Tag: podcasts

Flight Podcasts [en]

On my flight back home, I listened to a certain number of podcasts. I had some fitful sleep too, but not enough (overnight flight).

After finishing the episode of Heavyweight I was listening to, I immediately went for part 2 of the Search Engine piece on ADHD medication. (I talk about part 1 in a previous post.) As promised, and expected, the story it told was much closer to mine: a woman who discovers methylphenidate in her mid-thirties, which is life-changing for her – and she wonders why it took her so long.

Her story and mine are at the same time very different and very similar. Very different: she started really struggling with reading in childhood after surgery to remove a brain tumour when she was eight. I had none of that. I did, however, have heart surgery when I was six. And what she describes about how her operation is talked about (or not talked about) in her family feels very familiar. What she says about getting the implicit message, again and again, that “everything is ok”, “it’s normal”, “nothing is wrong”.

She was very objectively struggling as a child, and I think I can honestly say I was not. Academically, that is. Socially was another matter. Being good at school ended up defining me. At one point in the podcast, PJ and his guest talk about the two different paths they ended up going down, regarding their difficulties in school: “I’m not even going to try” and “I’ll manage, whatever the cost”. I think I spent a lot of my life “managing” without even realising there was a cost. It was “normal”, right. I do remember one episode, though, where I was getting a bad evaluation (it had to do with presenting science reports). I made some effort at improvement, and still got the same bad evaluation. My reaction was clearly “forget about this”. Thankfully my parents intervened, we talked things through with the teacher and started over with more support for me and an assurance that my efforts would be rewarded.

This reminds me of the Hidden Brain episode on perfectionism I listened to a few weeks back. It was a revelation to me. I’ve always seen myself as “over perfectionism”. I understood, as a teenager, that wanted to do things “too well” was keeping me from doing them. So I made a deal with myself that it was better to “just do, even not well” than “not do, perfectly”. And generally, what I do still is viewed as at least “very good”. I thought I had cracked perfectionism. For me, perfectionists are people who spend hours doing and redoing their tasks until they are perfect. People who are hard workers.

I’m none of that. I’m a first draft person. Quickly throw something together and be done with it. One might even say, on my internal compas, minimalistic. You know, Pareto’s Law – I do the 20%.

But listening to the podcast, I was shocked to hear that my strategy was in fact another kind of perfectionism. The drive behind is the same. The bar I set for myself is still impossibly high. Only, I set myself up to fail reaching it, from the start. If I don’t really try, then it makes sense I won’t reach it, right? If I didn’t really give it my all, then it hurts less when it’s not as good as it could.

Looks like I’ve been fooling myself all these years, and I am indeed a perfectionist, despite my frantic attempts not to. I have to say this realisation upset me – not because I was wrong, but because it forced me to realise that there is where lies the source of the excruciating pressure I put on myself.

Back to the Search Engine episode: the first part had bothered me also by the use of “amphetamine” (and “speed”) to cover ADHD medication. Methylphenidate is not amphetamine, and at least in Switzerland, amphetamine is not prescribed unless there fails to be a result with methylphenidate. I thought the tone was a bit dramatising of the drug (which is understandable given PJ’s personal history). So, I’m really glad this second part showed another type of ADHD story. In a way, it’s all very well to want to throw away the meds when you’ve lived your whole life on them, but that’s also maybe forgetting that they helped you bring you where you are. I’m surrounded by so many people who have gone through life with no diagnosis and no meds (like me), only to come crashing down somewhere in their forties or fifties. And at least in Switzerland, getting an ADHD diagnosis as an adult is hard, so imagine try to get that sorted out when you’re reached a state where you’re barely functioning anymore.

Unlike PJs guest, I take my medication even on my days off, because what I struggle with (without) is simply managing daily tasks, emotions, life in general. It’s not “just” for reading or concentrating. It’s to reign in some of my hyperactivity so that I can actually get somewhere, and not feel too shitty while I’m getting there.

So, definitely an episode to listen to, probably before the first part, actually.

After that I continued with Radiolab’s Poison Control. A rerun that I hadn’t heard the first time around (I think), and as always, very interesting. I’m not sure it’s the kind of episode that’s supposed to make you cry, however – the fact I was in tears listening to it probably says more about my mental state on that plane in the middle of the night than about the podcast itself. Do listen.

