I Listened to the 5 Most-Shared Podcast Episodes of 2025—Here Are the Most Interesting Things I Learned from Each
It seems like there’s a podcast for everything these days—and that’s actually pretty accurate. Believe it or not, there are more than 4.5 million podcasts available worldwide. (Yes, that’s a real stat!) And they’re more popular than ever: According to Edison Research, 55% of Americans tune into at least one podcast every month.
It’s easy to see why we love them. We get to hang with a “friend” for an hour—someone we find endlessly fun and fascinating who always shares cool tidbits and helpful tips. Then we want to share all that cool and helpful info with our actual friends. That’s the basis of Apple’s list of the most popular podcasts of 2025, which includes the episodes that were shared most often with friends and on social media. (The top podcasts, by the way, were The Joe Rogan Experience, The Daily and The Mel Robbins Podcast.)
So what is everyone sharing? Below, you’ll find the top five most-shared episodes on Apple’s list, as well as the highlights from each of them. I listened to all five episodes—which covered everything from health and longevity to telepathy and political mind games—and I have to say, I was completely riveted. These are totally worth a listen, but I’m going to give you the Reader’s Digest version first. What I learned is too good not to share! Read on to find out all the details.
Get Reader’s Digest’s Read Up newsletter for more entertainment, humor, cleaning, travel, tech and fun facts all week long.
The Mel Robbins Podcast: “The Body Reset: How Women Should Eat & Exercise for Health, Fat Loss & Energy”
If you’re not familiar with Mel Robbins, you should be. A motivational speaker, self-improvement guru and New York Times bestselling author, she is known for The Let Them Theory and The High 5 Habit. Her eponymous podcast ranks among Apple’s top shows of 2025, but this episode was the standout of the year, racking up more than 2 million views and earning the distinction of the most-shared podcast on Apple.
In “The Body Reset,” guest Stacy Sims—an exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist—talks to Robbins about the mistakes women make with exercise and why they’re not seeing desired results. In short? Fitness is male-centric, and existing data is primarily drawn from men, then generalized to women. “Women are not small men,” says Sims. “Everything from what happens in utero until when we die is different for women than men.” Bottom line: Working out like a man isn’t going to garner the same results … but she knows what will.
Key takeaways
- Women will burn more fat if they eat before a workout. Yes, this is the opposite of what you’ve probably heard. For men, fasting stimulates the small molecular structures in muscles, which burns fat. But “women are born with more fat-burning fibers, so when we don’t provide fuel, the body’s like, ‘I’m going to store fat because I’m going to need it,'” says Sims. Having protein before a workout can also quell a spike of cortisol in the morning, which affects how women burn fat and build muscle.
- Short, targeted workouts are a lot more effective than endless cardio. If you’re over 40 and regularly spend an hour on the treadmill or elliptical, you may be lean, but you’re really “skinny fat.” This means you don’t have a lot of quality muscle, and your bones are probably “like chalk.” Instead, doing sprint intervals (30 seconds max) will change your body more quickly than spending hours doing aerobic activity.
- Strength training keeps your brain sharp. Lifting weights helps with neuroplasticity, creating more neural pathways and developing existing ones. This makes the brain very responsive and flexible, which can reduce the risk of cognitive decline, Alzheimer’s and dementia, all of which women are at higher risk of developing.
2. The Telepathy Tapes: “Unveiling the Hidden World of Telepathic Communication in a Silenced Community”
Telepathy is a hot topic these days, thanks to Stranger Things, and that may be one reason this particular episode of The Telepathy Tapes clocks in as the No. 2 most-shared episode for Apple’s Best of 2025 podcasts. This weekly series, hosted by documentarian and self-professed science nerd Ky Dickens, delves into the unexplained phenomenon of how some people seem to be able to read others’ minds. In Season 1, Dickens focuses on the apparent telepathic capabilities of nonverbal autistic children, while Season 2 broadens the lens to feature non-autistic people.
This is the episode that started it all, and in it, Dickens interviews Diane Hennacy Powell, MD, a Johns Hopkins–trained neuropsychiatrist who studies the telepathic abilities of autistic savants. Dickens sits in on interviews and experiments conducted by Dr. Powell, including with a non-speaking autistic teenager named Mia and her family, some of which we get to hear.
Key takeaways
- Mia’s telepathy tests were 100% accurate. Over the course of more than 20 tests, Mia had to correctly type random numbers and words that only her mother knew. Each time, she got it right—while blindfolded and kept separate from her mom via a partition. They were also in a room with other people, including a friend of Dickens who is an ESP skeptic, and even he was pretty gobsmacked by what he witnessed.
- Cases of telepathy in autistic children have been reported worldwide. All over the globe, multiple families have claimed their nonverbal autistic children can read minds. These similar occurrences suggest telepathy between these children and their parents is more widespread than we may realize.
- There’s still a lot more to explore. At the end of the episode, Dr. Powell admits that even with the results of Mia’s testing, none of these findings would be accepted by her scientific peers. While the results are certainly intriguing, without more conclusive evidence and a deeper dive into why this happens in some people, telepathy remains a guessing game.
3. The Ezra Klein Show: “Don’t Believe Him”
Are you a news junkie? If so, you’ll want to check out The Ezra Klein Show, often touted as one of the best political podcasts. Every Tuesday and Friday, Klein, an opinion columnist for the New York Times, tackles current events and the state of American politics, though he sometimes switches gears to cover pop culture, tech and pretty much whatever he feels like. Sometimes he goes solo, while other times he shares the mic with a guest.
