NPR’s Hidden Brain is observing its 10th anniversary this fall. The program explores the unconscious patterns driving our behavior. You can hear Hidden Brain Saturday afternoons at 3 p.m. and Sunday mornings at 6 a.m.on KUAF.
Ozarks at Large’s Kyle Kellams recently talked with the host of the program, Shankar Vedantam, about the show’s goals. Kyle asked if making listeners’ lives better is top of mind for the show’s staff.
Vedantam: I would say it’s not just top of mind — it’s the whole point of the show. Kyle, I think our goal really is to help people live better lives, to use insights from science and from research to basically turn the spotlight of attention onto their own minds — to think about how their own minds work, to have better relationships, to have more successful careers. It’s absolutely the point of every single thing we do.
Kellams: There have been some conversations about making your life better, including when conversations go wrong. And yes, there’s science and research, but the program continues to deliver this in very manageable, plain language. What’s the process from talking to experts to bringing it to us? What sort of pre-processing do you have for those conversations?
Vedantam: We spend an enormous amount of time culling the scientific research to find interesting ideas and guests who can communicate those ideas well. But as we start to put together episodes, the preeminent question we’re asking is, how does this connect to people’s lives? How can we actually make this research not just interesting, not just accessible, but how do we make it relevant? So that as people are listening to the show, they’re listening to the show, but they’re also listening to their own lives?
I sometimes joke with my colleagues that the goal of Hidden Brain is to get listeners to stop listening to Hidden Brain and start listening to their own lives. In some ways, we want the show to be the soundtrack for your own internal thought process — for you to hear something and say, “Oh yes, I did that last week with my spouse,” or “Oh, yes that happened to me last month at work.” We want people to be reflecting on their own lives as they listen to the show.
It’s been gratifying to hear that’s actually happening — that many people tell us they have turned to the show at moments of need and moments of crisis, and that it’s helped them.
Kellams: Ten years in, how much do you find that this was a really wonderful conversation we had, and let’s go back and revisit and “oh, you learn something new?”
Vedantam: That happens with some regularity. There are always new things that researchers and scientists have learned. That we often, as we’re bringing back ideas or bringing back themes, we’ll add those additional insights. But perhaps a more important insight I’ve learned over the last 10 years, Kyle, is very that often I’ll put together an episode and will tell myself, “I need to remember to do this in my own life. I need to be a more patient person, I need to be a kinder person, I need to be a more generous person.” And I remember I tell myself I’m going to remember these things, and then a month later, I forget.
I think one thing we’ve discovered is that, yes, it’s useful to update episodes with new research, but sometimes it’s actually just useful to have the reminder. This is why people go back to churches and synagogues and temples on a weekly basis. They’re not expecting to hear a brand-new version of the Bible when they go back to church. They’re basically expecting to hear to be reminded of things they always kind of knew but they have forgotten within the weeks or months.
Kellams: Has 10 years of Hidden Brain changed how you listen to other radio programs?
Vedantam: That’s a really good question. I do think every journalist should is to aspire to find ways to not just to make the work they’re producing interesting and accessible but to find ways to make the work relevant. We’re all inundated with things happening. There is so much coming at us right now— our attention is pulled in so many directions — and it’s crucial and incumbent on the journalist, on the public radio station, on the newspaper, to ask how is this piece of news relevant to the person who’s listening or reading.
Listeners are giving us a gift when they give us 15 minutes or an hour of their time. It’s the most precious gift one human being can give another: the gift of attention. And in some ways, we need to honor that gift by making sure that every second that a listener spends with us speaks to that listener’s life. In some ways, that gives the listener something that’s really valuable.
So if I have, I’m not sure the right word is a critique, but I think one thing that I’ve noticed is that many shows are so focused on what it is that they have to say that they’re not actually asking the question, how does what I have to say matter to you? How does what I have to say speak to your life? And I think we, as journalists, as creators of public radio programs, we would be more successful if we asked that question more often.
