What's Up Docs?

In this Daily Dose, Drs Chris and Xand van Tulleken are returning to their episode on knees with rheumatology professor, Phil Conaghan from University of Leeds. Phil gave Chris some sage advice on why you shouldn't avoid exercising your knees if they give you pain from time to time.

Daily Doses of expert wisdom from previous episodes will be dropping each weekday throughout January (except Tuesdays). You'll find them in the What’s ...

In this Daily Dose, Chris and Xand return to their episode on menstrual health with Dr Chi Eziefula, who flipped our perspective on the menstrual cycle, reframing it as a positive, evolutionary advantage that has enabled us to survive and thrive.

Daily Doses of expert wisdom from previous episodes will be dropping each weekday throughout January (except Tuesdays). You'll find them in the What’s Up Docs? feed on BBC Sounds, alongside...

In this new year episode, Chris and Xand continue their conversation with behaviour change expert Alasdair Cant, taking a closer look at the psychology behind our attempts to start afresh. They explore how Alasdair got into the field of behaviour change and the patterns that distinguish people who succeed with long-term change from those who struggle.

If you’d like to share your thoughts on this or any other topic covered on the pod...

Welcome to What’s Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken untangle the confusion around every aspect of our health and wellbeing.

In this new year episode, they’re taking on the idea of the fresh start, especially the powerful urge many of us feel at the beginning of a new year to overhaul our health. Why do we want to make big changes in January? Why do our good intentions so often fall a...

In this Daily Dose, Chris and Xand return to their episode on difficult conversations. Chartered Psychologist Kimberley Wilson has some great advice on how best to approach a difficult conversation and what happens when we find ourselves confronted by one.

Daily Doses of expert wisdom from previous episodes will be dropping each weekday throughout January (except Tuesdays). You'll find them in the What’s Up Docs? feed on BBC Sounds,...

January is a time when we pay considerable attention to our health and wellbeing and we all want a little reminder of some tips and tricks for how best to care for and think about our minds and bodies.

In this Daily Dose, Chris and Xand need a refresher on the episode of What’s Up Docs? about False Memories. They were joined by Dr Linda Henkel, Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Fairfield University who took them on a...

January is a month when we pay considerable attention to our health and wellbeing and we all want a little reminder of some tips and tricks for how best to care for and think about our minds and bodies.

In this first Daily Dose - if they can resist the temptation to snooze - Chris and Xand return to their episode on napping with Russell Foster, Professor of Circadian Neuroscience at the University of Oxford. Russell offered up some...

Welcome to Chris and Xand's Daily Doses!

January is a month when we pay considerable attention to our health and wellbeing and we all want a little reminder of some tips and tricks for how best to care for and think about our minds and bodies.

So, alongside the four main episode of What's Up Docs?, each weekday this January (other than Tuesdays), we'll be dropping a Daily Dose of expert wisdom from a previous episode. Whether it’s y...

Chris and Xand continue their conversation with Professor Sophie Scott, CBE. Together, they explore the neuroscience behind joy: what happens in the brain when joy strikes, how spontaneous joy differs from the joy of achievement, and whether joy serves an evolutionary purpose. They also ask whether joy can be cultivated, and what a healthy relationship with joy might look like in the long term.

If you’d like to share your thoughts o...

Welcome to What’s Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken try to get to the bottom of the ideas shaping our health and wellbeing.

In this festive episode, they turn their attention to joy. What actually is joy, and how is it different from happiness or pleasure? Why do some people seem to feel it more intensely, and does that make them more vulnerable to the emotional lows that can follow?...

Chris and Xand continue their conversation about comfort with Dr Tiffany Watt Smith, writer and cultural historian interested in the histories of emotion and medicine, former director of the Centre for the History of Emotions at Queen Mary University of London, and fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Drs Chris and Xand van Tulleken want to know what nostalgia is, how it can affect us, how it interacts with comfort, why certain t...

Welcome to What’s Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken cut through the confusion around every aspect of our health and wellbeing.

In this episode, Chris and Xand dive into winter comforts. What is comfort? How has the meaning of comfort evolved? How did the ancients find comfort in the winter? How do other cultures embrace comfort? They explore the history of comfort, especially that fo...

Drs Chris and Xand continue their conversation about hearing loss with Prof Doris Bamiou, Professor of Neuroaudiology at the UCL Ear Institute, and Honorary Consultant in Audiological Medicine at the University College London Hospitals.

Chris and Xand want to know how cognitive processing of sound works, what audio processing disorder is, why it happens, how it is diagnosed, and the external factors like neurodivergence and age that...

Welcome to What’s Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken cut through the confusion around every aspect of our health and wellbeing.

In this episode, Chris and Xand dive into the physical side of hearing loss. What is the cocktail party problem, and why does it get worse with age? How does hearing work? What causes hearing loss? How can we protect our hearing? How can we manage hearing los...

Chris and Xand continue their conversation about dopamine with Masud Husain, Professor of Neurology & Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oxford. They explore how he first became interested in dopamine, what happens when dopamine systems become overactive, underactive, or disrupted, and whether we have any real control over our dopamine at all. Masud also shares the one thing he wishes everyone understood about dopamine...

Welcome to What’s Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken untangle the confusion around every aspect of our health and wellbeing.

In this episode, they’re diving into dopamine – one of the most talked-about chemicals in modern wellness culture. But what is dopamine, really? What role does it play in pleasure, motivation, learning, and movement? And how accurate are ideas like “dopamine hit...

Chris and Xand continue their conversation about belief with Ryan McKay, Professor of Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London.

They want to know why some beliefs take hold so strongly, what’s happening in our brains when we hold on to them, and how trust, identity, and community shape what we believe. Beyond that, they’ll explore why health beliefs can be so difficult to shift, and whether it’s ever really possible to cha...

Welcome to What’s Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken confront the confusion around every aspect of our health and wellbeing.

In this episode, they’re asking why beliefs about our bodies are so powerful? We often think of belief as something soft – just ideas in our heads. But beliefs can shape how we experience pain, how we heal, and even how societies behave. In health, they can infl...

Drs Chris and Xand continue their conversation about dry skin with Dr Tess McPherson, Associate Professor of Paediatric and Adolescent Dermatology at the University of Oxford.

The docs want to know what eczema is, why it happens, whether it is worth eliminating triggers and whether topical steroids are an effective treatment. They also explore the stigma around skin conditions and what we can all do to address it, and hear Dr McPher...