“Don’t Believe Him” aired on Feb. 2, and the “Him” in the title refers to Donald Trump, who at that point was a little more than two weeks into his second presidential term. This particular episode was the audio version of Klein’s New York Times column of the same name.
Key takeaways
- There’s a method to the dizzying news cycle. The episode opens with a 2019 interview in which Steve Bannon talks about “muzzle velocity”—how the Trump administration barrages media outlets with a multitude of breaking-news stories. Klein explains that this poses a danger to democratic norms because “if you overwhelm the media, if you keep it moving from one thing to the next, if you give it too many places it needs to look all at once, no coherent opposition can emerge.”
- Trump’s superpower is belief. Trump knows the power of marketing, says Klein. By constantly proclaiming himself as the most talented negotiator, a fearsome billionaire boss and a would-be king, he can make people believe it too. His perception becomes reality—that is, if the people let it.
- Executive orders are a sign of weakness. If Trump tried to initiate his executive orders as legislation, says Klein, they would fail. That’s partly because he has a very slim majority in Congress, but more to the point, they would lead to debates as to why they can’t or won’t work, while challenging their legality. “The projection of strength obscures the reality of weakness,” Klein says. “Don’t believe him.”
4. The Shawn Ryan Show: “Gary Brecka – Biohacking Secrets to Longevity, Aging Myths and the Science of Nutrition” (Episode #163)
People love The Shawn Ryan Show for its candid, in-depth interviews with real people. Ryan, a former U.S. Navy SEAL and CIA contractor, genuinely seems to care about the experiences of everyday unsung American heroes, and in fact, he originally created the show as a place for veterans to talk about their personal stories of war and loss. Over the course of the podcast’s six-year run, its topics have expanded to human behavior, business, politics and science.
In Episode 163, Ryan interviews Gary Brecka, a biologist and functional medical expert, to discuss how to live longer and better—mostly by getting back to the basics of eating, drinking and moving. And it’s not just fascinating but also actionable.
Key takeaways
- Hydrogen-rich water can be a magical elixir. In his work with professional athletes, Brecka found that when they bathe in hydrogen-rich water, or drink hydrogen-rich water, it reduces pain levels and improves performance. Why? It has anti-inflammatory properties, boosts circulation, improves the absorption of nutrients and feeds good bacteria in the gut.
- A stronger grip can mean a longer life. Having grip strength is directly tied to longevity because it can help prevent falls, says Brecka. Being able to hold on to things can stop the momentum of a fall, and if you don’t have a strong grip, you could end up with a catastrophic injury, like a broken hip, which could lead to death in older adults.
- Trendy diets aren’t the answer. Don’t fall for the hype that “hyper-dogmatic” eating—such as veganism, keto, carnivore or raw food—is going to make you live longer. As we see from the so-called blue zones like Sardinia and Singapore, where people often live well past 100, the best diet consists of whole foods that haven’t been processed.
5. The Peter Attia Drive: “Women’s sexual health, menopause, and hormone replacement therapy (HRT)” (Episode #348)
Peter Attia, MD, is a Stanford-, Johns Hopkins- and NIH-trained physician, and the New York Times bestselling author of Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity. In his podcast, which boasts more than 100 million downloads, he covers all things health. (Of course.)
In this widely shared episode, Dr. Attia focuses on menopause. It is still largely overlooked by the medical community, and decades-old research got a lot of things wrong about hormone replacement therapy (HRT), so many women are concerned about its safety. Here, he and guest Rachel Rubin, MD, a sexual-health specialist, delve into both HRT and the slew of menopause symptoms and stages it can help with.
Key takeaways
- One flawed study on HRT screwed up things for everyone. The landmark 2002 Women’s Health Initiative Study, which found a link between HRT and breast cancer (and other things), scared an entire generation of women away from taking synthetic hormones. But there was one big problem with the study: Researchers misconstrued the data and statistics, and their findings were based on only one medication and one dose, not the FDA-approved products we use today.
- Doctors receive very little training for treating menopause. According to Dr. Rubin, fewer than 6% of internal medicine, ob/gyn or family practice doctors get even an hour of menopause in their training. This needs to change, not just to alleviate symptoms but also because menopausal hormones affect internal organs.
- Testosterone can work wonders for menopausal women. Time to dispel the myth that only men have testosterone! Yep, women have it too, but their levels start to drop in their 30s. Taking testosterone as part of an HRT regimen can make a huge difference with libido, bone density and more. “When we add that testosterone piece (along with estrogen and progesterone), it’s wild,” says Dr. Rubin. “Patients come back and say to me, ‘Wow, I feel like me again. It’s wild—I didn’t realize how badly I felt. Wow, that was the missing piece.’ I hear it over and over and over again.”
RELATED:
- This Is the Only 2025 “Best Of” List You Need, and It’s Packed with Editor Picks
- These 5 Good News Stories Are the Antidote to 2025’s Rage Bait
- 11 Celebrity Deaths That Totally Shook Us in 2025
Why trust us
At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
Source:
- Apple: “Apple Podcasts unveils the most popular shows and trends of 2025”
The post I Listened to the 5 Most-Shared Podcast Episodes of 2025—Here Are the Most Interesting Things I Learned from Each appeared first on Reader's Digest.
from Reader's Digest https://ift.tt/5iFPY6n
Comments
Post a Comment