Podversations Presents: Kathryn Nicolai | Podversations — Transcript

[Music] iHeart Radio presents pod versations a weekly discussion with the biggest names and influencers in podcasting hello and welcome back to the iHeart podcast speakers series I'm Will Pearson president of iHeart podcast always good to be with you as you know each week we like to have a conversation with one of our favorite creators a podcaster a producer an executive in the industry talk about their podcasts and the state of podcasting and I think we've talked about this a few times before but over the past few years we've seen an interesting shift in what podcast listeners have been looking for you know in a difficult time whether it's through the pandemic or other challenges we saw creators or we saw listeners rather looking in a couple of different directions we saw listeners on the one hand looking to Comedy and pop culture and entertainment is sort of an escape from the things that may be stressful in the world around them

and then on the other hand we saw listeners looking for mental health help as they think about you know addressing that headon and so we've seen huge growth in both the General Health and Wellness space and the mental health space and there was an interesting conversation we had not too long ago with uh the host of the happiness Lab Dr lri Santos and we had asked her you know what is the thing that you feel is most underrated in people's Mental Health not just their physical health and she said sleep she said we don't think about it enough when we want to address mental health issues and and also just general health issues well today's conversation is going to help us address that there's this fantastic podcast if you have uh not already been familiar with it called nothing much happens and the entire goal of this podcast is to help us sleep better and to discuss this we have the Creator the host of this podcast it's one of of the top 1% of all podcasts in

the world it's had over a 100 million downloads but Katherine Nikolai thanks for uh joining us today thank you so much for having me so yeah I mean this has been this has become a hit and I guess we shouldn't be that surprised because it's it's no secret that so many of us struggle with our sleep you know day in and day out and are looking for ways to get better at this and to address our overall health but maybe let back up a little bit if you could tell us a little bit about your background I know you spent years as a teacher of yoga and meditation and many things in this space of mindfulness and health but tell us how you got to the idea of of creating this podcast yeah there's kind of two parts of it one is my own experience which is that I have my whole life had this technique for falling asleep that really I think I just figured out as a four-year-old kid that I could close my eyes and tell myself a story go someplace really nice and um it would guide me really gently to sleep

and I've used it my whole life and I always kind of wondered how do I explain this to somebody else how do I help them get there if they never really thought about doing this before um and then yeah I spent about 20 years professionally as a full-time yoga teacher and meditation teacher and so I'm every day talking to people about their health their well-being their mental health and hearing sort of the common complaints and the problems that people were having so much with anxiety and insomnia and um so I one night I I was ironically up in the middle of the night um because I had a sick dog and I thought oh it's a podcast it's a podcast because then I can you know use my voice I can use sort of the skills I'd built as a yoga teacher how do I use my voice to create a presence to create sort of an environment where people feel really safe and comfortable and then can I start to flex these muscles as a writer and a Storyteller um which was something that I had been interested in for a long time and I remember like sitting on the floor in the middle of

the night ordering um a microphone off Amazon just like it clicked for me so fast that it was the right choice that I did not hesitate um I think we launched about six weeks later wow and can you explain the the concept when when somebody encounters it for the first time and listens to an episode tell us about that what what the goal of the episode is and then I'd love to talk a little bit about how the episodes connect as well but I'll I'll let you address yeah so there is you know like some very easy to understand brain science behind this which is basically that um we're shifting brain activity when we listen to a story and maybe you've had this experience where you're in bed reading a book and maybe you're even in a really uncomfortable position and you cannot keep your eyes open you are trying fighting to get to the next sentence and you can't do it and then you put your book down you turn off the light you get as comfortable as you could possibly be and you can't sleep yep and what's happened there yeah your brain state has actually shifted your your your brain activity so

in that moment when your eyes are moving across the page or when you're listening to me tell a story you're in something called the task positive mode which means your brain has a simple job to do and when it's doing that job it's not doing other things and then when you put the job away you fall into what we call default mode Network and default mode network is sort of the background um static of your brain it's when your brain feels like it's spinning and just random thoughts are coming up and it's really hard to rain it in you're in default mode so what listening to a podcast like mine does is it helps guide you into that task positive Network and people will often find within a few weeks of using it it is kind of brain training you get better as as the more you do it that they are falling asleep within two or three minutes they never even hear the story they just hear my introduction I sometimes I don't know why I have multiple episodes like people listen to the one um so that's that's the general idea and you know it's the same thing that

happens when you're read to a child you're giving their mind a place to rest Once the mind has a place to rest the body does what it naturally needs to do so that's the general idea and then I approach it because I have this background in mindfulness and self-care I want it to also just feel good I think that you know when we think about the stuff we know we should do around our s sleep hygiene um sometimes we don't end up doing it because it doesn't feel good it's not that fun it's like meditation I always say is like flossing you know you're supposed to be doing it but it often feels like a chore and to me if I can make the things that are naturally good for you feel good they're going to be so much easier to choose if you have something to look forward to you will actually put your phone down and turn off the light and listen in so I write these stories that are full of sensory details that keeps you in the present moment and they just sort of highlight everyday nice things um which we just need to feel fortified by yeah and and

you're absolutely right the first time somebody told me about the podcast it was before we started working together and they described that effect of you know being two or three minutes in and already being fast asleep I was like well that's not going to work for me that's not that way and without fail every time it's I really I'm sure they're lovely stories 20 minutes in but like never get there and it's uh you know obviously job job well done on that front tell us a little bit about how you see these stories connecting to one another yeah this is you know a fun part of writing them for me I often think of myself a little bit like a modernday Mr Rogers um I get to build the neighborhood I get to build the land of make believe that people come into and pretty soon writing them I realized that I was thinking of them all existing in the same universe it's I call it the village of nothing much so you know if you are awake to hear them you'll notice that you'll each story is almost always

