The Pulse NPR

Over the past few decades, Latinos have become the largest racial or ethnic minority in the United States, making up nearly 20 percent of the country's population. Despite that, many Latinos feel alienated by our medical system, due to cultural and language barriers, and a lack of Latino physicians — and those barriers can have a real impact on their overall health.On this episode, we look for solutions to provide better care to Latino communities and patients. We hear stories about one physician's bold initiative to bridge the language gap between doctors and farmworkers, new approaches to help victims of gun violence, and a national effort to increase the number of Latino physicians.

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It sneaks up on us while we're sitting in traffic, or waiting at the doctor's office, or doing our taxes — boredom, that restless feeling of dissatisfaction that arises when we harbor "the desire for desires," as Leo Tolstoy said.At the same time, we're living in an age of never-ending stimulation, all at our fingertips — texting, social media, 24-hour news, and streaming galore. But despite this constant content consumption, we're still getting bored — maybe even more so than ever. We find ourselves hopping from tab to tab, scrolling through Instagram while watching a show, tuning out of meetings to check our email. And now some researchers are worried that all this stimulation could be changing our brains.

On this rebroadcast episode, we look at boredom in the age of information overload, and whether or not it's really good for us and our brains. We hear stories about what happened when two reporters quit their digital addictions for four weeks, a monk who took his search for boredom to the ultimate extreme, and why there's value to the slow pace of baseball.

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On April 8, a swath of North America will be treated to a rare and spectacular sight — a total solar eclipse; in some places, the first in more than a century, and the last for at least another 20 years. The path of totality, where it's possible to see the moon completely block out the sun, stretches in a narrow ribbon from Mexico, through Texas, all the way to Maine.It's an event that eclipse chasers have been anticipating for years. On this special episode, we find out why so many people call total solar eclipses a life-changing experience, and why they will go to great lengths to witness this fleeting spectacle of nature. We'll hear what scientists are hoping to learn during this brief but important moment, and we'll pay tribute to the celestial body that makes the eclipse possible: the moon.

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Identity's a complicated thing — a mixture of nurture and nature, ethnicity, gender, culture, conscious decisions, coincidences, and more. In many ways, though, who we think we are boils down to the stories we tell ourselves; stories based on our origins, our families, and how we came to be.But what happens when those stories change? When we discover that the narrative of our lives is completely different from what we've always believed?

On this episode, we explore stories of identity, and what happens when long-buried secrets are uncovered. We hear about a journalist who discovered that his father wasn't who he thought he was, one woman's search for her childhood self in the records of a long-running experiment, and how a fateful medical decision changed the future of a baby born in 1986.

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It's been four years since COVID-19 struck, transforming our modern world in ways we'd never seen before — and we're still processing the aftershocks. The pandemic exposed fault lines lurking beneath the surface of our everyday lives — friendships and bonds that weren't as strong as we thought; political rifts that turned into chasms; shifts in our fundamental beliefs of who we should trust, and what rules we should follow. It showed us how fragile we are — as human beings, and as a global community.Now, we find ourselves trying to pick up the pieces — to understand what happened, and what we can do better next time. On this episode, we explore the major changes caused by the pandemic, what we can learn from them, and how we can move forward. We hear stories about one man's dogged search for a treatment for his long COVID, how the pandemic both hurt and revived the field of public health, and how to repair relationships that became frayed or broken by the pressures of the pandemic.

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Know the signs of depression. Recognize symptoms of anxiety. Pay attention to your friend's changing moods. There's been a push to raise mental health awareness for decades, and now, the topic is everywhere. It's leading the charts on social media sites, and everybody from celebrities to politicians to sports superstars are talking about it more openly. At the same time, it seems like our overall mental health is declining, as more and more people report having mental health issues. On this episode, we explore how the field of mental health is changing and adapting. We'll find out what traditionally trained therapists make of mental health advice on social media, why some experts argue that too much awareness can backfire, and why mental illness can be so tricky to diagnose. Also, one woman's quest to stay on her ADHD medications as shortages drag on.

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