Building better mental health is something we could all stand to work on. The good news? You're definitely not alone. This week we're unpacking mental health with podcasts that uplift, investigate and validate.

We all know the grief that comes from losing someone you love, but have you ever experienced climate grief? It's the feeling of hopelessness as the climate crisis continues to worsen. But for one Canadian musician, out of those feelings of fear, sadness and angst came artistic inspiration. We'll hear the conversation with folk band The Weather Station in a clip from Reseed.

Plus, treatment for mental health has experienced a lot of innovation in the last century. That evolution continues as the Toronto facility "Remedy" researches the use of MDMA to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We'll share why the early results have researchers and patients so excited.

The themes in this episode may be triggering for some listeners. If you or someone you know is in crisis, help is available. In Canada, you can call the Suicide Prevention Service at 1-833-456-4566. In the US, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. Or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741-741.

Featuring:

Terrible, Thanks for Asking: Grief comes with so much judgment. Everybody is sure that there's a right way to do it, and only for a certain length of time. If our grief doesn't neatly fit into a category, we worry that it's illegitimate. Erin knows this judgment very well. She's a widow … or is she?

Reseed: Music can help us make sense of, and deeply feel, our climate grief. Tamara Lindeman's acclaimed album Ignorance about climate grief struck a chord with citizens and critics. Performing as The Weather Station, Lindeman's 2021 poetic, thoughtful, and highly danceable album was named album of the year by The New Yorker and Uncut. Tamara joins Alice Irene Whittaker, the host of Reseed, for a conversation that starts with climate grief before spanning to art, selfhood, rootlessness, connection, and the heartbreaking beauty of birds.

WTF Marc Maron: Zazie Beetz and Marc were in three things together - Joker, the Netflix series Easy, and the new animated film The Bad Guys - but they're only now meeting each other for real. That makes for a good opportunity to interrogate their respective anxiety issues and compare their coping strategies. Zazie and Marc also talk about her German heritage, why she's not an LA person, and how she sees her work on Atlanta as being part of an overall reflection of Donald Glover's real life story.

Depresh Mode: We're seeing the effects of prolonged work-from-home jobs and from employers who are doing little or nothing to address burnout. We're seeing a blurring of lines between job and life, an old work system we're never going back to, and people who just can't take it anymore. They're quitting their jobs, often with no new job to go to, because they are flat out done. Depresh Mode host John Moe speaks with Jennifer Moss, a burnout expert who fought burnout herself when writing her book, The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It.

Mental Health Comedy Podcast: Comedian Dave Holmes talks honestly about being diagnosed and learning to deal with ADHD. As a kid growing up in the 70's and 80's, he'd get messages from teachers about not living up to his potential. The overall solution was "don't be like that." And the road from that place to where he is now, has many steps. Now it's prioritizing self care, nutrition, exercise, sleep etc. And that there are days when it is difficult to focus, and on those days there are other creative ways to deal. And not every day is a great day.

Sickboy: Dr. Anne Wagner is a clinical psychologist and treatment development researcher in Toronto, Canada.

For more, visit: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastplaylist