Welcome to the last episode of Series 3! I really hope you have enjoyed the series and it’s given you some pause for thoughts. Don’t forget to rate and review the show on iTunes to help other people find me.

 

Priya Parker is a conflict resolution strategist, based in the States and the author of a 2018 book, The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters. I’ve wanted to speak to her since I read her book in 2019 , because so many of us - myself included! - struggle to maintain our social lives. What to say yes to, what to say no to, what to seek out and what to avoid. 

 

Priya talks about gatherings big and small in a way that she calls “small p political” - because it is deeply political, she says, to decide what we celebrate, elevate and value through who, why and when we come together. I think Priya offers a really unique perspective on what gathering actually means. I hope you enjoy it - and thanks for joining me, for series 3!

 

remote-work-covid.html">How should we meet? And who decides? by Priya Parker for The New York Times

 

The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker 

 

When do we actually need to meet in person? By Rae Ringel for The Harvard Business Review 

 

Hosted & Exec Produced by Pandora Sykes

Production by Joel Grove

Can the way you think about your body, change the way it works? Can a positive outcome about ageing, actually cause you to live longer?

 

I’ve been curious about the mind-body axis for a while, and then I read The Expectation Effect by the award-winning science journalist and author, David Robson about how our expectations can shape our experience - and I was fascinated.

 

Using dozens of jaw-dropping studies throughout history, David explores how thinking a certain way about something, can change the way your body responds. Now, you cannot think yourself fitter, happier, richer. This is not The Secret. But you can also harness the power of your brain’s predictive machine, to live a healthier, longer, life.

 

David and I discuss the power of ‘reframing’, the effect of placebos and nocebos and the incredible impact of self-affirmation in young people,  and how it can shape their entire future. I hope this episode gives you some tools to take away.

 

The Expectation Effect by David Robson is out now

 

Hosted & Exec Produced by Pandora Sykes

Production by Joel Grove

Did you find yourself scrambling for words, losing your keys, forgetting basically everything, when you had a baby? Perhaps you witnessed it in your best friend, your sibling, your partner. The jokes about how women are lobotomised by motherhood are damaging and misogynistic - the term ‘baby brain’ used to keep women in their place - but how was i to reconcile that knowledge with a brain that felt like it had turned to cheese?

 

Which is why I was so excited to speak to science writer, Chelsea Conaboy. With her new book, Mother Brain - and a searing recent New york times op-ed “Why maternal instinct was a myth created by men” - Chelsea uses science to myth bust so many idea we have around biology, birth and the brain.

 

We discuss why the idea of “maternal instinct” is unhelpful to new mothers AND fathers, why “the golden hour” is not the only chance you have to bond with your baby, why oxytocin aka “the love hormone” is not just released by birth and breast-feeding and - this is a big one - why the fact that a birthing parent’s brain shrinks after birth is not a negative thing, but a sharpening of the synapses -- AND it happens in male primary carers, too. Chelsea doesn’t deny that the brain changes through giving birth. But the physiological changes are not relegated to the biological parent, she argues: they exist in every primary carer.

 

I found Chelsea’s research as fascinating as I did reassuring - and I really hope this episode helps any new parents, or anyone supporting new parents - and may help guide us towards a more equitable vision of what parenthood looks like. 

 

instinct-myth.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/26/opinion/sunday/maternal-instinct-myth.html Buy Chelsea’s new book, Mother Brain, here: https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Chelsea-Conaboy/Mother-Brain--Separating-Myth-from-Biology---the-Science-/26445858

Tired all the time? Worried you’re not getting the fabled ‘8 hours’ ? You’re not alone: we’ve become a nation of orthosomniacs. But panic not, because sleep scientist Russell Foster is here to help. 

 

The University of Oxford neuroscientist and the author of a new book, Life Time, is a world leading expert on circadian rhythms, also known as: the body clock. And guess what? The whole 8 hours a night is…. A myth.

 

We discuss the difference between sleepiness and fatigue; why broken sleep is not a bad thing but a natural occurrence; and why we are facing a public health crisis when it comes to looking after our night-shift workers. We also discuss what works and what doesn’t work: such as sleep tracking apps, sleeping pills, CBD drops and more - and why trying to become an early bird, when you’re a night owl is so damn hard. (Blame your parents.) 

 

Life Time: The New Science of the Body Clock, and How It Can Revolutionize Your Sleep and Health by Russell Foster

cbd-sleep-drops.html?utm_source=Influencer&utm_%20medium=podcast&utm_campaign=pandora">Get 20% off OTO sleep drops with the code pandora20 

 

Hosted & Exec Produced by Pandora Sykes

Production by Joel Grove

I’ve been wanting to do an episode on the many myths of fast fashion since I wrote an essay titled Get The Look, for my 2020 essay collection (which this podcast series first spun off from). And Venetia La Manna, a presenter and podcaster campaigning against fast fashion and advocating for more mindful consumption, is the ideal guest to explore this issue with. She regularly organises protests against fast fashion brands and her Instagram account is a vital trove of statistics about what really lies behind that “sustainable” clothing tag.

Venetia and I discuss overproduction, why luxury is as bad as the high street at underpaying their workers, the stigma of second hand (and how we can make it more inclusive) and why this isn’t an individual issue, but a corporate one. We also discuss the role of social media and influencer culture in maintaining fast fashion’s stronghold. 

