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BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

BBC Radio 4

Radio 4

Radio 4 (FM)

Start the Week

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Weekly discussion programme, setting the cultural agenda every Monday

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Start the Week: Searching for happiness

Searching for happiness

BBC Radio 4 - Start the Week, Searching for happiness

Andrew Marr with Paul Dolan, Linda Geddes, Laura Freeman and Edward Bullmore.

Paul Dolan, Linda Geddes, Laura Freeman and Edward Bullmore are fighting the winter blues with Andrew Marr.

Andrew Marr starts the year in search of happiness with the behavioural scientist and happiness professor Paul Dolan. Dolan has advised the government on how to measure wellbeing, and in his latest book Happy Ever After argues that we’ve been sold a lie about the sources of happiness. The route to fulfilment may be far more unexpected that we thought.

The writer Laura Freeman deplores what she calls the current Pollyana tendencies to ‘keep smiling’ via the mood-tracker apps on your phone. Freeman recounts how she herself found an appetite for life, after years of suffering with anorexia, through her love of reading.

The science journalist Linda Geddes explores the impact of sunlight on our minds and bodies. In Chasing the Sun she looks at its significance in improving our health, sleep, productivity and mood.

But what if our mood is really affected not by our mind, but our bodies? Professor Edward Bullmore has studied the link between mental health and physical inflammation, and argues that we need to look more closely at our immune system in the treatment of depression.

Producer: Katy Hickman

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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Searching for happiness

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