Let’s face it, you’re bored.

Maybe your Netflix to-watch list is dwindling down or your friends have already gotten as emotionally vulnerable as anyone can get over Zoom. Or maybe you just need a break from letting the 24-hour news cycle of epidemiology become the elevator music of your life. Whatever the reason, you’re in the right place.

Put on some headphones. Tune out the stress, the loneliness, or the screams of your family members you are holed up inside with, and pick a podcast for your mood. Whatever you are feeling, we have you covered.

When You Are Missing Loyola

You may not publicly admit it, but you are going through Wolf Pack withdrawal. Your dreams echo with the sounds of Ms. Trina calling you “Mama,” the smells of the sadly fated 2020 Crawfish in the Quad and visions of SoundCloud rappers walking across campus with speakers blasting their latest EP. The following selections are all Loyola-grown. If you squeeze your eyes shut tight enough, you just might start to see the outline of Iggy, welcoming you home.

Film for Thought — If you are tired of watching films, why not listen to a group of highly opinionated Loyola film students talk about them? These hour-long conversations critically analyze and joke about films and the entertainment industry in the way only Loyola students can.

Average Run Time: 1 hour

Best Episode: Worst of the Decade

Total Binge Time: 7.5 hours

See Me After Class — To toot our own horn, The Maroon has a podcast. If you have ever wondered what professors lives are like outside of class, Lori Launey has you covered. The first episode just dropped, so go listen here.

Average Run Time: 10 minutes

Best Episode: Well, we only have one. Stay tuned.

Total Binge Time: 10 minutes

When You Are Feeling Lonely

Self-isolation is hard. Even if you live with people, not being able to see your friends, socialize at work, or even run up and pet that cute dog you see in the park takes its own mental toll. Add on top of that fears about your health, the health of those you love, job security, and it can feel like you are in this alone. Here are three podcasts to remind you that you aren’t.

Heavyweight— In each episode, Jonathan Goldstein helps a listener reach out to people from their past to address a moment in their life they wish they could change. It’s raw humanity punctuated by jokes and tears and it’s a reminder that everyone has regrets and the capacity for forgiveness.

Average Run Time: 45 minutes

Best Episode: #31 Marie-Claude

Total Binge Time: 61 hours, so get cracking

Reply All— Telling narrative feature stories about callers who have technology or internet problems, Reply All is more about the people than it is the premise (a tech podcast). Whether it’s tracking down a scammer halfway across the world or finding the origins of an earworm song someone remembers from their childhood but doesn’t exist on the internet, this podcast covers every side of the human experience in the funniest of ways.

Average Run Time: 45 minutes

Best Episode: #158 The Case of the Missing Hit

Total Binge Time: There are 159 episodes. You do the math.

When You Need a Story of Survival

Helplessness and anxiety have become the norm. So much is out of our control that, in many ways, all we can do is wait out the storm, something the city we love knows how to do all too well.

Floodlines —  This serialized telling by The Atlantic of life in New Orleans before and after Hurricane Katrina will throw you into the eerie tragedy with such detail it’s hard not to feel the humidity on the High Rise, hear the sirens’ wails yourself. Documenting everything from the initial environmental reporting by Mark Schleifstein to the rhetoric that New Orleans “should have known better,” to the truth about the levees that came out nearly a decade later, it’s a story that grows with every episode.

While it may be revisiting trauma for some, this podcast also serves as a reminder that there’s one thing New Orleans knows how to do: endure.

Average Run Time: 30 Minutes

Best Episode: Listen to all of them darn it.

Total Binge Time: 4.5 hours

When There Are No Sports to Watch

March Madness was over before it really started. Monday-night/Friday-night/So-many-night football is no more. The Olympics are postponed and college athletes have gone home. So what now?

Hall of Shame— A podcast about sports scandals hosted by a Fox Sports anchor and a comedian is the perfect fix for those who miss watching people chase flying balls on-screen, or for anyone who loves a good conspiracy story. Taking on everything from international Olympics scandals to the stories of women athletes betrayed by the organizations meant to protect them, Hall of Shame covers the unsportsmanlike side of sports.

Average Run Time: 25 minutes

Best Episode: “I am a woman and I am fast” (The Caster Semenya Story)

Total Binge Time: 1 hour 40 minutes with new episodes weekly

When You Have Already Binged Tiger King

So you just spent the past seven hours of your life caught up in true-crime spiral of big cats, death threats and the far-from-occasional mullet, and you want more. No worries, I am way ahead of you.

Joe Exotic: Tiger King— This six-part podcast actually aired in 2019 as the second season of the show Over My Dead Body, but is being re-released along with exclusive interviews reflecting on the docuseries for those who can’t get enough of the infamous Oklahoma zoo owner.

Average Run Time: 35 minutes

Best Episode: Episode 2: More Wicked Than A Bobcat

Total Binge Time: 2 hours with more episodes to drop

The McMillion$ Podcast— One of the only stories that is arguably more outlandish than Tiger King, this podcast chronicles the FBI sting that revealed a decades-long rigging of the McDonald’s Monopoly game that went all the way to the Mafia. The podcast is a companion to the HBO series by the same name, worth a binge if you have the time.

Average Run Time: 45 minutes

Best Episode: Episode 2: Robin Colombo

Total Binge Time: 5 hours

When You Want to Know More About COVID-19

Maybe your way of coping with the uncertainty and anxiety of today is to become hyper informed. If that’s the case, might I suggest a career as a journalist along with the three following podcasts dedicated solely to coronavirus news.

This Podcast Will Kill You— Hosted by two epidemiologists/disease ecologists, This Podcast Will Kill You has been around for a year but has recently released six episodes focused on COVID-19. Tackling everything from the behavior of the virus to potential vaccines, it will lull you into a sense of security (or insecurity, depending) with an avalanche of information and a quarantini drink recipe in every episode.

Average Run Time: 50 minutes

Best Episode: COVID-19 Chapter 4: Epidemiology

Total Binge Time: 4.5 hours for coronavirus content

Coronavirus: Fact vs Fiction— CNN’s Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta hosts this short but definitely-not-sweet podcast that releases daily episodes scrutinizing the most common statements about COVID-19 and setting the record straight on what is and is not true about the current state of the pandemic.

Average Run Time: 10 minutes

Best Episode: Myth-Busting

Total Binge Time: 3.5 hours

When You Want to Stay Informed, Kinda

If you want to stay informed on the news, but the rising death tolls and sinking economy are getting to you, here are two podcasts that will give you a short dose of the most important information of the day.

Up First— In 10 minutes, NPR condenses the three most important stories of the day into digestable conversations. Dropping at 6 a.m. Eastern on weekdays and 8 a.m. Eastern on Saturdays, it’s the best way to stay informed while taking care of your mental health.

Coronavirus Daily— Another NPR podcast, this show focuses exclusively on the biggest COVID-19 news of the day nationally squished into 12 minutes.