One of my very favorite podcasts is Meta de Choc, a French podcast on “why we believe what we believe”. It often covers topics linked to New Age spirituality – not as innocuous as you may think. The host, Elisabeth Feytit, does an extraordinary job of explaining very clearly what is at stake, why these beliefs are problematic, and where they stem from. This episode was on modern day witches (think wicca) and the sacred feminine. If you understand French, I definitely encourage you to listen. It’s possible that like me, you’ll feel a mixture of gratitude (and relief) that somebody is putting in words your concerns, and discouragement at how difficult/impossible it is to talk somebody out of this type of belief. As somebody said, you can’t reason somebody out of the position they didn’t reason themselves into in the first place.

To continue losing hope in humanity (what was I thinking?) I followed with the first three episodes of The Kids of Rutherford County. Seriously, in what dystopian world is it even imaginable to consider throwing elementary school age kids into jail (handcuffs, jumpsuit and all – as young as 8 years old) for a schoolyard fight scene? I listened at those three episodes in shock and disbelief. What is WRONG with people? I just don’t have the words (and you know me, usually I have more than enough words). It boggles the mind.

For good measure, I did include two Heavyweight episodes (Nick & The Elliotts) in my listening queue. That’s probably what saved my remaining sanity.

Aside from podcast recommendations: I made it home, tired (couldn’t stay awake in the train from Geneva, was afraid of missing my stop) and drained, but happy to see Oscar, who was visibly happy to see me too. It’s rainy and foggy and windy and stormy and cold here. I’m glad I planned on having a day off to settle before going back to work on Tuesday. I’ll go back to trying to fix my Lightroom sync problems (very annoying), eat something, watch a series or two and have an early night (easy with the jetlag). Bright side of things: I should be up nice and early tomorrow morning!

Looking at 2022 [en]

[fr] Un récapitulatif de mon année 2022

I haven’t written in ages (a familiar refrain) and figured I would use the pretext of 2022 coming to a close to jot a few things down. No particular order, just follow my brain.

I’m still listening to a lot of podcasts. Here are some: Meta de choc, On The Media, This American Life, Vethologie, Radiolab, Conspirituality, Atlas Obscura, The Moth, Hidden Brain, The Ezra Klein Show, NPR Politics, Short Wave, Science Vs, The Pulse, TWiV, Planet Money, Vacarme, Fresh Air, 99 Percent Invisible, The Daily (NYT), Brian Lehrer, Consider This, Hacking Humans, Trade Offs, Throughline, My Cat’s Tale, Gates Investigates… and Sleep With Me when I can’t sleep. Just realised writing this list that I’ve dropped a lot of Gimlet shows now they’ve gone Spotify-only (I use overcast to listen to my podcasts). In the “serialised investigations” department, The Trojan Horse Affair (Serial), Will Be Wild (Trump, Inc) and The Disappearance of Nuseiba Hasan (Conviction season 3).

After finishing Star Trek The Next Generation, I’m deep in Deep Space Nine, which is absolutely wonderful. I’ve also picked up (intermittently) the last books of the Foreigner series, that I’ve been reading for years now and highly recommend.

This has been a year of managing to do judo reasonably regularly (of course, still also regularly absent because of injuries), singing, hiking. Not much sailing and just a little skiing, but I hope to do more next year. I tried stand-up paddling and to my surprise, really enjoyed it and am planning on taking it up this spring. Along with snow-shoeing this winter. I figure that with 50 on the horizon, I should make sure I also have physical activities available that are a little less “rough” than judo and skiing.

The big event of the year has been starting a new job. It’s with the national train company, in the field of energy maintenance, near Bern. Quite a change from what has been my professional life until now, in a way (and I’m glad about it), but also a perfect continuation for my interest in management, strategy, and basically, how a business runs. I’m learning a lot and improving my German – at the same time, discovering what it is to function in an environment where I’m linguistically challenged, not something I’m used to. I’m really enjoying the environment I’m in and super happy about my new position.

