The best health and wellbeing podcasts of 2024

Whether you're seeking tips for specific health topics, or simply everyday ways to live a healthier lifestyle, these podcasts promise to help you feel better.

Happier with Gretchen Rubin

Rubin is the bestselling author of The Happiness Project and her co-host is her younger sister, the Hollywood show-runner Elizabeth Craft, who refers to Gretchen as her "happiness bully". 

This podcast has the pair sharing ideas for becoming happier, said Calin Van Paris in Vogue, including "daily tips and tricks to new routines to shifts in perspective". Topics include everything from "how to fall asleep faster, how to create connections (and remember names), how to cope with regret".

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This lively podcast is "an essential listen for those chasing a brighter outlook on life", said Grant Rindner on Oprah Daily.

Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee

Dr Rangan Chatterjee's is the number-one health podcast in the UK and Europe; a mindboggling 1.5 million people watch and listen each week. GP Dr Chatterjee's takes a 360-degree approach, believing that you can't feel better mentally without addressing physical health. 

And he has a pretty ambitious aim: to inspire 100 million people to live healthier lifestyles. It's with that in mind, said Vogue, that he chats to health experts, including Chris Van Tulleken and Jay Shetty, to try to find ways to "augment (or overhaul) your routines and feel better". 

And if you want to follow his advice to banish screens before bedtime, you could reach for one of his bestselling self-help books, including "Feel Better in 5", "The Stress Solution" and "Feel Great, Lose Weight".

Zoe Science & Nutrition

This podcast from the "newly fashionable" health company co-founded by Dr Tim Spector, which sells £299.99 nutrition-monitoring kits, has a "vaguely cultish tone", said James Marriott in The Times.

Presented by Zoe CEO Jonathan Wolf, Zoe Science and Nutrition offers dietary advice based on interviews with top scientists, who unpick the latest research into that topic of the moment: the gut.

It "prescribes a diet of not only vegetables but scientific research papers, the more arrestingly counterintuitive the better".

For example, Marriott discovered, "Fat does not necessarily make you fat." Although, don't go mad, Spector warned: “Don’t eat five slabs of butter a day.” 

Elsewhere, though, Marriott found the advice "nerdishly engaging", including the suggestion that “you can pour a lot more extra-virgin olive oil over any meal and make it healthier.”

“This podcast”, a voice announced at the beginning of one episode, “is a gift from us to you.” 

Best Friend Therapy

The enormously successful author, journalist and creator of the smash-hit podcast How to Fail, Elizabeth Day has a side-hustle podcast with her best friend of two decades, psychotherapist Emma Reed-Turrell. It's having enormous success in its own right, and the proof is in the publishing deal: Reed-Turrell releases her first book this spring. 

The pair bring their own experiences to their exploration of the emotional challenges faced in everyday life, and find ways of understanding why we behave like we do, as well as how to cope better. Episodes have covered issues such as boundaries, blended families and work break-ups. "Whether it is divorce, envy, or endings, each episode leaves you feeling a little more assured," said Anna Bonet in inews.co.uk.

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

The OG of health and wellbeing podcasts, British life coach Jay Shetty's podcast has had more than 300 million downloads and 10 billion views across his video platform, making tens of millions of pounds in the process. The 36-year-old former Hindu monk officiated at the marriage of J-Lo and Ben Affleck, as well as that of "Emily in Paris" star Lily Collins and her husband. Shetty also worked as Will Smith's private coach in 2021, "spending between two and eight hours a day" with the actor, said the Los Angeles Times. He "got hooked on podcasting" after listening to Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul Sunday, said The Hollywood Reporter. He has since interviewed everyone from Lewis Hamilton and Khloe Kardashian to, yes, Oprah. And he's just as adept at getting his guests to open up as The Big O. For example, "Spider-Man" star Tom Holland revealed he had "quit drinking after developing an alcohol addiction", said the Los Angeles Times.