The hottest months of summer in a big city can feel debilitating. Too hot to run, walk or play outside except at the shoulders of the day and far worse, for me at least, is being imprisoned in freezing cubes of air conditioning thereafter. When we lock ourselves inside, scuttling as quickly as possible from office to shops and back home again, the loss of nature can feel immense.
But as every happiness pod will tell you, dealing with uncomfortable environments is as much about changing your mindset as it is about secretly turning off the air con when no one is looking. This is where the immersive quality of podcasts comes into its own, particularly for headphone users. No other medium gets as physically close to you, allowing words and music to be piped directly into your brain, changing how you feel.
Not everyone likes this intimacy and that is probably why podcasts do not have the “penetration” rates of television. But for those who happily tolerate earbuds, here are several shows to transport you to cooler climes for a breath of fresh air. As well as helping to tune out the heat and ambient clamour, sometimes it is just a case of refreshing your senses and giving you ideas to more fully appreciate nature the next chance you get to spend time in it.
As Melissa Harrison, host of The Stubborn Light of Things, says, “If you live in a city and miss ‘nature’, the answer doesn’t have to be move out; it’s to tune in.” I love a title that tells you what’s inside t.