2022 is the first complete year I’ve been through since my ADHD diagnosis and treatment (end 2021). And I can really say that it has changed my life. I finally feel alive and not surviving. I started being able to accomplish things I wanted to again. I stopped feeling overwhelmed all the time. My life felt like it was like it was supposed to be, instead of feeling like there was something horribly wrong with me all the time. Despite the stress of not having a job during the first part of the year, I was able to enjoy my life and learn more and more about how I function and how to manage myself. I already had quite a lot figured out (or I wouldn’t have made it this far), but the tweaks I started putting in place really made a difference. Long-term personal projects didn’t seem like something out of reach anymore. I even felt up to inviting my family over for Christmas.

Starting my new job has of course been a big change in the way I organise my life, and I do feel I have temporarily backtracked in some of my progress (personal admin and projects, social life). But it’s pretty normal and I’m not too worried that I’ll catch up again with myself over the coming year.

During 2022 I also lost 10kg – on purpose, of course. I’d been slowly putting on weight over the years, and it sped up these last couple of years. Coming close to 90kg on the scale got me serious about doing something. My ADHD treatment also helped, certainly (better impulse control). I was followed by a nutritionist who really helped me tweak my food habits for better balance and more reasonable portions. I have never been on a diet in my entire life and didn’t intend to – I just knew I was eating “too much” and probably not making the best decisions regarding what to eat, and when (I never looked at the calorie count on food, so for example had no idea cheese was so… energy-dense). Overall the effort required was minimal, I feel better in my body (mobility) and fit in my large collection of 14L trousers again.

I’m still active managing the Feline Diabetes community I founded nearly 5 years ago on Facebook. 2022 is clearly the year the community for veterinarians took off (1.2k members and counting). I was even invited to give a talk on the occasion of the annual veterinary congress in France. An accomplishment I’m pretty proud of!

I still have my coworking space eclau, but have really had trouble getting it going again after the pandemic. I’ve also kept a small independent side-business in consulting, but I’m keeping it very minimal right now as I want to focus my energy on my new job and my personal activities and projects first and foremost. I continued my training in the Palo Alto brief therapy approach, and that is also on the back burner until next summer, when I’ll be going to Paris for a course in hypnosis and brief therapy. I should have gone this year but I got covid just before I was supposed to leave.

Overall, 2022 was a really good year for me, and I can’t wait to see what 2023 has in store!

Some Podcasts to Listen to [en]

[fr] Des podcasts à écouter.

Here are some episodes I recommend you listen to. There’s more to say, about these, other stuff, and life in general, but it’ll have to do for today.

By the way: if you use the Apple Podcasts app, like me, you probably also cursed the dreadful last update. Amongst other things, there’s no way to see what episodes are in my “play next” queue. I had high hopes when I saw there was a “recently played” list, but at least for me, it’s polluted by dozens of episodes supposedly played “yesterday”, at the top of the list. Thankfully, further down, there are the latest podcasts I’ve actually listened to. Which is something I’ve always wanted to be able to see.

So, here we go. A first batch on sexism and harassment at the workplace (you didn’t think I’d spare you that, did you?). Listen, particularly if you’re a man. Or if you think all this #metoo stuff is way overblown.

Then, about animal rights activists’ craziness. Remember the photographer sued for the “monkey selfie”? Well, listen to all the work he put in before thinking he’s benefitting from “animal labour”. (I’m leaving aside the discussion on the deeply flawed thinking – from a philosophical point of view – that underpins a lot of the antispeciesism animal rights ideology. Francophones might enjoy this piece by lawyer Maître Eolas on animals as subject vs. object of the law.)

99% Invisible is a podcast I didn’t think I’d like. But I do. It’s fascinating. Here’s a selection of stuff I’ve recently listened to, and that you should listen to too:

If you haven’t heard it yet and are up for a serial, you shouldn’t miss S-Town. And one of my favorite podcasts these days is Heavyweight — true stories, true people, going back to where things went wrong and trying to untangle things. Beautiful storytelling.

Happy listening!

Hello From Kolkata [en]

[fr] En Inde. Des trucs (très) en vrac. Un podcast en français dans les liens.

I’m in India. For a month.

