Ever wondered about the relationship between sleep and ‘alone time’? That’s the topic of this week’s episode with Dr Kat Lederle, a sleep scientist and chronobiologist (read: ‘body clock scientist’). I don’t know about you, but as someone who occasionally sits up for hours in the early morning with insomnia, I’d never considered how a lack of ‘me-time’ in the day might turn into a sleepless night… this conversation truly opened my eyes, and gave a fresh view on why quality alone time is just so ...
Sep 22, 2022•47 min•Season 7Ep. 11
Talk about an alonement icon – radio DJ & broadcaster Vick Hope is a woman who radiates everything this podcast is about, as a sunny, ambitious, beautiful soul with an infectious passion for life, or as she puts it 'a gratitude for being alive'. This episode was recorded in September 2020, and in the full episode Vick talks about living alone, being single and building a relationship with herself after a one-time fear of time by herself. While no longer single (Vick is rumoured to be engaged...
Sep 19, 2022•9 min•Season 7Ep. 10
As political protests go, a four-year vow of celibacy is on the extreme side. And that’s what this week’s guest, British-American film director & writer Emma Forrest, decided to do following her divorce from actor Ben Mendelsohn, a period of her life which coincided with Donald Trump serving as the 45th US President from 2017 to 2021. ‘Looking at him makes me not want to have sex,’ Emma reasoned – devoting herself to single parenting, finding joy in solitude, relocating from sunny LA to not-...
Sep 15, 2022•35 min•Season 7Ep. 9
Mo Gawdat, bestselling author, podcaster & former chief business officer of Google X, is the star of this week's minisode, taken from our conversation first recorded in September 2021. In this clip from the archives, Mo shares his unique advice for learning to be alone comfortably with our thoughts, ie the gold standard of alonement. With a background in engineering, Mo is one of the most original thinkers I've ever met – and I hope you can be inspired by this cherry-picked snippet of wisdom...
Sep 12, 2022•7 min•Season 7Ep. 8
This week’s guest is Phoebe Fox, aka Marial from The Great , who acts alongside Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult in Hulu’s deliciously irreverent ‘anti-historical’ comedy-drama. I interviewed Phoebe, a RADA-trained actor who's been nominated both an Olivier and a SAG, earlier this year for GLAMOUR magazine, and I enjoyed our conversation so much that I begged her to come on the podcast so we could continue it. We discuss, among other things: The ‘grounding’ that helps Phoebe step out of her chara...
Sep 08, 2022•30 min•Season 7Ep. 7
For this week's mini-episode, I'm revisiting my conversation with Dr Julie Smith, a clinical psychologist turned bestselling author known better by her Instagram handle, Dr Julie, or simply as that therapist off TikTok. In this clip, we take a deep dive into what it means to journal well. Of course, we see a lot on Instagram about journalling, but as inspiring as that can sometimes be, I wanted to go deeper than picture-perfect stationery. Dr Julie, in this ten-minute clip, goes to the core of w...
Sep 05, 2022•11 min•Season 7Ep. 6
Described by close friend Bear Grylls as ‘stronger than 99% of the men I know’, Megan Hine is a survival expert and TV presenter who works on and off camera to make some of the most extreme adventure shows on television happen. She also holds a degree in psychology – just another string to her already-very-loaded bow. I managed to catch Megan during one of the rare occasions she wasn’t on location for her day job, wrestling tigers, escaping tribal warfare or climbing a mountain (I’m not even exa...
Sep 01, 2022•50 min•Season 7Ep. 5
As Florence Given tops the fiction bestseller charts with her debut novel, Girlcrush , I decided now would be a brilliant time to revisit this episode – first released in July 2020, after the release of her non-fiction book, Women Don't Owe You Pretty. In this clip, the writer, illustrator & podcast host shares how she learnt a crucial lesson about alone time at the age of 14, when she was 'ousted' from her school clique. If you'd like to learn more about Florence, her books are available on...
Aug 29, 2022•10 min•Season 7Ep. 4
I’m delighted to welcome Sunday Times bestselling author Owen O’Kane on to the show this week. Previously an NHS Clinical Lead for mental health, Owen is now a psychotherapist and bestselling author. His books have all sorts of intriguing names, like Ten Times Happier and Ten To Zen. But when I saw the title of his latest book, How To Be Your Own Therapist , my ears pricked up. This is a podcast about alone time and how to make it better – and given that therapy is something which many of us con...
Aug 25, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Season 7Ep. 3
Welcome to ‘Me Time’, Alonement’s new, weekly series of 10-minute mini episodes from the archives. We’ll be showcasing the very best wisdom from some of our favourite former guests, in bitesize episodes designed for those smaller pockets of Alonement that you get throughout your day. I'm kicking off with a slice of Alonement history: an excerpt from the episode with philosopher, author & School of Life founder Alain de Botton, originally recorded in November 2019. It was actually the first e...
