Doing It Right with Pandora Sykes

So many women experience a postpartum mental disorder after having a baby. For me, it was postnatal depression. For Catherine Cho, it was postpartum psychosis. 

You might not have thought about postpartum psychosis before. Certainly, I had no idea before I read Catherine’s memoir, that 1-2 in every 1000 women will be affected by it. So why isn’t it being talked about more? Or even, at all?

In this episode, Catherine explains how she came to be sectioned on a psychiatric ward, how it impacted her relationship with her baby son and the rest of her family, the depression which followed her psychosis, and how she navigated second time motherhood.

I know this episode might feel scary to some of you. But I believe that forewarned is forearmed. That knowing about these things can better protect us and those around us. And that politically, we should be talking more about matrescence - thought to be as big a cognitive change as puberty! - and how to improve maternal mental health.

If you or someone you know is struggling, please call your GP or the NHS helpline, on 111. If it is an emergency, please call 999. For more information, visit app-network.org.

Inferno: A Memoir of Motherhood and Madness by Catherine Cho

You can read an excerpt of Catherine’s book, here.

Get in touch at [email protected]

Presented by Pandora Sykes

Sound by Kelsey Bennett

Co-production by Pandora Sykes and Kelsey Bennett

I’m really interested in talking about the gnarly parts of the beauty industry - where things like tanning and hair removal actually come from. In the last series, Jessica DeFino debunked many myths about make-up and skincare. This season, I talk to journalist, author and broadcaster Afua Hirsch about beauty’s colonialist ideals and how she sought to break up with them.

Afua talks about reconnecting with her ancestral heritage through beauty ritual, why rest is resistance, how tattooing can be a sacred act, why puberty should be celebrated, and how globalisation and the borderless world has left us yearning for community and ritual. 

As you’ll glean from our sprawling conversation, ‘beauty’ - and by that I don’t mean make-up, but the social, political and cultural ideals around women’s bodies - is the portal to the way we live. I found this conversation so galvanizing (I am now on the path to getting “spiritually ripped”) and I really hope you do too.

Decolonising My Body: a radical exploration of rituals and beauty by Afua Hirsch

Get in touch at [email protected]

Presented by Pandora Sykes

Sound by Kelsey Bennett

Co-production by Pandora Sykes and Kelsey Bennett

What does the term ‘sociopath’ mean to you? Serial killer? Social outcast? Or wait - is that a psychopath? 

Patric first told her story in a column for the cult Modern Love series, titled ‘He Married a Sociopath: Me’. After the piece received an enormous response, Patric wrote a probing memoir about a life spent searching for answers: Why didn’t she feel guilt or shame like other people? Why did she have this overwhelming feeling of apathy? And how could she escape the strange pressure she felt, without resorting to violence?

In this episode, Patric, a qualified psychotherapist, debunks the myths around sociopathy, sharing some of the cons, but also the pros. Above all, she wants us to see that sociopathy is a part of neurodiversity - and not a mere personality type. 

[NB: ‘sociopath’ is not a recognised psychiatric term in the UK - it comes under ‘antisocial personality disorder’. But Patric thinks the two are different and so I defer to her experience/ language.]

Sociopath: A Memoir by Patric Gagne

The Perks of Being a Sociopath by Patric Gagne for TIME magazine

He Married A Sociopath: Me by Patric Gagne for The New York Times’ Modern Love column

Get in touch at [email protected]

Presented by Pandora Sykes

Sound by Kelsey Bennett

Co-production by Pandora Sykes and Kelsey Bennett

The homogenisation of popular culture is something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. In my 2020 book, How Do We Know We’re Doing It Right? (which spawned this very podcast), I wrote an essay called Get The Look - inspired by a wildly successful Zara polkadot dress - about how internet culture is encouraging young women to dress as facsimiles of one other.

So I was really excited to talk to Kyle Chayka, a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of a book Filterworld, about how technology - and more specifically, the algorithm - has come to shape what we watch, listen to, eat, dress and even how we travel.

In this episode, we discuss the paradox of choice, decision fatigue, surveillance capitalism, dumb phones and how to break free of ‘the algo’ in order to re-learn what you actually like.

Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture by Kyle Chayka

Read Kyle’s writing on tech and social media for The New Yorker here.

Get in touch at [email protected]

Presented by Pandora Sykes

Sound by Kelsey Bennett

Co-production by Pandora Sykes and Kelsey Bennett

Feeling demotivated? Aimless? Without meaning, or purpose? According to sociologist and psychologist Corey Keyes, you could be languishing.

In this episode, I talk to the renowned pioneer of mental wellbeing about his theories of languishing and flourishing, the subject of a thought-provoking new book. Corey explains why so many of us are languishing, how it’s different from burnout and depression, and the habits (such as ‘passive entertainment’) which can keep you stuck in the rut. 

Corey also explores his opposing theory of flourishing, which is not just about “feeling good” but “functioning well’ - and how seeking it saved his life. So what does it mean to flourish? And how can we achieve it?

Languishing: How To Feel Alive Again in a World That Wears Us Down by Corey Keyes

Adam Grant’s piece for The New York Times on languishing

Corey’s interview with The Guardian

Get in touch at [email protected]

Presented by Pandora Sykes

Sound by Kelsey Bennett

Co-production by Pandora Sykes and Kelsey Bennett

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!

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. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/26/opinion/sunday/maternal-instinct-myth.html

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

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: 

Second hand & clothes swaps:

Get 20% off OTO sleep drops with the code pandora20 

Hosted & Exec Produced by Pandora Sykes

Production by Joel Grove