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Health & Fitness

Staying Human with Dr. Vivek Murthy

What if, instead of looking for quick fixes or life hacks, we asked: what does it take to live a fulfilling life?

Like so many people, trusted physician Dr. Vivek Murthy grapples with what it means to live well. As U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy started a groundbreaking public conversation around loneliness and the importance of connection. Now, he’s inviting listeners to join him as he explores what makes life meaningful, even when that means going against the grain.

Through warm, provocative conversations with people from all walks of life, Dr. Murthy takes on topics that profoundly affect our health and well-being, but that most people don’t really talk about, let alone with a doctor: What if we redefined success not in terms of money or status but in terms of meaning? How do we find our sense of purpose? Can we center our lives around connection and community? Can technology help us be more human instead of taking away from our humanity?

In a world that can feel harsh and isolating, Staying Human is a show about finding better, more human ways to live, together.

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Latest Episodes:

Robin Wall Kimmerer: What is nature teaching us that we’re too distracted to see? Oct 13, 2026

Show notes

What is nature trying to teach us that we’re too distracted to notice?

Botanist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer joins Vivek for a conversation about slowing down and paying attention to the living world around us. She invites us to see the land as “not something but someone.” Robin is a scientist, a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and the author of the beloved bestsellers Braiding Sweetgrass, Gathering Moss, and The Serviceberry. For decades she has helped people see nature through both science and Indigenous wisdom.

In this episode:

Why we feel more alive and at ease in nature, and what gets in the way
How our phones and busy lives pull our attention away from the world around us
What changes when you think of the land as a “someone” instead of a “something”
How we started treating land as property instead of home
Making room for both science and the sacred in how we see the world
Why a “gift economy” can shift our ways of consumption
How everyday giving, like bringing soup to a neighbor, can help ease loneliness
What success looks like when it’s about meaning rather than wealth or status
The poems and places Robin turns to when she needs hope
A closing reading of Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese”

We want to hear from you: What’s something nature has taught you about how to live a more meaningful life? Leave us a message at 1-833-74-HUMAN (1-833-744-8626) or email hello@stayinghuman.us.

About Robin Wall Kimmerer

About Dr. Vivek Murthy, your host

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Ayad Akhtar: How Do We Stay Open to Life’s Mysteries? Sep 29, 2026

Show notes

Vivek talks with Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Ayad Akhtar about his new novel, The Radiance, and what it means to be truly connected to the world—including the parts of it which defy easy explanation.

In this novel, a professor recovering from a hit-and-run bike accident grapples with two accounts of what's happening to him: the clinical, scientific one reflected in scans and diagnoses, and an experience that feels far more spiritual.

Vivek and Ayad follow this tension into their own lives, including how mystery has shaped their own beliefs and life experiences.They discuss everything from the craft of writing, to protecting our attention, to existential questions of what it means to be human in the age of machines and AI. They also get deeply personal with Vivek sharing about time he spent recently at an ashram in India, and Ayad describing why dreams are so important to him that he’s actually slept with a pencil tied to his finger to better record them. This is a provocative, surprising conversation that brings together both heart and mind.

Is there a moment in your life that was profound, spiritual, and hard to explain — one that shaped who you are? Leave a message at 1-833-74-HUMAN (1-833-744-8626) or email hello@stayinghuman.us. We'd love to hear from you.

. . .

“The Great American Novelist” | Esquire Magazine

The Radiance Book tour

Ayad Akhtar’s recent essay “What Were My Dreams Trying To Tell Me?” | The Atlantic

About Dr. Vivek Murthy

IG @drvivekmurthy

Substack vivekmurthy.substack.com/

#StayingHuman #VivekMurthy #AyadAkhtar #Radiance #spirituality #Soul #Consciousness #WritersOnWriting #Empathy #Mindfulness #LiteraryFiction #SpiritualAwakening #Meditation #mystical

Remembering Dr. Rachel Remen: What is the Secret to True Healing? Sep 15, 2026

Show notes

What does it really mean to heal?