Resources:  @theorispresent Lauren Bravo on Sentimental Garbage

Second hand & clothes swaps: Vinted ThreadUp Nuw  Depop eBay Imparfaite Paris Vestiaire Rococo Paris  The Real Real

 

cbd-sleep-drops.html?utm_source=Influencer&utm_%20medium=podcast&utm_campaign=pandora">Get 20% off OTO sleep drops with the code pandora20 

 

Hosted & Exec Produced by Pandora Sykes

Production by Joel Grove

What do you know about knife crime? It’s something that happens in gangs and on the streets. It’s something you’ve never had to worry about. Right?

 

Gary Younge is an author, broadcaster and a professor of sociology at the university of Manchester. Formerly an editor at large of the guardian newspaper, he has written 5 books including Another Day In The Death of America, which chronicled the lives of ten children and adolescents who were shot dead on one day in November 2013.

 

I’ve wanted to talk to Gary since his award winning investigation for the Guardian in 2018, Beyond The Blade, where he took a similar approach to another day in the death of america: except he took a year, not a day, and he told the stories of the 39 children and adolescents who had been stabbed to death, in 2017. Gary has lived in both America - where he wrote extensively about gun culture - and now, back in the UK, where he has written extensively about knife crime, and I don’t think there’s anyone who descontructs the myths around social violence, like Gary.

 

We discuss why knife crime is a public health issue, why the term ‘knife crime’ itself is a social construct lacking in context, the ramifications of shutting down shared, free spaces for adolescents and how we won’t ever get on top of it until we understand that knife crime is about poverty, not race.

 

Follow @garyyounge on Twitter

Read Beyond The Blade

Buy Another Day In The Death of America

 

Hosted & Exec Produced by Pandora Sykes

Production by Joel Grove

cbd-sleep-drops.html?utm_source=Influencer&utm_%20medium=podcast&utm_campaign=pandora">Get 20% off OTO sleep drops with the code pandora20 

Professor Pragya Agarwal is a data and behavioural scientist, a visiting professor of social inequities and injustice at Loughborough University and the founder of a research think tank, The 50% Project. She is also the author of five books, most recently Hysterical: Exploding The Myth of Gendered Emotions. 

 

In this episode, we talk about whether women really do cry more; the myth of the hysterical woman; how emotional expression varies over cultures and societies; and why we need to talk more about the biases in science.

 

Buy Hysterical: Exploding The Myth of Gendered Emotions

Follow Pragya on Twitter @DrPragyaAgarwal

 

Hosted & Exec Produced by Pandora Sykes

Production by Joel Grove

There are 50million people living with dementia worldwide. By 2050, it’s likely to rise to 152 million. But how much do you know about dementia? When it’s a disease so rapidly on the rise, why aren’t we talking more about it?

 

Wendy Mitchell is a former NHS worker who was diagnosed with young-onset dementia at the age of 58. She’s written two books: Somebody I Used To Know and What I Wish People Knew About Dementia

 

We talk about why dementia is so much more than memory loss; how the arts often falls back on stereotypes when featuring characters with dementia; and how Wendy thinks a diagnosis of dementia could be better broken by doctors - it’s not the end of life, she says, it’s the beginning of a different one.

 

Buy What I Wish People Knew About Dementia, by Wendy Mitchell

Follow Wendy on Twitter @WendyPMitchell 

 

Hosted & Exec Produced by Pandora Sykes

Production by Joel Grove

 

Jessica DeFino is not your regular beauty journalist. After finding her pieces were regularly rejected from newspapers and magazines for being too incendiary, or dissing beauty brands who advertised, she founded her newsletter, The Unpublishable, where, in her own words she “dismantles beauty standards, debunks marketing myths and explores how beauty culture impacts people”. It now has 40,000 readers. 

The Huffington Post once described her as “giving the middle finger to the entire beauty industry”. 

 

Jess and I discuss why clear skin isn’t a health objective but an aesthetic one, the evolution of a tan, the explosion of celebrity makeup and skincare lines and why we’re at a tipping point in beauty.

Subscribe to The Unpublishable

Follow Jess on Twitter and IG @jessicadefino_

 

Hosted & Exec Produced by Pandora Sykes

Production by Joel Grove

I'm so pleased to bring you this s2 bonus episode sponsored by Sage Appliances, with Cariad Lloyd, which we recorded in front of a live audience a month ago. Cariad is a comedian and writer and the creator of the cult podcast, Griefcast, where she interviews famous people (usually comedians) like Robert Webb, David Baddiel and Sara Pascoe about the human experience of death and grief, and which has won multiple British Podcast Awards.    I'm really interested in grief: why we fear it (especially other people's), why we expect grief to look a certain way, the lack of nuance in our understanding of grief. What I love about Griefcast is the way it democratises grief: there is no one way to grieve. Grief, as Cariad digs into, is not just very sad, it is funny, absurd, weird and life-expanding.   You can listen to a new series of Griefcast now, on all good pod platforms and find Griefcast on Twitter @thegriefcast. Here are some helpful resources from Cariad: The Grief Network Let's Talk About Loss charity Dead Parent Club podcast The New Normal charity Bereavement Room podcast   And some books I recommend: Grief Works by Julia Samuel, Once More We Saw Stars by Jayson Greene, It's Your Loss by Robyn Donaldson and Emma Hopkinson, Languages of Loss by Sasha Bates, Sunset by Jessie Cave and The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.