I did it again: didn’t blog immediately about something I wanted to blog about (the rather frightful things I learned about the anti-GMO movement, if you want to know) because of the havoc it wreaked on my facebook wall when I started sharing what I was reading. And as I didn’t blog about that, I didn’t blog about the next thing. And the next.

Steph and Coco

And before I know it I’m leaving for India in two weeks, have students to teach and blogs to grade, and don’t know where to start to write a new blog post.

The weather in Kolkata is OK. The trip to come was exhausting: 20 hours for the flights, add on a bit before and after. I didn’t sleep on the Paris-Mumbai leg because it was “too early”, and spent my four hours of layover in Mumbai domestic airport in a right zombie state. Needless to say there is nowhere there to lie down or curl up, aside from the floor. I particularly appreciated having to go to the domestic airport for my Mumbai-Kolkata flight only to be ferried back to the international airport while boarding, because “Jet Airways flights all leave from the international airport”. But I laughed.

It was a pleasant trip overall. Nearly no queue at immigration. Pleasant interactions with people. And oh my, has Mumbai airport come a long way since my first arrival here over 16 years ago. It was… organized. I followed the signs, followed instructions, just went along with the flow. I’ve grown up too, I guess.

I slept over 12 hours last night. I can’t remember when I did that last. I walked less than 500 steps today, bed to couch and back. I’ve (re)connected with the family pets: Coco the African Grey Parrot, (ex-)Maus the chihuahua-papillon-jack-russel-staffie mix (I can never remember his new Indian name), and the remaining cat, which I’ve decided to call “Minette”, who “gave birth” to two empty amniotic sacs yesterday and is frantically meowing all over the place. Looking for non-existent kittens, or missing her brother, who escaped about a week ago? Hopefully she will calm down soon.

Maus and Minette

I plan to play about with Periscope while I’m here. Everyday life in India seems like a great opportunity to try out live interactive video. Do follow me if you don’t want to miss the fun.

Oh, and don’t panic about the whole “meat causes cancer” thing.

Some random things, listened to recently, and brought to the surface by conversations:

  • Making Sex Offenders Pay — And Pay And Pay And Pay (Freakonomics Radio)
  • Saïd, 10 ans après (Sur Les Docks) — an ex-con, 10 years after, and how hard reinsertion is, when you’re faced with the choice between sleeping outside, unable to get a job, and committing another offense so that you can go back to prison; extremely moving story
  • You Eat What You Are, Part I and Part II (Freakonomics Radio again)
  • When The Boats Arrive (Planet Money) — what happens to the economy when immigrants arrive? it grows, simply;  migrant workers need jobs, of course, but they also very quickly start spending, growing the economy and creating the need for more jobs; the number of available jobs at a given place is not a rigid fixed number

Yep, random, I warned you.

I can now do the Rubik’s cube and have installed Catan on my iDevices, if ever you want to play.

I’ve activated iCloud Photo Library even though I use Lightroom for my “serious” photos. Like the author of the article I just linked to, my iPhone almost never is connected to my Mac anymore. And the photos I need to illustrate blog posts are often photos I’ve just taken with my phone. I end up uploading them to Flickr through the app.

It seems the “photos ecosystem” is slowly getting there, but not quite yet. I’ve just spent a while hunting through my post archives, and I can’t believe I never wrote anything about using Google auto-backup for my photos. At some point I decided to go “all in”, subscribed to 1TB of Google storage, and uploaded my 10+ years of photos there. I loved how it intelligently organized my photos. Well, you know, all the stuff that Google Photos does.

Why am I using the past tense? Because of this: seems automatic upload of a whole bunch of RAW formats has quietly stopped. This is bad. Basically, this paid service is not doing what I chose it for anymore. I hope against reason this will be fixed, but I’m afraid I might be disappointed.

One thing I was not wild about with Google Photos was the inability to spot and process duplicates. And duplication of photos when sharing.

Flickr now has automatic upload and organising. Do I want to try that? Although I dump a lot of stuff in Flickr, I’ve been slack about processing and uploading photos lately. I’m hesitant. Do I want to drown my current albums and photostream in everything I snap? Almost tempted.

