Insufficient battery life?

try restoring it or

• Learn how to conserve battery life.
• Learn how pressing the Sleep/Wake button affects battery life.
• Ensure that the latest software is installed on the iPod.
• When charging, use the cable that came with iPod nano (6th generation) and leave the device connected until it is fully charged.

  Note: If you are charging using your computer, don't connect iPod nano (6th generation) to your keyboard. Also, the computer must be turned on and not in sleep or standby mode. If iPod nano (6th generation) is connected to a computer that's not turned on or is in sleep or standby mode, the iPod nano (6th generation) battery may drain.

• When you are done using the iPod, verify that:
  • The Radio application is off (tap the button).
  • Music is paused (tap the button in the iPod application or disconnect the earphones).
  • There is no active Pedometer session (tap the Stop button in the Fitness application).
• Dimming the screen is another way to extend battery life on iPod nano. Go to Settings > Brightness and restore the brightness to the default, or drag the slider to the left to lower the default screen brightness.
• Playing tracks with EQ requires your iPod processor to consume more energy than playing tracks without EQ, since the EQ information is not encoded in the song. To prolong battery life, turn EQ off if you don’t use it. Note, however, that if you’ve added EQ to tracks in iTunes, you’ll need to set EQ to “flat” to have the effect of “off,” because iPod keeps your iTunes settings intact.
• Try restoring iPod nano (6th generation) by connecting it to iTunes and clicking restore.
• Test your battery life by following the steps in this article.

Notes:

• Digital music playback uses battery power efficiently, allowing iPod nano to play music for up to 24 hours. Other features, such as FM radio, consume more power.
• You cannot charge iPod nano (6th generation) with a FireWire power adapter or FireWire-based car charger.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3474

http://www.apple.com/support/ipod/five_rs/nano5gen/#

http://www.apple.com/support/ipodnano/

If your battey is fully charged the battery symbol on the ipod screen will change. I don't think podcasts have much effect on the battery life as videos. If you chanrge it frequently then the battery might die out quickly due to the limited no; of charges of the battery. If nothing works then you might consider changing the battery