What is the difference between curing and healing?

What can we offer one another when something can’t be fixed?

Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen spent her life exploring what it means to be human. As Vivek puts it, Rachel was “a doctor’s doctor.” In addition to practicing and teaching at UCSF and writing the bestsellers Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather’s Blessings, Rachel created The Healer’s Art, a course that helped generations of doctors, including Vivek, find the sacred in medicine.

Following her death at age 88, Vivek sits down with fellow physician and his college roommate Dr. Akil Palanisamy to remember their beloved mentor, who profoundly shaped them both as doctors and as human beings.

Through intimate stories and archival excerpts of Dr. Remen herself, they explore her enduring wisdom: why our wounds can become sources of connection, why listening can be an act of healing, how to live with uncertainty, and why healing remains possible even when curing is not. Vivek and Akil also share about how they turned to Rachel during some of their most difficult moments.

This episode is an invitation to anyone wrestling with loss and uncertainty. Or simply searching for ways we can help one another heal.

Special thanks to Commonweal for sharing excerpts of Vivek’s last public conversation with Dr. Rachel Remen.

(06:41) Vivek and Akil recount their experiences first meeting Rachel
(10:57) On the power of listening
(13:51) How Rachel mentored Akil and Vivek through a challenging times
(19:30) The Wounded Healer
(25:31) Elements of mystery in medicine
(27:55) Akil shares a passage of Rachel's writings on mystery
(32:53) On grappling with uncertainty, and Rachel's spirituality
(35:59) Fixing vs. Serving
(41:33) Rachel's focus on those the system can leave out
(43:00) What would Rachel have thought about AI in healthcare?
(45:42) Vivek and Akil reflect on grieving Rachel's passing and their final visits

. . .

Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen

The Healer’s Art

Kitchen Table Wisdom

My Grandfather’s Blessings

Dr Remen & Vivek’s conversation: Can We All Become Healers?

Commonweal is hosting a virtual memorial service for Dr. Remen on Oct 3, 2026. Please register here

Dr. Akil Palanisamy

The TIGER Protocol, by Dr. Akil Palanisamy

. . .

Every episode offers a reflection question inspired by the conversation. Share your thoughts and ideas with us at hello@stayinghuman.us, on our Substack, or leave us a message at 1-833-74-HUMAN.

IG @drvivekmurthy

Substack vivekmurthy.substack.com/

About your host, Dr. Vivek Murthy https://www.vivekmurthy.com

Angela Duckworth: What Situations Bring Out the Best in Us? Sep 01, 2026

Show notes

Angela Duckworth changed the way millions of people think about achievement with her bestselling book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. Yet ten years later, she’s come to believe that grit and willpower are only part of the story.

In this conversation, Angela joins Vivek to explore a powerful question: How much of who we become is shaped not just by what’s inside us, but by the people, places, and circumstances around us?

Drawing from her new book Situated, Angela shares what she’s learned about creating environments that bring out our best—from the objects within arm’s reach to the friends, mentors, workplaces, and communities we choose. She and Vivek also talk candidly about ambition, parenting, and the difference between pursuing something out of fear versus genuine purpose. They also talk about why success and achievement can feel empty when we’re chasing it for the wrong reasons.

Together, Angela and Vivek ask: What does it really mean to succeed? How can we shape our lives around what matters most?

About Angela

Her books

Situated: Find the People and Places that Bring Out Your Best

Grit: The Power of Passion and Perserverance

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More about your host, Dr. Vivek Murthy https://www.vivekmurthy.com

#StayingHuman #AngelaDuckworth #Grit #Situated #UPenn #VivekMurthy #Loneliness #Willpower #Success #Fulfillment

Robert Putnam: What Does It Mean To Be a Social Capitalist? (and how does it affect our health?) Aug 18, 2026

Show notes

How many of us have felt the deep need to belong, but weren’t sure where to start?