I think that’s enough random for now. It’s 10.30 pm and I’m starving, off to the kitchen.

Podcasts I’m Listening To [en]

[fr] Les podcasts que j'écoute...

The list of podcasts I listen to has grown a lot during these last months. So much that I have trouble keeping up. Here they are, if you want to get infected too:

  • Mystery Show: solving mysteries, seriously. Like, detective stories without a crime.
  • On the Media: a meta-show about the media.
  • Savage Lovecast: your favorite gay sex-advice columnist
  • Freakonomics Radio: what can we learn about the world through data?
  • Invisibilia: about the hidden forces that shape our lives
  • Serial: true crime, eagerly awaiting season 2
  • Death, Sex & Money: the stuff we don’t normally talk about. Talked about here.
  • Planet Money: they manage to make money stuff understandable and interesting to me (quite a feat).
  • Love + Radio: love. Stories.
  • Radiolab: sciency, geeky, my first podcast love. About all sorts of interesting stuff, from big ideas like death and time to small things like buttons.
  • Reply All: a show about the internet and its hidden corners
  • Startup: raw behind the scenes stories of starting a business.
  • 99% Invisible: design. But you didn’t know design included all this stuff.
  • This American Life: stories. Real stories. Each week, a theme, and stories around it.
  • The Moth: live storytelling, on stage, of true stories. Be ready to laugh and cry, and be taken on the rollercoaster of emotions that is the human life.
  • Snap Judgment: more storytelling, slightly different atmosphere. It took me a few episodes to click, and now I love it.
  • Limetown: like a TV series. But audio, and in a podcast. Fiction.
  • TED Radio Hour: TED talks, radio-ified.
  • Note to Self: the human side of technology. How it’s changing our lives. How we can live with it without it completely taking over our lives.
  • Sur les Docks [fr]: newly discovered, because I’ve been looking for high-quality francophone podcasts. Takes you places.

Some others, that I have in my list but am not listening to (yet?):

Good luck… devil grin

Remettre mon cerveau dans le droit chemin [fr]

[en] About making small changes to get my brain back on track. Less frantic multitasking, more downtime, being aware of what I'm exercising my brain for. It seems to be working, I no longer fear I am suffering from early onset Alzheimer's or some kind of very premature dementia (I'm not kidding, I was really worried about this earlier this year). Most of the links in the article point to English sources.

En fait, bloguer c’est un peu comme faire la vaisselle. Ces jours mon évier est vide et propre quand je vais me coucher, parce que je fais la vaisselle à mesure. Hier soir, j’ai eu un coup de mou, je me suis dit “bah, je laisse” — puis je me suis reprise: si je laisse, demain matin, il va se passer quoi? C’est déjà assez dur comme ça, les matins, sans se retrouver devant la vaisselle de la veille au soir, même s’il n’y en a pas beaucoup. Parce qu’en effet, ce n’était pas grand-chose, ce qu’il y avait à laver.

Alors j’ai pris mon courage à deux mains et fait ma vaisselle.

Dans ma tête, l’évier est plein de vaisselle d’idées. Ça fait près de deux semaines que je n’ai pas blogué, parce que j’ai d’autres trucs à faire, ou que je suis fatiguée, ou pas là. Et quand je pourrais, je regarde la grande pille de vaisselle intellectuelle, et je n’ai pas le courage. Et voilà comment s’enclenche le cercle vicieux. C’en est au point où je ne prends même plus note des choses à mentionner dans mon prochain article, c’est vous dire.

Out of wifiland

Alors on va y aller à rebours. Aujourd’hui, sur Freakonomics Radio, j’écoute deux épisodes sur le sommeil. Il est bien, ce podcast. Récemment, j’ai aussi écouté un épisode fascinant sur l’efficacité de la thérapie cognitivo-comportementale (CBT en anglais) pour la réduction des comportements violents/criminels chez les adolescents, et un sur l’augmentation de la prise de risque en fonction des mesures de sécurité en place.

L’épisode sur le sommeil reparle, bien entendu, de la question des écrans avant de se coucher. Je suis coupable, très coupable. D’ailleurs j’ai du mal à me mettre au lit. J’ai lu une série d’articles là autour ces derniers temps, concernant les enfants: ça va des symptômes genre troubles d’attention aux couchers tardifs. Le premier article propose carrément dans certains cas de passer par un “jeûne électronique” de quelques semaines.