Aug 22, 2022•14 min•Season 7Ep. 2
Iona Bain is a personal finance expert who appears regularly on BBC Morning Live and writes a weekly column for the i Paper. She’s written two books, her second is Own It – a millennial guide to investing. On a personal level, she’s also recently made the big step of buying her first flat as a solo buyer – a process she described to me in an email as a ‘learning curve’. In this episode, we discuss questions around solo finance – including the cost of living alone and the dreaded ‘single’ supplem...
Aug 18, 2022•59 min•Season 7Ep. 1
Welcome to the tenth and final episode of season 6. This week’s episode is the second of two live recordings I did back to back at Kings Place in London – which was recorded in front of an audience. My guest is Abigail Bergstrom, the literary agent behind some of the biggest bestselling books in the past few years. More recently, at the beginning of this year, Abigail published her own debut novel, titled What A Shame . It is a beautifully-written story which explores everything from heartbreak ...
Apr 21, 2022•37 min•Season 6Ep. 11
This week, I have something very special for you – it’s the first ever live recording of Alonement, which was recorded in front of an audience at Kings Place in London. In what was a fairly ambitious move, I decided to record not one but two episodes back to back – which I’ll be releasing this week and next. The first guest to join me on stage was Olivia Petter, the author of Millennial Love, a brilliant memoir and social commentary on the modern dating landscape. She’s also the host of a podcas...
Apr 15, 2022•34 min•Season 6Ep. 10
My very special guest this week is Emma Gannon, host of the Ctrl Alt Delete podcast, one of my absolute favourite shows and the first I ever listened to. Now a prolific author of both fiction and non-fiction, Emma is a true career inspiration – and well as an example of how to live a varied, creative life. Her latest book is Disconnected: How To Stay Human In An Online World , a practical guide to finding connection and community both online and off – in a nutshell, how to make our internet with...
Apr 07, 2022•54 min•Season 6Ep. 9
Become the author of your own story – that's the promise from this week's guest, Roxie Nafousi, a self-development coach and bestselling author of Manifest: 7 Steps To Living Your Best Life , who champions the power of manifesting to bring about positive transformation in your life. Manifesting is a deceivingly simple concept; in a nutshell, it means changing your thought patterns in order to bring about positive change in your life and meet your goals. But it requires not just thought, but acti...
Mar 31, 2022•46 min•Season 6Ep. 8
This week's guest is Isy Suttie! The comedian, author and actor best known (among Peep Show fanatics) for playing the character of Dobby on the hit British sitcom. We discuss Isy Suttie's debut novel, Jane Is Trying, together with her stand-up comedy career and relationship with fellow comedian (and alone time fan, by the sounds of things!) Elis James. What follows is a gorgeous chat about the value of integrating alone time into your professional and family life, in order to live and create mea...
Mar 25, 2022•50 min•Season 6Ep. 7
This week’s guest is author and journalist Angelica Malin, who recently published Unattached: Empowering Essays on Singlehood, a curated anthology of 30 writers (including me!) exploring the experience of being single, which was published by Square Peg earlier this year. Angelica, or Jelly as I know her, just so happens to be one of my closest friends. During our conversation, we discuss how our close friendship (and having other ‘single’ friends) is one of the most important factors in navigati...
Mar 18, 2022•49 min•Season 6Ep. 6
My guest this week, Oliver Burkeman, may be many things – but he's not a productivity expert. Thankfully, the former Guardian columnist rejects both the societal obsession with productivity hacking and the idea of being an expert (he'd much prefer to be regarded as a work in progress tackling the problems he personally struggles with through his work, he tells me on this episode). While Oliver makes no lofty claims about his wisdom, I'm going to do it for him. The bestselling author of Four Thou...
Mar 11, 2022•51 min•Season 6Ep. 5
She’s famous for her 60-second videos, yet I was lucky enough to have a full 60 MINUTES interviewing this week’s guest, the wonderful Dr Julie Smith. She’s the clinical psychologist, online educator and ‘TikTok therapist’ who has been looking after the emotional health of her 3 and a half million (!) followers over the past three years through her light-hearted yet information-filled videos, which break down complex psychological concepts with the help of dance, handy props and lip-syncing. Yup,...
Mar 04, 2022•1 hr•Season 6Ep. 4
As far as being 'alone' goes, my guest Erling Kagge has experienced the extreme end of the spectrum. The first man to ever complete the Three Poles challenge (that's Mount Everest, the North Pole and the South Pole) on foot, Erling once spent 50 days alone, without radio contact, during his solo South Pole expedition in 1992 – a feat which saw him featured on the cover of Time magazine the following year. While it's impossible not to be awed by Erling's achievements, this podcast has always – at...