In this episode, recorded live at WBUR in Boston, Vivek sits down with the Harvard professor, author, and friend for a wide-ranging conversation on building community. Robert Putnam saw America's social fracturing coming decades before anyone else did. His book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, put a name to the collapse of community life in the U.S, tracking the disappearance of the bowling leagues, church groups, and civic clubs that used to hold neighborhoods together. More recently, his ideas have reached a new generation through Join or Die, a documentary that has screened hundreds of times in communities across the country.

Putnam traces his own lifelong preoccupation with connection back to a lonely childhood in Port Clinton, Ohio, and a mother who refused to let it stay that way. He unpacks “social capital” — what it is, and why it matters for both our health and our democracy. Bob also offers wisdom and hope from the last time America clawed its way back from a time of strikingly similar isolation, inequality, and division during the Progressive Era. From that history, he shares three lessons for us all today today, as we seek to build more connection in our lives.

Putnam also opens up about his wife Rosemary, one of the most talented “social capitalists” he knows, and reflects on what he holds onto — quite literally, in old photographs — when he needs to remember what matters most.

Join Or Die Documentary: https://joinordiefilm.com/

Bob Putnam: http://robertdputnam.com/

---

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More about your host, Dr. Vivek Murthy https://www.vivekmurthy.com

#StayingHuman #RobertPutnam #BowlingAlone #JoinOrDie #VivekMurthy #Community #Loneliness #Civics #Duty #Democracy #AmericanLife

Maya Shankar: What Happens When Life Changes Our Plans? Aug 04, 2026

Show notes

Ten years ago, Vivek and Maya Shankar met in a meeting at the White House; he still doesn't remember what the meeting was about, but he remembers being struck by her brilliance, and even more by her warmth. They stayed in touch, became close friends, and now, a decade later, Maya has traded her work as a cognitive scientist and White House advisor for a new mission: helping people understand why change is so hard, and how to come out the other side whole. She's the host of the hit podcast A Slight Change of Plans and the author of the instant New York Times bestseller The Other Side of Change.

In this conversation, Vivek and Maya talk about why uncertainty can feel worse than bad news itself, and why anchoring our identity in our "why" rather than our "what" can carry us through loss and reinvention. They dig into the mental spirals we all fall into — and the small shifts in perspective that can break them — plus the crucial difference between guilt and shame, and why community and service are often the surest way out of both. Maya also shares deeply personal stories from her own life, including experiences she writes about for the first time in her book, and what she's come to believe change reveals about who we really are.

It's a conversation about the hardest parts of being human: uncertainty, identity, rumination, and shame. It’s also about the quiet, durable hope that even unwanted change can show us who we're capable of becoming.

. . .

Every episode offers a reflection question inspired by the conversation. Share your thoughts and ideas with us at hello@stayinghuman.us, on our Substack, or leave us a message at 1-833-74-HUMAN.

IG @drvivekmurthy

Substack vivekmurthy.substack.com/

More about your host, Dr. Vivek Murthy https://www.vivekmurthy.com

Dr. Robert Waldinger: What does 85 years of research reveal about a Good Life? Jul 21, 2026

Show notes

What makes a good life? Is it accomplishment and wealth? Meaning and purpose? Relationships?

This is the question Dr. Robert Waldinger, a Harvard psychiatrist, has spent decades exploring as the fourth director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development – the world's longest-running study of adult life and happiness – following hundreds of people since 1938 and still running today. Robert is co-author, with Marc Schulz, of bestselling book The Good Life. He is also a Zen Buddhist priest whose spiritual journey has shaped how he thinks about thriving.

In this episode, Vivek and Robert talk about what the data reveal about happiness (spoiler alert: it has little to do with achievement or status). They discuss "social fitness" and the need to tend to relationships the way we tend to our physical health, along with surprising insights about marriage and loneliness, and why attention is "the most basic form of love."

Robert also shares how his Zen practice has helped him hold onto hope without looking away from the world's hardest problems. And what medicine could learn from all of this about caring for patients, and for each other.

If you're wondering what the research says about a good life, this episode is for you.

