The Mental Diet Podcast Project

This is the Mental Diet Podcast! A podcast that was produced, edited, and hosted by myself. Heavy research was done for each episode in hopes for a meaningful and thought provoking discussion. Millions of people struggle with some variety of mental health issue everyday. This podcast was created to be a part of the mental health discussion and help listeners who might have struggles. Special guests were invited to each episode for an engaging conversation on topics that affect our mental health. Research on those specific topics, along with a show rundown sheets, were made for each episode. An Instagram account with special designed posts was also created for the podcast. The goal of this project was to display skills in producing, editing, hosting, interviewing, researching, and social media marketing.

Here are some of the displays from the booth and the posts that were made for the Mental Diet Instagram account.

Supplemental Materials

Want to check out full episodes of the podcast? Just click on the link below. Also below is a link to the show notes that were used for the third episode. Check out the Instagram page as well.

The Power of A Podcast

One of the biggest reasons I chose to do a podcast was because of the skill level it takes to create a quality product. Sitting around the table, chit chatting with friends, doesn’t make a good podcast. What some people don’t realize is that the production side and the content creation side of podcasting takes a lot of practice and hard work. With an actual goal in mind, guests were invited to the podcast who offered experience in specific fields that affect mental health. In the second episode I interviewed American singer and song writer Tiffany Houghton. With over a million streams of her music, she spoke to me about the music industry and how she sticks to her values. We also spoke about COVID-19 and how it affects people’s music careers. We discussed how to stay positive through hard times. You can listen to the full episode below.

 

THE CREATION PROCESS

Each episode was recorded in a professional studio at the radio station on BYU-Idaho’s campus. That includes a sound proof studio and Shure Sm58 mics. Other mics included were Beta Sm48’s and Audio Technica BP40’s. Interviews were recorded over Zoom. (Side Note: The quality of the sound is better over Zoom versus recording over the phone). The editing process was done on Adobe Audion.

The Editing Process

Episodes were edited extensively for a better sound quality. The distribution side was done with Anchor and Spotify. For the visual side of things, Canva was used for the Podcast logo, Instagram posts, and each episode cover art. The music for the podcast was found on Mixkit.com which is a free stock music website. Scripts were written for each intro and tag for every episode.

End-Goal

This is a project I hope to continue for the rest of my life. Doing this podcast didn’t feel like a school assignment (even though there was a ton of work involved). One of the goals of this project was to create a certain amount of episodes by the time this project was ready to be submitted. That goal was not hit, due to the time that was taken on the episodes that were created. Hitting the requirement of 50 hours was easy when you consider how much effort that can be put into a single episode. Once I started this project, I had people reach out to me over social media asking if they could contribute and give their experiences with mental health. When employers take a look at this project, they can see I picked a topic that has an endless amount of content to be created. I hope that people can listen to this podcast and feel better when they do. I chose the name the Mental Diet because of one single question. “How often do we take care of ourselves mentally?” In a social media age, we see people working on their physical selves all the time by watching what the consume and how they work out. We need to do the same for ourselves mentally. We need to watch what we consume and how often we consume it. Happiness and mental balance was the end-goal of this project. So, for those who are looking for a diet that they might actually like, turn up your volume and enjoy!