Feb 25, 2022•51 min•Season 6Ep. 3
For Radhika Sanghani, author of the brilliant new novel 30 Things I Love About Myself, time alone holds an important significance as the space where she’s learnt the true meaning of self-love. Her book even includes an aspirational, alonement-loving heroine… and what could be better? Appearing as my first guest on this season of the podcast, Radhika brings an infectious, empowering energy and a whole smorgasbord of wise insights, from the relevance of her spirituality for her alone time to how s...
Feb 18, 2022•43 min•Season 6Ep. 2
It’s comeback time, baby! Alonement returns with season 6 on Friday 18 February, with guests including a comedian, a self-love guru and an Arctic explorer. Subscribe now on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Trust me, you won’t want to miss out. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Feb 11, 2022•44 sec•Season 6Ep. 1
Can you believe we’ve reached season finale time *already*? No, me neither, to be honest… but we’re out with a bang! Natasha Lunn, the author of Sunday Times bestseller and one of 2021’s most talked-about non-fiction titles, Conversations on Love , is my marvellous final guest for season five of the podcast. Natasha’s debut book, Conversations On Love , is inspired by her bimonthly newsletter of the same name. Over the past four years, she’s interviewed leading psychotherapists, writers & th...
Sep 30, 2021•1 hr 16 min•Season 5Ep. 8
This week I’m talking to Michael James Wong, the founder of global mindfulness collective Just Breathe. Earlier this year, he launched a brilliant meditation app of the same name. He is committed to bringing mindfulness to people around the world – whether that’s through in-person events which in the past have attracted over 1,000 participants, or through being connected online. He’s also just about the calmest person I’ve ever spoken to. His latest book, Senzaruru: Small Steps and Gentle Wisdom...
Sep 23, 2021•44 min•Season 5Ep. 7
Divorcing your husband, travelling the world alone, getting back together with an ex & having a baby might sound like a lot to go through in a year, but this week's guest, journalist, columnist & author Kate Wills, did it all. In this episode, we discuss her first book, A Trip of One's Own, a solo travel memoir written on the other side of the pandemic about Kate's divorce in her early thirties after less than a year of marriage, the travels she took in the aftermath to escape and find h...
Sep 16, 2021•44 min•Season 5Ep. 6
I’m honoured to introduce this week’s guest, Mo Gawdat – an author, speaker, serial entrepreneur, former chief business officer at Google X and one of the most innovative thinkers I’ve ever come across. ‘I only allow my brain two different types of thought: a useful thought, or a joyful thought, or it shuts up’ – this quote from the podcast is typical of Mo’s logical approach to his inner world. While we discuss familiar topics like meditation, journaling and solitude in this topic, Mo’s perspec...
Sep 10, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Season 5Ep. 5
Emma John is an award winning journalist and author. Her most recent book, Self-Contained , is a memoir which chronicles what it’s like to enter your 40s without having been in a serious long-term relationship. It’s a book that celebrates the fullness of single life – the highs and lows. Our conversation is an unapologetic, unflinching look at the single experience, with a particular emphasis on how hobbies, interests and platonic relationships, as long as shorter-term romantic ones, can become ...
Sep 02, 2021•1 hr•Season 5Ep. 4
On the show this week I have Lorraine Candy, one of the most influential people on the UK’s magazine industry and formerly editor-in-chief at Cosmopolitan, ELLE & latterly Sunday Times Style. Lorraine is also the host of the Postcards from Midlife podcast, and author of new book, Mum, What’s Wrong With You – a funny, practical manual for anyone raising teenage girls. I found this conversation so refreshing – Lorraine is full of helpful advice about looking after yourself and living your most...
Aug 26, 2021•51 min•Season 5Ep. 3
Hello, my worker bees! So let's face it, the perfect office probably doesn't exist – but if it did, it would be the brainchild of Alex Soojung Kim Pang, PHD, a Silicon Valley consultant and a futurist who has spent the last two decades researching the nature of people, work and technology. Alex totally transformed how I think about the 'work-life balance' – we spoke about the need to instead create a sense of 'harmony' in your working day, instead (which also takes into account how much solo/soc...
Aug 19, 2021•49 min•Season 5Ep. 2
We’re backkkkkkk, gang! For episode uno of Season 5, I have been GRACED by the presence of comedian/author/generally awesome human Bella Younger. Formerly known as her alter-ego Deliciously Stella (yup, the one taking the p– out of the dodgier side of the wellness industry for years), Bella has officially killed off her one-time alias and written a brand new book to mark it. Our conversation proved equal parts funny and deep – we chat about the dark consequences that becoming an influencer (albe...
Aug 12, 2021•57 min•Season 5Ep. 1
