Gwyneth Paltrow is detailing her strategy to defending bone density in her 50s.
“We’re gonna discuss to our physician about potential estrogen supplementation,” she begins. “We’re gonna do heavy weights. A lot of heavy weights. … And we’re gonna gag down protein 70 instances a day.”
Moments later, Paltrow is laughing so exhausting a few Saturday Night time Dwell sketch she noticed that she overheats. Jokes comply with about scorching flashes — after which the subject ping-pongs once more to one thing else.
It’s not the everyday Q&A the actress and life-style skilled has had on her Marty Supreme press tour — Seth Meyers requested her about her son’s response to the love scene she did with Timothée Chalamet — however she’s not on simply any cease. Paltrow is recording Amy Poehler’s Good Grasp podcast, an episode that dropped Jan. 6.
Since debuting in March 2025 with Tina Fey as the primary visitor, Good Grasp has shortly change into one of the profitable superstar podcasts within the medium, topping charts and successful the Golden Globe for finest podcast on Jan. 11.
The Good Grasp logline is that every week Poehler welcomes “celebrities and enjoyable individuals” to “share tales about their careers, mutual pals, shared enthusiasms and … what’s been making them chortle.” It guarantees to not be a podcast about “attempting to make you higher or giving recommendation,” as a result of Poehler “simply desires to have a great time.”
A very good time is had: In Paltrow’s case, there was a Good Grasp first — and probably a Paltrow first — when the sometimes prim Goop founder did a spit take, spraying water from her mouth throughout her designer skirt. She wanted a tissue to wipe her face. Whereas stomach laughs are had within the episode, what stands out is the way it’s a comedy podcast wherein feminine midlife wellness subjects — like menopause, scorching flashes and bone density — pop up with normalcy and a mild contact.
It’s so mild that it’s not often the takeaway from the dialog. Headlines stemming from Paltrow’s look are in regards to the inefficiency of Marvel film productions, getting fired from her first job and a reference to long-ago ex Ben Affleck. However a seed is planted. Poehler threads these subjects into regular banter in a breezy means. They’re there, sandwiched between a query about what TV present Paltrow watches in mattress and the way she takes her espresso.
That understated strategy is why Good Grasp lands the way in which it does. In a media panorama that tends to both sidestep girls’s getting older or flip it right into a product, Poehler doesn’t place menopause, midlife or wellness as subjects to be solved or bought. They’re folded into conversations about work, routines and friendship and are much less revelations than observations about life.
Listeners of every type come for Poehler, the laughs and the well-known company. They keep, usually with out realizing it, for candid discuss midlife — or life at two-thirds the way in which via, which is the place Poehler says she technically is.
Poehler and actress Kristen Johnston famous that their boomer moms by no means spoke the M-word aloud. Comic Leanne Morgan, who hilariously referred to as menopause “a booger” in dialog with Yahoo, stated her 50s had been lifting heavy weights, carrying a weighted vest to train and having to eat “an excessive amount of protein.” Poehler and former first woman Michelle Obama have commiserated over frozen shoulder, which is linked to menopause, and Poehler shared her dermatologist’s recommendation for this stage of life whereas chatting with Julia Louis-Dreyfus: Put on a solar shirt.
Dr. Julia Adamian, an internist at NYU Langone Well being, thinks normalizing conversations round menopause, osteoporosis and the like exterior a medical setting is helpful to all.
“There’s a stigma about menopause, so when individuals solely discuss it in medical areas with their medical doctors, it makes it really feel prefer it’s a priority, a illness or a situation that must be mounted or cured,” Adamian tells Yahoo. “It isn’t a illness. It’s a pure state of the human physique at a sure stage. It’s an adjustment. … It’s about studying how you can reside with it,” or working along with your physician to deal with any signs which can be insufferable.
In spite of everything, “the fact is girls spend 40% of their life in menopause,” Adamian says. “You’ll be able to’t be unhappy or mad about it. It’s a part of life. … So let’s remember and educate ourselves.”
Dr. Samantha M. Dunham, director of NYU Langone Well being’s Middle for Midlife Well being and Menopause, tells Yahoo that she finds Poehler’s strategy “refreshing.”
“[It’s] a welcome distinction to each mean-spirited jokes about menopause and a ‘woe is me’ strategy to coping with signs,” Dunham says. “She finds hilarity in how you can cope with perimenopause and menopause day out and in. We chortle together with her, and it appears like nobody has to go it alone.”
Not every little thing Poehler discusses relating to getting older is particularly associated to girls. She asks almost everybody about their sleep preferences, as wholesome sleep habits are linked to longevity. Poehler goes to mattress early — and likes the temperature of her bed room within the cool 60s. She and comic Jack Black bonded over their CPAP (steady optimistic airway stress) machines, which deal with sleep apnea. She joked with actress Kathryn Hahn about colonoscopy cleanses and gabbed with singer Hayley Williams about how chilly plunges are good for irritation.
Claire Sisco King, affiliate professor of communication research and chair of the Cinema and Media Arts program at Vanderbilt College, believes Poehler’s podcast is efficient as a result of it mirrors the tone of on a regular basis conversations between pals, bringing subjects which have lengthy been handled as hush-hush or shameful to the lots.
“Such conversations may sometimes be understood as non-public, however they’re additionally half of a bigger cultural motion to make such subjects as reproductive well being or psychological well being a part of bigger public discourse,” says King, a scholar of media and visible tradition, with a specific emphasis on the examine of gender. “The tendency to denationalise such topics was steeped in disgrace tradition and bias towards girls, so Poehler’s efforts to deliver these subjects into public discourse resist such impulses and encourage girls to be extra open about their private and embodied experiences.”
Poehler makes for a pure facilitator as a result of the comic infuses humor into each subject, critical or foolish, which King notes helps “take the sting out of addressing troublesome topics.”
What’s hanging is how deliberately Poehler got down to keep away from making Good Grasp a podcast about self-improvement or instruction. From the beginning, she stated she wasn’t curious about telling listeners how you can be higher.
“After we had been fascinated by this podcast, we thought: Guys get to only goof round and have enjoyable and [it’s] straight comedy escapism,” she stated whereas speaking to Fey throughout the premiere episode. “Our stuff needs to be … about menopause.”
What she’s crafted as an alternative is an area the place these conversations can exist with out turning into the purpose. Getting older isn’t the headline — it’s simply a part of the hold.
