Wellness Podcasts Are Absurd. Why Am I Obsessed With Them?

Editor’s Note: Every Tuesday, James Parker tackles a reader’s existential worry. He wants to hear about what’s ailing, torturing, or nagging you. Submit your lifelong or in-the-moment problems to [email protected].

Don’t want to miss a single column? Sign up to get “Dear James” in your inbox.

Dear James,

I have an unhealthy need to listen to health-related podcasts. The more I learn about my body, working out, and nutrition, the more I feel like I have control over uncontrollable things. A few problems with this: (1) It does not really give me more control. (2) I only follow a fraction of the advice that I hear. (3) Whenever I bring questions about the information to my actual doctors, they are not having it.

Why do I continue to consume information that can’t be applied to my real life? One guy says I should have some blood test, but my doctor says it’s unnecessary. The entire world says I should be taking creatine, but my doctor says I don’t need it. Another podcaster says I should use a fancy mattress cover that regulates my temperature, but who can spend thousands of dollars on that? It seems so out of touch with my reality, and yet I still keep at it. Why?

Dear Reader,

The great Joe Strummer—who died, of course, much too young—once suggested that people who don’t smoke should be prohibited from enjoying the artistic output of people who do. (Or did.) Because what’s life for, after all? Obsessing about your mercury levels? Counting calories? Or staying up all night, thumping fascists, and singing “The ice age is coming, the sun’s zoomin’ in”? On nobody’s gravestone is it written: He was very healthy.

I can guarantee you one thing: Get that blood test, pop your creatine, lie down on your thermally intelligent mattress, and it still won’t be enough. I think you already know this. You know that after only the briefest interlude of serenity, some podcaster or supplement salesman will have you twitching again, worrying that you need this or that. What a racket it’s become, the wellness business. And forgive me for going off here, but I suspect that half these guys are secret eugenicists. The non-gorgeous, the nonproductive, the misshapen and the lonely and the mad—they’d optimize them (us) out of existence if they could.

Why? you ask. Why can’t I quit these dudes? Because you’re human in the 21st century, and one of our possessing idolatries is health. The health of the individual, that is. (Screw everybody else.) We’re stuck inside a myth of private perfectibility. Also: It’s good to feel good. You want to be strong. Perhaps, like me, you need to manage your moods, and some of the stuff they talk about on these podcasts is helpful. (Andrew Huberman’s “physiological sigh,” for example, the double huff of inhalation that he recommends for short-circuiting anxiety—I like that. It works!)

So here’s my rule of thumb for the world of wellness: If you have to pay for it, don’t. Cold showers are free. Meditation is free. Push-ups are free. Breathing is free. All of this vitality is at your fingertips, right now, gratis. Create your own system: You know yourself, and your body, better than any podcaster does. Create your own podcast—why not? You’ve already done the research. Fancy Mattress: My Journey Through Wellness and Out the Other Side. Your first guest could be your doctor.

Wishing you (real) health,

James

By submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let The Atlantic use it in part or in full, and we may edit it for length and/or clarity.