voice voiced by a different narrator but then you might go wait a minute I think that lady in the bakery is the same lady from the story I heard last week and oh this has already been mentioned one time I had a story about someone had lost a ring and there was an article in the paper or notice in the paper and somebody else found it and that feeling of this interconnectivity to people was just one more thing that pulled them into the world that made it sort of vibrant and delightful to be a part of and now I have five years in some very wellestablished characters that people you know feel a strong sense of connection and ownership to and I think that's just lovely and I think so too and and and how do you come up with the topics for the stories is there anything based on you know your life or is it all just coming up with things it's almost none of it is about my life and sometimes people like to think that I am the narrator and I say if that gives you comfort please think that you know like I have a wonderful sort of ridiculously

Charmed Life so that I could totally live in the village of nothing much um but mostly I am I think part of my training as a yoga teacher was to just be really aware of the present moment and to find things continually to appreciate to admire to be grateful for so I have this running list even you know to 200 plus episodes in I still have like a list of a 100 ideas and I add more every day where I'm like oh did you see how beautiful that gate was on the walk and the way that the trumpet vine was growing up I think that trumpet vine got cut down last year and it grew all the way back okay I have another story so um I never I feel like I have so many stories still to tell I love that and I know you hear a lot from your listeners because you know I'm sure they're incredibly appreciative because they've come to this podcast for reason you know and uh and you're you're helping them with this what do you hear from listeners are they requesting certain things are they telling sharing certain things what what kinds of things do you hear there's such

a big Spectrum to the experience of interacting with my listeners and I I really love it because of course I'm creating something which feels quite personal to me and is so deeply intentioned as a form of well-being for other people but I do it in this little dark room all by myself and so when somebody else reaches out and tells me they experience I just really appreciate having that connection and some people are just simply telling me I've been an insomniac for 10 years and now I slept eight hours five nights in a row and it changed my life which I think it absolutely would change your life point but I also hear from people who say you know I'm a Survivor and I used to have night tears when I would get into bed at night and I would do all these things to avoid it and be afraid of it now I look forward to getting into bed that's a different life or people who tell me you know I have had this terrible loss or I listen while I'm in chemo I mean I've had the rare privilege that I take so seriously that sometimes my voice is the last voice a person hears in hospice

because it can be a really grounding safe feeling um something to play while someone's in the last hours or days of their life where they feel connected to humans and cared for and I get to be that person so it runs the spectrum of very light-hearted hey can we get another story about marmalade the cat to I have had this incredible tragedy and I felt alone at night and your voice was there for me and I'm so humbled to be able to get to hold people in that way it's just incredibly satisfying well it sounds like you can't stop doing the podcast now then because you so many people uh relying on you what what what's been most surprising for you or what's been unexpected in terms of the response to the podcast you know I think when I started I thought that this was a quite Niche project I thought I don't know how many people are really going to connect to this um of course with some perspective you realize every adult at some point in their adult life even children will experience insomnia or anxiety it is part of Being Human so

it's actually not Niche at all and um so I think I've just been surprised by how many people I've been able to connect with and reach and read the story too yeah for me what I've appreciated about is is because I've always considered myself not a not a super skilled sleeper is I got to the point where I just for years would wait to get in bed until I was just about to collapse because otherwise like it just it wasn't going to work for me and so now with a podcast like this you have the option of knowing my body's tired my body needs sleep my brain is tired but it's still you know sort of kind of running crazy and so now I can do this a little bit earlier and go ahead and address this and allow myself to go to sleep which is which is pretty terrific but I'm curious to hear from you before we let you go what what is next for you what do you see H just given the response to this podcast what what else are you thinking about well I think I'm thinking about a couple things

um you know a lot of people have told me how much they love my stories but they never get to hear them because they are actually asleep but they actually really love the world and you know I've always loved the first part of books before the inciting incident when it's just somebody living their life before a wrench gets thrown into anything and uh you know I I've been thinking about how can I bring my stories to people in a way that doesn't necessarily produce sleep um because people often say hey it would be great to hear these during the day when I'm just feeling anxious or I had a long day and I'm coming home on my commute and I want to feel calm and good so I've been working on this show called stories from the village of nothing much which we're releasing with iHeart and December and it's basically compiles three stories out of um all of my many nothing much happen stories in each episode we kind of compile them by theme and then I read them more upbeat less safic we put in beautiful sound design

and music so it feels like you know a grown-up version of getting to go to U Mr Roger's neighborhood and you can listen while you're walking your dog or you know doing chores and it's just a really nice way to I always say it's like easy listening but for fiction you know um so that's next on my Horizon and I'm really excited about it I love it and I know that your listeners will uh will love this as well but first of all congratulations on what you've built but um but also on behalf of all of us who listen thank you for doing what you do you know it's this is not a hard mission to get behind and not a hard podcast for us here at iHeart to get behind because you really are changing the lives of so many people and and even for those that just it helps them sleep a little bit better that's also also really wonderful but uh but thank you for doing what you do Katherine thank you will I feel so lucky to get to do it I can't believe this is my job so thank you for helping me get it to more people yeah so for those again that maybe have not listened before nothing much happens

it's a terrific podcast please check it out uh and we'll be back again next week thanks so much for joining us take care pods is a production of iHeart Radio you can find more from the biggest names in podcasting on the iHeart Radio App or wherever you get your [Music] podcast