Ça m’interpelle, tout ça. Parce que du temps sur mon écran, j’en passe. Et depuis un an ou deux, je constate des choses qui m’inquiètent, au point que j’en ai parlé plusieurs fois au copines, à mon ostéo, et que j’ai été pas loin de carrément prendre rendez-vous avec mon médecin pour faire des tests.

J’ai la mémoire qui flanche. Je zappe des trucs. Je fais des erreurs, aussi. J’oublie des rendez-vous. Je suis distraite. Je suis stressée, même si j’ai du temps pour souffler. Vous voyez le genre. Quand on est du genre flippette comme moi, on se dit, purée, sénilité précoce, signes avant-coureurs d’Alzheimer, ou bien est-ce que l’âge, ça nous fout vraiment en l’air le cerveau aussi tôt? Je ne rigole pas, j’étais vraiment en train de me poser ces questions. Je me suis aussi demandé si c’était Ingress qui me pourrissait les neurones. Mais non, j’avais déjà remarqué des soucis avant que je commence à jouer.

C’est une remarque de mon père qui m’a décidée à prendre le taureau par les cornes. Enfin j’exagère, mais disons, à prendre sérieusement la piste “mes activités quotidiennes”. Je partageais mes inquiétudes avec lui, et en même temps qu’il me rassurait que 40 ans n’était pas l’âge auquel nos facultés intellectuelles plongeaient dans le gouffre, il me faisait tout de même remarquer que j’étais tout le temps en train de faire trente-six mille choses à la fois. D’après lui, pas besoin de chercher plus loin l’explication.

Viennent s’agréger à tout ça quelques épisodes de l’excellent podcast Note to Self, dont je parle déjà dans mon dernier article: tout d’abord, la campagne Bored and Brilliant, qui nous invite à nous reconnecter avec les vertus de l’ennui (je rigole pas, ennui source de créativité par exemple). Une série d’exercices (je n’ai pas tout fait) pour nous inviter à nous déconnecter un bout. Alors, je connais, parce que (mauvais réseau oblige) je suis beaucoup plus déconnectée au chalet, par exemple. Ou quand je suis sur le lac. Pas étonnant que j’en aie envie.

Ensuite, notre “bilinguisme de lecture” — la lecture hypertexte, qu’on pratique en ligne, où on scanne, saute d’un truc à l’autre, etc, et la lecture longue, celle des livres ou des longs articles, celle qu’on a apprise à l’école et durant nos études. Notre cerveau adore la lecture hypertexte et s’y adapte merveilleusement bien, au point qu’on se retrouve effectivement comme drogués au zapping, et à avoir de la difficulté à lire non-stop un roman. L’épisode me  plaît particulièrement car il insiste sur l’utilité de ces deux types de lecture. On doit maîtriser les deux. Une des personnes interviewées dans l’épisode explique qu’elle s’est forcée à réapprendre à lire longuement. Horrible au début, mais c’est revenu, deux semaines d’efforts si ma mémoire est bonne.

Ailleurs, mais alors je ne sais plus où, un autre épisode de podcast où quelqu’un disait qu’on prenait l’habitude de déléguer des tas de choses à nos téléphones et ordis. Une question? Hop, Google. Tous les rendez-vous dans l’agenda. Etc. C’est génial, et ça marche super bien. Tellement bien que notre cerveau, ce miracle de plasticité, s’y adapte magnifiquement, et deviendrait… paresseux. Comme le chat qui va miauler devant le frigo pour qu’on lui remplisse sa gamelle plutôt qu’aller chasser la souris: chemin le plus court et le moins énergétique pour arriver à la nourriture. (J’ai essayé mais je n’arrive plus à retrouver l’épisode, désolée.)