Kellams: It’s interesting because taking that approach, and I appreciate that very much, but that can be harder. And so when you’re working with a weekly deadline, that can put more stress. And if you’re creating a program that is designed to help us lead better lives, I guess I’m asking, how do you make sure you have self-care with all of that going on?
Vedantam: Yeah, it’s true. And I think the short answer is I often don’t. And in some ways I think that has been to my detriment. I think in some ways I have worked so hard and so relentlessly on the show that in some ways, I have neglected parts of my life that perhaps I shouldn’t have neglected. And in some ways, this is deeply ironic because so much of Hidden Brain speaks to the idea of having balance, of actually being more aware of our lives. It’s something that I’m hoping to spend more time on in the next decade of Hidden Brain, of actually asking myself not just how can I create these ideas for others, but how can I implement more of these ideas in my own life?
Kellams: This probably isn’t any of my business. Are you a good delegator?
Vedantam: I feel very called out here, Kyle, because in some ways I am not a good delegator. And in some ways that is a skill that I’m desperately trying to learn.
Kellams: Guilty as charged as well. That’s why I knew to ask that question. You know, it is so easy for us to say that compared to September 2015, when the program launched to now, there are more ways that we can feel stressed. There’s more ways we can feel overwhelmed.
Vedantam: Yes.
Kellams: I’m not sure that’s fair, because perhaps every decade, we could say that. But do you think that is true?
Vedantam: Yes, I think it’s a tricky question. I do think that we’re living in particularly tumultuous times right now. It does feel that way. That said, I think you’re right. People in every age have imagined that the times that they are living in are, in some ways, the worst times in human history, the most tumultuous times in human history. There was a very interesting research paper some time ago which came out, which found that most people believe that they are at a particular point in history where everything is going from bad to worse in terms of morality. And the interesting thing is, that’s been true at every stage of our lives, that we often believe that the past was somehow purer, it was better, it was kinder, it was wiser. And we have lost our way today.
Now, it’s possible that sometimes that is actually true, that in some ways things are actually going very badly and we have lost our way. But it is also the case that we have the psychological impulse to believe that things are worse now than they were ever before in the past.
Kellams: As this program has made it to 10 years, there have been live tours, there are podcasts, there’s more. What has that afforded you to have more than just the hour on our radio signals?
Vedantam: We’ve been doing a live tour this past year. We’ve hit 15 of 16 cities in 2025, and there are more lining up in 2026. I’m actually hoping to bring the tour to college towns. Perhaps your town might be one of them if you might be interested in hosting me. But I think one of the things that’s been delightful about the live events is that not only has it given listeners a chance to meet me and see me instead of just hearing me, it’s also given me a chance to meet them.
And one of the things that we’ve done in the live shows is give people a chance to share their ideas and their insights, and some of the ideas and insights we’ve received from people have been extraordinary. Over the course of 10 years of Hidden Brain, we’ve received wonderful notes and letters from listeners, and in some ways those have really sustained us through very difficult and challenging times.
Excuse me. A couple of months ago, we received what might have been the single best note that I’ve received from a listener in the last 10 years. We had just finished an episode talking about extraordinary altruism of people who are able to do great deeds of kindness and generosity for others. And a listener wrote to us from Canada, and she said, you know, I listened to this episode of people who are doing these incredibly kind things, about people who are donating their kidneys to a stranger. And I said, I want to be like them. And I reached out to my doctor to try and figure out how I might donate my kidney to a stranger. And I’ve started the tests. I’m going through the process, and I’m hoping one day I might be able to save someone’s life as a result of listening to your program.
That so moved us at Hidden Brain, and I have to say, notes like that from listeners have really been, you know, some of our source of inspiration and sustenance these past 10 years.
Kellams: Wow. What a story. Well, congratulations on 10 years. Thank you for 10 years. Here’s to 10 more.
Vedantam: Thank you so much, Kyle. It’s been a pleasure to be on your show.
Shankar Vedantam is the host of NPR’s Hidden Brain, heard Saturday afternoons at 3 p.m. and Sunday mornings at 6 a.m. on KUAF. The program is observing its 10th anniversary this autumn.
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