Strange Health

Light therapy sounds wholesome. Sit in front of a lamp. Feel better. But nowadays, it can also mean strapping on a flashing mask and watching your own brain generate kaleidoscopic hallucinations behind closed eyelids. In this episode, host Katie Edwards tries on a stroboscopic light mask being promoted by celebrities including Jennifer Aniston and Rosamund Pike to find out what happens.
And David Schwartzman, a research fellow at the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science at the University of Sussex, explains how stroboscopic light produces hallucinations in the brain, and how it's currently being trialled to treat conditions like depression.
Strange Health is a podcast from The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. Full credits for this episode available here. If you like the show, please consider donating to support our work. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation here.
Hosts: Katie Edwards from The Conversation and Dan Baumgardt, University of Bristol
Executive Producer: Gemma Ware
Editing and mixing: Anouk Millet
Artwork: Alice Mason
Can a psychedelic-induced mystical experience really improve your mental health?
SAD lamps: do they work? Experts explain how they help the winter blues

Body odour has a reputation problem. It is often treated as a hygiene failure or a social offence. In reality, it is biology at work, plus a big helping of culture.
And yet people online are trying chlorophyll shots to make their BO smell better. Hosts Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt discuss what evidence there is behind this, plus some of the health conditions that can affect body odour.
And we talk to Mats Olsson, a professor of experimental psychology at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, who studies how humans perceive body odour.
Strange Health is a podcast from The Conversation is an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. Full credits for this episode available here. If you like the show, please consider donating to support our work. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation here.
Hosts: Katie Edwards from The Conversation and Dan Baumgardt, University of Bristol
Executive Producer: Gemma Ware
Editing and mixing: Anouk Millet
Artwork: Alice Mason

You are not alone in your own skin. Millions of microscopic creatures live there too. Our skin is home to entire ecosystems of microscopic life. Bacteria and fungi get most of the attention, but mites are there too. Among the most common are demodex mites, tiny eight-legged relatives of spiders that live inside hair follicles and pores, especially on the face. Almost all adults carry them.
In this episode we explore what these microscopic housemates are actually doing on our bodies and why the idea of them can feel so unsettling. While demodex may be harmless, there are plenty of other mites that can cause problems, from dust mites, to scabies.
Hosts Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt turn this week to Alejandra Perotti, professor of invertebrate biology at the University of Reading, who studies the relationship between mites and humans.
Strange Health is a podcast from The Conversation is an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. Full credits for this episode available here. If you like the show, please consider donating to support our work. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation here.
Hosts: Katie Edwards from The Conversation and Dan Baumgardt, University of Bristol
Executive Producer: Gemma Ware
Editing and mixing: Sikander Khan
Artwork: Alice Mason
Invisible skin mites called Demodex almost certainly live on your face – but what about your mascara?
How often should you really be washing your bedding? A microbiologist explains
Scabies outbreak in UK and Europe – what you need to know

The vagus nerve has become the internet’s favourite body part. On social media, it is everywhere. People hum into their phones, gargle with theatrical enthusiasm, dunk their faces into bowls of ice water and poke at their ears in the hope of “activating” it.
So in this episode we focus our attention on the body’s longest cranial nerve and ask a simple question: what does the vagus nerve actually do, and can we really hack it?
Hosts Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt turn this week to Arshad Majid, a professor of cerebrovascular neurology at the University of Sheffield and an expert in vagus nerve stimulation.
Strange Health is a podcast from The Conversation is an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. Full credits for this episode available here. If you like the show, please consider donating to support our work. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation here.
Hosts: Katie Edwards from The Conversation and Dan Baumgardt, University of Bristol
Executive Producer: Gemma Ware
Editing and mixing: Anouk MIllet
Artwork: Alice Mason
From decapitation to positive psychology: how one nerve connects body, brain and mind
Stimulating the pathway connecting body and brain may change chronic condition patients’ lives

Joint cracking is one of those habits most of us acquire without thinking about it. In our third episode, we turn our attention to one of the body’s most common and least understood noises. Knuckles, backs, knees and necks all feature, along with the enduring warning many of us grew up with: “Stop cracking your joints, you’ll get arthritis.” Is there any truth in it? And why can cracking feel so strangely satisfying?
Hosts Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt turn this week to Clodagh Toomey, a specialist in musculoskeletal injury and chronic lifestyle-related diseases such as osteoarthritis, to give you the science behind the myths.
Strange Health is a podcast from The Conversation is an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. If you like the show, please consider donating to support our work. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation here.
Hosts: Katie Edwards from The Conversation and Dan Baumgardt, University of Bristol
Executive Producer: Gemma Ware
Editing and mixing: Anouk MIllet
Artwork: Alice Mason
Can popping your neck cause a stroke?
What makes joints pop and crack and is it a sign of disease?
Joint pain or osteoarthritis? Why exercise should be your first line of treatment