Browse the hundreds of mental health podcasts on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and you’ll find shows covering topics such as grief, anxiety, depression, suicide, trauma, divorce, OCD, eating disorders, ADHD, postpartum, and more.
Podcasts can be a simple way to learn from experts and learn about trending topics and helpful interventions, including self-care tips and guided meditations. Plus, research has shown that narrative audio storytelling (like podcasts) can have a positive effect on our brains.
While podcasts don’t take the place of therapy, they can be a helpful adjunct to therapy and can aid in the therapeutic process.
They’re an accessible way to gain insights from the minds of leading psychologists, neurologists, authors, and other industry professionals.
Discover your next favorite mental health podcast:
We've collected our best recommendations for podcasts about mental health. The shows range from giving you an inside peek at therapy sessions — to comedy shows that disarmingly dive into hard-to-talk-about topics. Whatever style you like, there's a mental health podcast for you:
On Our Minds
Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Website
In On Our Minds, a podcast series by PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs, high school juniors Noah Konevitch and Zion Williams offer first-person narratives and introspective discussions with experts on what mental health looks like for young people like themselves.
The first season of the student-led and student-produced podcast delves into the biggest mental health challenges young people face, from race and identity, to self-care, school, and depression.
The podcast was created in partnership with WETA’s Well Beings, a mental health public awareness campaign working with local PBS stations nationwide.
Therapy for Black Girls
Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Website
Atlanta-based clinical psychologist Joy Harden Bradford founded “Therapy for Black Girls,” a weekly podcast offering mental health resources and advice for both personal and professional development for Black women and beyond.
Bradford also helps demystify therapy itself and the stigma surrounding it. The podcast is a great choice if you’re looking for advice or insight from a professional or are fascinated by the science of the mind.
Mental Illness Happy Hour
Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Website
So many of us have dealt with mental and emotional trauma in our lives, yet so few of us feel comfortable or even safe talking about it out loud.
Comedian Paul Gilmartin hopes to change this on his weekly podcast, “Mental Illness Happy Hour.” Gilmartin interviews comedians, artists, friends, and the occasional doctor about their experiences with mental illness, trauma, addiction, or negative thinking.
Gilmartin’s interviews run the gamut from tackling the link between sexual assault and PTSD with successful attorneys to uncovering how being raised by a parent with alcohol use disorder can affect you in many invisible ways.
The Happiness Lab
Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Website
Yale psychology professor Laurie Santos hopes to show you that your own happiness is in your control in even the smallest ways using findings from cutting-edge scientific research on the link between human behavior and emotions.
It’s no accident that Santos’ course “Psychology and the Good Life” is one of Yale’s most popular. Her main ambition is to help make you a little bit happier by teaching you to take ownership of how your mind works and how your behavior can be your first line of defense against negativity.
In her podcast, Santos examines the latest scientific research on happiness and shares practical takeaways you can apply immediately to your life.
Each episode tackles common misconceptions about happiness and offers inspiring stories to help you reconsider what happiness means to you.
Terrible, Thanks For Asking
Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Website
This podcast is for those who are tired of saying “fine” when someone asks “how are you?”
Podcast host Nora McInerny is famous for her books on moving forward after life has fallen apart — she lost her father, her husband, and had a miscarriage in the span of weeks.
Her podcast asks people to share what they’re honestly going through, without the effort of trying to make it all seem fine to others.
Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes both, this podcast is here to let you know it’s OK to respond honestly when someone asks you “how are you?”
The Atlantic says, “The show continuously, unapologetically, ferociously plows into subjects most people are too uncomfortable to touch.”
Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel
Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Website
This podcast is a relationships podcast first and foremost, but it naturally has overlap with mental health. You can listen in as therapist and author of the best-selling book “Mating in Captivity,” Esther Perel, counsels real couples through their problems.
The couples talk through issues like the impact mental illness has on relationships, infidelity, polyamory, parenting, divorce, and more.
Recently, plenty of content has centered around how the pandemic and lockdowns have made relationships more complicated.
Ten Percent Happier With Dan Harris
Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Website
This franchise started with a book by Dan Harris, a self-described meditation skeptic-turned-believer, and has since spun off into a meditation app and this podcast — all designed to help out people who also have their doubts about meditation.
The show isn’t all about meditation, though. It touches on a wide range of mental health topics, such as social anxiety, compassion, productivity, relationships, and happiness, with the help of leading researchers.
Guests include everyone from His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Brené Brown to Karamo from Queer Eye.
Happier With Gretchen Rubin
Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Website
Like the name suggests, this podcast is all about how listeners can become happier. Happiness and habits researcher Gretchen Rubin is full of tips for anything from habit formation to managing loneliness.
The thought-provoking podcast offers practical, manageable advice about happiness and good habits along with her co-host and sister Elizabeth Craft so you can be happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative.
Unlocking Us With Brené Brown
Brené Brown has become a pioneer in mental health discussions through her research and work in shame, vulnerability, and empathy.
Her podcast is a series of conversations with artists, writers, researchers, and many more.
The podcast is about connection and all the messy emotions and experiences that make us human, covering anything from using joy as an act of resistance to dealing with shame while holding yourself accountable.
The guest lineup includes fascinating mental health researchers as well as public figures like Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Dolly Parton, Laverne Cox, Reese Witherspoon, Kerry Washington, and more.
The Madhappy Podcast
The Madhappy Podcast is a series of conversations on mental health hosted by Madhappy founders Mason Spector and Peiman Raf.
At its core, the show aims to create more conversation around mental health by illuminating the full spectrum of mental health, including the highs and the lows.
The weekly conversations with special guests — including rapper Logic, social media stars Emma Chamberlain, Dixie D’Amelio, and Noah Beck, Gary Vee, Rob Dyrdek, The Bachelor contestant Nick Viall, and actress Ashely Tisdale — help remind listeners just how much we have in common and how much value there is in that shared life experience.
By diving into guests’ stories and the hosts’ personal experiences, the show encourages us to speak more openly about mental health.
Notable Mentions:
- We'd be remiss if we didn't mention our own podcast, Sounds Good. We share conversations with activists and world-changers — and frequently dive into conversations about mental health.
- We also curated a list of the best adult ADHD podcasts (and TikTokers, blogs, and more resources) — and the best podcasts about good news.
- And we've also curated a list of amazing mental health resources and apps supporting Black Americans
- There's lots of good mental health news worth celebrating.
- And if you're looking for a way to take action during Mental Health Awareness Month and beyond — check out our guide
- The podcast Depresh Mode by John Moe is another podcast bringing humor to mental health. We hosted a hopeful conversation with him on our podcast a few months back.
- For those who love newsletters, we’ve curated the best mental health newsletters (and the best newsletters, in general)
- If you're struggling or want to support someone who's struggling, please explore these mental health resources.
