Sten Vesterli's Blog

Making IT Live up to its Promise

Category: Spiritual Programmer

Track Your Sleep

Spiritual Programmer,

Do you track your sleep? New research from the UK has added dementia to the long list of diseases and health problems associated with too little sleep. After controlling for many other factors, they found that 50-year-olds who slept six hours or less per night had a 22% increased risk of developing dementia. For 60-year-olds, the risk went up by 37%.

Keep track of your sleep for a few weeks to get an idea of whether you are sleeping enough. The Apple Watch and many other smart watches will register your sleep. You can also get a sensor to place under your mattress or even a Google Nest with radar to track your movement during the night. But even without a device, you can simply write down when you started your evening wind-down, when you went to bed and when you got up. Spending some time winding down (without devices or TV) and spending enough time in bed is the first step towards better sleep.

If you don’t get enough sleep, it is very hard to improve your life.

Create Your Sound

Spiritual Programmer,

When you work from home, you can create your own sound. You are free from the hellish soundscape of the open-plan office, so you don’t have to wear your noise-cancelling headphones. Since you probably don’t live in the countryside where you only heard birdsong and the buzzing of bees, you will have to create your own sound landscape.

You might have traffic noise, neighbors, barking dogs, and maybe even our partner speaking too loudly on a Zoom call. The antidote to this is to actively add sounds that mask out the annoying sounds. Consider a small indoor fountain to create the soothing sound of running water. You can get a white noise machine to create a neutral background that masks other noises. Or you can play instrumental music at low volume through your computer speakers or a separate speaker connected to your phone.

Sound affects your mood and your productivity. When working from home, you gain the ability to create your own sound.

Getting Smarter

Spiritual Programmer

Did you get smarter or dumber this week? The brain needs exercise just like muscles do. The physiology is completely different, but research shows that we can add more brain cells by using our brains just like we can add more muscle mass by using our muscles.

Because it takes so much energy to run a human brain, the body is always looking for energy-saving shortcuts. If you allow routines to run your life, the brain saves energy – and becomes dumber. Keep your brain fit by giving it new challenges. You don’t have to learn LISP or to play the piano, but you should always be working on something new to keep your brain interested. What new skill or challenge will you give your brain to work on this weekend?

What is Your Passion?

Spiritual Programmer

Your job in IT might not be inspiring great passion. But you need something in your life to be passionate about. People with a passion have a reason to get out of bed each morning. Their passion helps them power through adversity, and people with a passion live longer and happier lives.

Dylan Nardini just won Scottish Landscape Photographer of the year. He is not a professional photographer. He has driven a freight train for 28 years, and came to appreciate the wonderful landscape he was driving through. He picked up a camera, and landscape photography became his passion.

As an IT professional, you could contribute to open source projects. Or you could help a local non-profit organization or sports club with their homepage. Or you could volunteer to help people with few computer skills. If you don’t have anything you are passionate about, try some different things until you find your passion.

Dylan Nardini wins the Scottish Landscape Photographer of the Year

Bad Face Recognition

Spiritual Programmer, ,

In the U.S., police have started rounding up suspects based on defective image recognition from grainy surveillance video. Image recognition is known to work poorly on black faces, probably because they were mainly trained on images of white people.

When we roll out new technology, we of carefully explain to the users where and how it can be used. But if we can reasonably expect our users to ignore our admonitions, maybe we shouldn’t sell it at all.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/13/22382398/robert-williams-detroit-police-department-aclu-lawsuit-facial-recognition-wrongful-arrest

Speak Nicely to Yourself

Spiritual Programmer

Notice how you talk about yourself. It affects your self-image. It can be hard to do while speaking, but lockdown has presented us with an endless succession of Zoom calls to work with. If the meeting is not being recorded, ask if it is OK for you to record it. Zoom now also has an automatic transcription feature that turns the audio into text.

Once you have the recording or text, look at the parts where you are speaking. Notice the words you are using about yourself, your team, and your projects. If you are using neutral or negative words where a positive word would have been reasonable, try saying the sentence to yourself with the improved word. For example, don’t say your team is “doing okay” if you are actually “doing well” or even “doing great.”

Using more positive words will give you increased energy and happiness. Try it.

Thank Someone

Spiritual Programmer

Remember to thank other people. It’s easier to thank a colleague when you meet him or her in the office than thanking them via Zoom. That’s why most people are not expressing gratitude during lockdown like they used to.

Telling someone else that you are thankful for their contribution will improve their day. It will improve your day, too, and it costs you nothing. Science also shows that expressing gratitude reduces stress hormones and has a host of other health benefits.

Make a note to yourself to thank someone for something this week. Putting a “Thank you” post-it note on your computer will remind you. And just watching the note will lift your own mood.

Plan Your Travel

Spiritual Programmer, ,

Start planning your next trip. The antidote to lockdown cabin fever is to imagine a trip somewhere. You’ll be able to travel again this year, even if you probably won’t have the whole world available. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that you spend time planning your trip.

Choose a destination and start researching. Since we’re only imagining at this time, you are fortunately free to skip the frustrating part where you search for cheap airline tickets. But find a hotel or Airbnb for your imaginary trip, and find out what you want to see and do.

Imagining a better future where you can travel again will lift your spirit. And once you’ve made the plans, your trip is more likely to actually happen.

Look at the Stars

Spiritual Programmer

Get away from your screens and look at the night sky. It’s International Dark Sky Week this week. Get out of the city and away from the lights to somewhere you can see the stars. Looking up at the sky will put your worries in perspective. You can check out the official International Dark Sky Places directory here https://www.darksky.org/our-work/conservation/idsp/finder/. If there is no place hear you, look at the light pollution map (https://www.lightpollutionmap.info) and find the least light-polluted place near you.

Spring Cleaning

Spiritual Programmer

Did you do any spring cleaning? Spring is a good time to start new things, and that’s why we have a phrase for cleaning up this season.

Your physical environment affects you, and clutter around you makes it much harder for you to get started on anything new. Try removing all the excess stuff from one room, or just a corner of a room. Sit in the cleared space and feel the difference.

To make a change in your life, enlist your physical environment to help you. If you don’t change your environment, it is much harder to make any other change stick. Do a little spring cleaning and improve your life.