• by Sara Guaglione , November 17, 2020

Self magazine is launching its first podcast, a wellness-focused advice series hosted by editor-in-chief Carolyn Kylstra.

It is the latest expansion for the “Checking In” franchise, which first started as a newsletter Kylstra launched at the beginning of the pandemic. 

The newsletter had an open rate of over 100% in the first month, according to Conde Nast.

“Checking In” spun off into a live virtual event series last month. Seven events spanned two weeks, with sessions featuring experts, celebrities and influencers.

Over 1,000 people signed up to attend within a few hours of registration, and the event drew over 100,000 simulcast impressions.

"We'd been planning to break into audio for a while and knew this was the right concept for us to launch. We knew it was something people were responding to," Kylstra told Publishers Daily.

The podcast’s first episode launched Monday. It focuses on a woman who grinds her teeth — a psychologist explains how and why stress can manifest in the body, and offers techniques to help reduce it.

The podcast’s launch sponsors are The Lego Group and pharmaceutical company Novartis.

The “Checking In” podcast will feature a rotation of expert guests, thought leaders, celebrities and regular people with different wellness issues.

Kylstra and guests on the series will give advice on a wellness topic of the day, determined by a question from Self readers.

"It's a balance between personal stories, expert testimony, and digestible tips that people can use to help make their lives a little better — something we can all use right now," Kylstra said.

Jonathan Van Ness, star of the Netflix series “Queer Eye,” will help answer questions about sexual health.

New episodes will drop every Monday.