Jennifer Wallace: Why Don’t We Feel Like We Matter? Jul 07, 2026

Show notes

A lot of us move through our days on autopilot, heads down, just clearing the to-do list. And somewhere in there, we stop noticing the small signals that tell us we matter. We stop sending them, too.
In this episode, Dr. Vivek Murthy sits down with journalist Jennifer Wallace, author of MATTERING: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose. They get into why so many people feel invisible right now, how a culture built on individual success can leave us feeling more hollow than whole, and why the men who wrote to Jennie kept reaching for the same two words: useless and worthless.
It's also a personal conversation. Vivek opens up about feeling like a void would open whenever he left the hospital during residency. Jennie traces her own sense of mattering back to a church pew and a Spanish teacher who matched her with a struggling classmate. They talk about parenting, AI and what happens to our sense of purpose when work changes, and the small, almost mundane acts that remind us we're not alone.
If you've ever wondered whether your presence makes any difference in the world, this one's for you.
. . .
Every episode offers a reflection question inspired by the conversation. Share your thoughts and ideas with us at hello@stayinghuman.us, on our Substack, or leave us a message at 1-833-74-HUMAN.
IG @drvivekmurthy
Substack vivekmurthy.substack.com/
More about your host, Dr. Vivek Murthy https://www.vivekmurthy.com
#stayinghuman #VivekMurthy #JenniferWallace #mattering #selfworth #mentalhealth #mensmentalhealth #Loneliness #parenting #HumanConnection #purpose #wellbeing #artificialintelligence #values #podcast

Atul Gawande: What Does Death Teach Us About How To Live? Jun 23, 2026

Show notes

Are we paying too much attention to how long we live, and too little to how well we live?

For most doctors, the goal is to help patients live as long as possible. But more time and more life aren’t always the same things. In this episode, host Dr. Vivek Murthy and guest Dr. Atul Gawande, surgeon and author of the landmark book Being Mortal, discuss a question neither of them were trained as doctors: for a patient, what makes life worth living?

This conversation is part interview, part friendship, and part shared reckoning with what makes a life worth living. Atul reflects on how Being Mortal reshaped his own understanding of what it means to be a good doctor, and why the most important skill in medicine may be the simple act of asking patients what they actually want from life.

Along the way, Vivek and Atul get personal, sharing what it means caring for aging parents, the guilt that comes with it, and the loss of Atul's mother and Vivek's grandmother. They talk about belonging, the future of AI in medicine and the risk of human connection becoming a luxury, and the surprising things that make life meaningful — from chocolate ice cream and football to remembering the score in a ping pong game.

This episode is a conversation about what dying can teach us about living, and the questions worth asking the people we love before it's too late.

. . .

Every episode offers a reflection question inspired by the conversation. Share your thoughts and ideas with us at hello@stayinghuman.us, on our Substack, or leave us a message at 1-833-74-HUMAN.

IG @drvivekmurthy

Substack vivekmurthy.substack.com/

More about your host, Dr. Vivek Murthy https://www.vivekmurthy.com

David French: How Can We Come Together Across Divides? Jun 09, 2026

Show notes

We’re living in an era where division often feels like the status quo, and it's affecting us on a personal level. A 2025 study from the American Psychological Association found 62% of adults say polarization is a significant source of stress in their lives.

How can we bring people together, especially across divides, whether they’re a friend, neighbor, stranger, or family member? How do we build bridges while staying true to our values?

David French is a columnist for the New York Times who often writes about the beauty and challenges of living in community. His most recent book is called Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation. David is also a U.S. Army veteran who served in the Iraq War.

In this conversation we explore how we can forge connections to people who we don’t always agree with —and why this is so important not only to our democracy, but to our well-being.

Every episode offers a reflection question inspired by the conversation. Share your thoughts and ideas with us at hello@stayinghuman.us, on our Substack, or leave us a message at 1-833-74-HUMAN.

IG @drvivekmurthy

Substack vivekmurthy.substack.com/

More about your host, Dr. Vivek Murthy https://www.vivekmurthy.com

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