Tout ça fait gentiment rentrer l’idée chez moi que ce à quoi on occupe notre cerveau au quotidien forge ses compétences. C’est évident, me direz-vous. Comme pour le corps: si on court tous les jours, on va bien courir. Si on travaille sa force, on sera fort. Donc si on entraine notre cerveau à être en alerte et à sauter de A à B tout le temps, c’est assez logique qu’il devienne bon à ça, et pas forcément à rester concentré sur un truc. (Purée, écoutez-moi parler, on dirait les alarmistes genre “tout cet internet va nous moisir le cerveau et faire de nous des addicts” d’il y a dix ans.)

Donc, je suis en train de mettre en place des changements.

Moins de multitâches, déjà. Essayer d’être un peu plus monotâche dans ma façon de travailler et quand je suis derrière l’écran. J’ai souvent plusieurs conversations en parallèle, la chose principale que j’essaie de faire, la chose secondaire sur laquelle ça m’a envoyé (etc.), et Facebook/G+ que je “checke” un peu compulsivement. C’est pas joli, je sais. Il ne s’agit toutefois pas de tirer la prise, mais de revenir à quelque chose d’un peu plus raisonnable.

Idem en déplacement. Là, Ingress n’a pas aidé: avant, dans le bus ou quand je marchais, j’écoutais des podcasts ou je lisais. Maintenant, je joue durant mes déplacements, et entre deux portails, je chatte (souvent avec mes camarades de jeu). Et comme je suis “activement” sur le téléphone, je finis dans Facebook ou ailleurs.

Cette histoire de déplacements, c’est important, parce que les déplacements, c’est une sorte de “temps mort” (plus ou moins mort) que j’avais, et que j’ai “perdu”. Durant mon année sans chat, en 2011, je m’étais déjà posé la question des différents types de temps mort donc j’avais besoin. Et là, je réalise que j’en manque. Même sur les pistes de ski, cet hiver, je me retrouvais à chatter sur les télésièges (à ma décharge, une vilaine histoire de harcèlement est venue se coller là-dessus, ce qui n’as pas aidé — mais c’est derrière maintenant).

Alors, pour revenir au podcast sur le sommeil, une des expertes interviewées relève le challenge de ne pas toucher à ses écrans entre 21h et 7h du matin durant une semaine. Et elle rapporte que ça a eu un effet vraiment positif sur son sommeil. Je n’en suis pas là, mais j’ai commencé à mettre mon téléphone en mode avion quand “j’éteins”.

Inspirée par un article de James Clear sur les comportements par défaut qu’on définit à travers la construction de son environnement, j’avais d’ailleurs il y a quelque temps fait l’expérience de mettre mes écrans dans une autre pièce. Effectivement, quand on se réveille à 3h du matin et que le téléphone est allumé à côté du lit, on a toutes les chances de le regarder, mais s’il est éteint et dans une autre pièce… peu de chance.

Il faut que je pense à utiliser mon FitBit comme réveil plutôt que mon téléphone, mais pour le moment je ne peux pas lui “dire” de régler le réveil comme je le fais avec Siri (“réveille-moi à sept heures et demie”).

Un point d’interrogation qui me reste, c’est la lecture sur Kindle. Depuis un nième article lu sur ces histoires de lumière d’écran avant le sommeil (en passant, j’utilise f.lux depuis des années), j’ai commencé à laisser ma lampe de chevet allumée pendant que je lisais, alors qu’avant je lisais dans le noir, rétro-éclairage de la Kindle sur 6 ou 7, juste ce qu’il me fallait pour lire. Est-ce de la lumière blanche d’écran qui perturberait le sommeil? C’est une activité de lecture continue, et pas de “zapping”, mais c’est sur un “écran”.

Donc voilà. Des petits changements, certains aménagements presque cosmétiques, mais comme je le disais à mon ostéo l’autre jour, il me semble que je vois déjà une amélioration, par rapport à il y a quelques mois. Je fais des efforts, aussi: je ne suis pas complaisante avec mon cerveau qui “me lâche”. Quand un truc m’échappe, je me concentre pour le retrouver. Quand je dois me souvenir de quelque chose, je fais un effort pour l’enregistrer. Je tiens compte du fait que mon cerveau est devenu l’équivalent d’un corps sédentaire, et que je dois être à la fois exigeante et compréhensive avec.

Je vous laisse, j’ai un gros livre à lire…