want. But the reality is healthy skin requires just three products. The rest is kind of BS.
This week on Well, Now we talk all things skin health with Dr. Adarsh Vijay Mudgil, a dermatologist and der...
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April 3, 2024 • 40 mins
Spring is a time for fresh starts. For a lot of us, that means spring cleaning.
But don’t worry, we’re not talking about the whole house.
This week, the Well, Now team is spring cleaning our medicine cabinets. What are some medicinal must-haves, and what things should we definitely toss?
Joining us to help tidy up is Dr. Mauricio Gonzalez, a board-certified physician in internal, emergency and obesity medicine.
If you liked this e...
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March 27, 2024 • 39 mins
Eating disorders are one of the most deadly psychiatric disorders.
But for decades, much of the criteria to diagnose one applied only to cisgender girls and those assigned female at birth – like a loss of menstruation. This meant that many cisgender boys and those assigned male at birth fell through the cracks.
On this week’s episode of Well, Now: The rise in eating disorders among boys and men with Dr. Jason Nagata, Associate Pro...
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March 20, 2024 • 35 mins
While most of the world moves on from Covid-19, millions of Americans remain in limbo: Those living with Long Covid.
Long Covid symptoms are vast and can impact all parts of the body: from gastrointestinal tract issues and fatigue to autoimmune inflammation and cognitive impairment.
On this week’s episode of Well, Now – Kavita and Maya talk with Dr. Wes Ely, an ICU physician based in Nashville, Tenn.
As the co-director of the Crit...
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March 13, 2024 • 41 mins
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization named Covid-19 a pandemic, and public health around the globe changed forever.
Countries shut down their borders, businesses closed and furloughed workers, and millions of students went to remote learning. Two years in, more than one million Americans lost their lives.
This week on Well, Now we mark this grim anniversary by talking about what we have and haven’t learned about this w...
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March 6, 2024 • 32 mins
It’s impossible to ignore the impact of climate change. Sea levels are rising, and natural disasters like hurricanes and wildfires are increasing in strength and number each year.
A major contributor to a warming planet is the way we’re processing our food. So on this week’s episode of Well, Now we discuss ways to eat a full, balanced diet while keeping the health of the planet in mind with registered dietitian nutritionist Chris ...
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February 28, 2024 • 30 mins
The U.S. healthcare system can split the country into two Americas.
Your zip code, education, class status and more all play a role in the outcome of your health as well as the kind of care you receive.
Fewer markers more clearly define these disparities than race.
On this week’s episode of Well, Now Maya and Kavita talk about racism in American healthcare with Dr. Uché Blackstock.
Her new book Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons ...
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February 21, 2024 • 37 mins
Stress is all around us, but that doesn’t mean it needs to run our entire lives. According to Dr. Romie Mushtaq – a neurologist turned corporate wellness consultant – the main culprit behind our culture of stress is what she calls a “busy brain.”
This week on Well, Now Dr. Kavita Patel and Maya Feller, RDN talk with Dr. Mushtaq about curing our busy brains and her latest book The Busy Brain Cure: The Eight-Week Plan to Find Focus, ...
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February 14, 2024 • 35 mins
On this week’s episode of Well, Now’s ditching the flowers and grand romantic gestures we often see on Valentine’s Day.
There’s tons of research about how loving relationships contribute to wellness, as well as how lacking those relationships can play a part in adverse health outcomes. But what if our entire understanding of love is misguided?
Kavita and Maya talk with relationship expert Dr. Sara Nasserzadeh about what she says a...
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February 7, 2024 • 33 mins
Super Bowl LVIII is this Sunday, amid decades of controversy surrounding football’s impact on traumatic brain injuries.
But for many athletes, these long-term effects can be felt well before making it to the pros: on high school and college teams.
On Well, Now this week: Maya and Kavita talk with physical therapist and concussion specialist John Doherty about the science surrounding youth contact sports and what we know about their...
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January 31, 2024 • 28 mins
It’s award season in Hollywood, and it’s got the Well, Now team thinking about wellness and the entertainment industry. Can a medical drama really teach us accurate health information? Or is it all just high-stakes surgeries with beautiful actors?
Maya and Kavita talk this out with physician, showrunner and Harvard lecturer Neal Baer. He brought powerful, data-supported stories on HIV, emergency contraception, cervical cancer and m...
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January 24, 2024 • 32 mins
On this week’s episode of Well, Now, Maya and Kavita talk about practical ways to break up with diet culture with fitness instructor, speaker and educator Chrissy King.
She’s the author of The Body Liberation Project: How Understanding Racism and Diet Culture Helps Cultivate Joy and Build Collective Freedom.
Chrissy also ties in how breaking up with diet culture is a piece of a larger conversation about diversity, equity and inclu...
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January 17, 2024 • 30 mins
On this week’s episode of Well, Now we get to the heart of what “wellness” actually means. Depending on who you ask, you get a lot of different answers.
So Maya and Kavita sit down with veteran journalist Isabel Burton to define the term. Burton was the executive editor of renowned health-and-wellness magazines Shape and Self.
If you liked this episode, check out: A Toast to Dry January
Podcast production by Vic Whitley-Berry with...
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January 10, 2024 • 31 mins
On the first episode of Well, Now – Slate’s new podcast on health and wellness – hosts Dr. Kavita Patel and Registered Dietitian Nutritionist Maya Feller tackle resolutions.
A popular one? Sobriety. Or at least Dry January.
With more people becoming “sober curious” Kavita and Maya visit a sober speakeasy in Brooklyn, hosted by the zero-proof cocktail maker Curious Elixirs.
They sit down with the company’s founder and CEO JW Wisem...
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January 4, 2024 • 1 min
We all want wellness, but what does that mean exactly?
Is it achieving diet and exercise goals, or finally reaching a place where you’re happy with your body as it is? Is wellness the thing that will keep you out of the doctor’s office, or give you information you need to advocate for yourself when you get there?
No matter what you define as living a life of wellness, our expert hosts want to help you get there.
Every week, Dr. Ka...
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