This is Doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to KFI AM six forty, the
Doctor Wendy wallsh Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app KFI AM six forty.
You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Wall Show.
I'm a little damp, my hair's a little curly. I'm an out
in the rain and what rain it is? Okay? So if you're new
to my show, because you've been glued to KFI like most of Los Angeles
is today to get the latest news on what's happening in yet another atmospheric river
pouring down on the Southland. I want to let you know that you're in
very good hands. Not only do I have a PhD in clinical psychology,
I'm a psychology professor. I love to talk about mental health and the science
of love. But I have a long, deep background as a news reporter.
Maybe you remember me, remember k Coop? Then it became upn there
I was out covering riots, fires, floods and every minute of the O.
J. Simpson try So. Covering what's actually happening around the Southland is
not new to me. As I said to Tim Conway, earlier. I
still have my rain outfit that I used to travel with. Okay, So
during today's show, I am going to be taking your calls because I want
us to come together as a community so that we can share information about what's
happening around the Southland regarding this storm. I'm going to throw the number out
constantly. You call it when you need to. The numbers one eight hundred
five two zero one five three four. That's one eight hundred five two zero
one KFI. If you are in stranded in your car in heavy traffic,
if roadways are completely flooded out, if you've been evacuated, if you're worried
about a mud slide near your home. You know, back when I was
a news reporter, I remember my heart breaking turning up at some of these
homes on hillsides around California. And actually the most damaging tended to be ones
at the bottom of the hill where the hill came down from above. And
I saw entire first floors of homes just completely three feet a mud in them.
And we're praying this doesn't happen to anybody, But if this stuff is
going on in your life, then we want to hear from you. We
want to know where it's happening, because you are our eyes and ears.
Of course, we have great news reporters out there on the ground and great
first responders giving us lots of news for you, but if there's stuff that
you're hearing and seeing, we would like to know. You may be somebody
who has a flat roof in southern California. That would be me, And
so I tend to have a lot of anxiety in the rain. You know,
maybe it is from the lack of light, maybe it is a little
seasonaled effective disorder, But for me, it's that fear that there's going to
be a leak and you can't get a roofer to return your calls at all.
That's the deepest for me, because you're waiting and you're like, what
do you do? Like you climb up in there and put tarps down and
play I've done that. Okay, I've done that these atmospheric rivers. So
let's get to where we And also I want to talk about a few things
happening in the news during the show, So just to let you know it's
not only going to be about the rain. Are you aware that tomorrow morning
jury the jury is going to begin to deliberate in Michigan, the first historic
trial of a parent on trial for a mass shooting that their teenager committed.
I will have all the details of the Jennifer Crumbly trial and tomorrow her fate
will be decided. At least the beginnings of the deliberation will take place tomorrow.
Also, you can also call I mentioned you can call in. We'd
love to hear from you. That's one eight hundred five to zero one KFI.
You can also send a talk back through the iHeartRadio app. If you're
listening on the iHeartRadio app. If you do haven't downloaded it yet, where
are you? Come on catch up iHeartRadio app. You press the microphone button
on the top left hand corner and then you can send a thirty second message
about what's happening in your area. Producer Kayla's here. She can play it
on air so we can all learn. I also read Kayla that there are
a few thunderstorms happening, and that's just so rare. I mean, you're
from the northeast, right, Yeah, You're used to collapse of thunder with
lightning afterwards. I'm not used to rain without thunder and butting, and I
heard an earthquake happens, they too, like all the water somewhere. Conway
was talking about it, but I was running around, so I missed it.
But yeah, it's like another heart quake again. Yes, well,
we do know that there's a very high risk of flash flooding and this is
an atmospheric river. Now, to put it into perspective, in the entire
month of January, the amount of aculative rain that is average for the Southland
is three inches total for the entire month of January we are getting it is
estimated about an inch and a half per hour, So every two hours today
we're getting the entire month of January dumped on us. That's to understand how
much water is and so that you guys can understand. I mean, I
know this is basic stuff, but for those who might be new to California,
like Kayla, so when we have long dry spells and so much of
our history has had to do with of course drought, I want you to
imagine what your kitchen sponge looks like when it's sitting on the edge of the
sink for twenty four hours. It gets it shrinks, it gets hard,
it gets dry. Now you take that kitchen sponge and you pour it under
the water tap. What's the first thing that happens, do you know,
Kayla? It gets soft again? Yeah, but what happens before that?
Before we wed it? It's rock hard and crusty and gross. The water
rolls off first. Oh, I'd never noticed it, you ever. Oh,
take your hard sponge, put it underwater. The water rolls off first.
It doesn't absorb right away. Because it doesn't it's not porous enough.
So our land is not porous enough. This is why we have the flash
floods. This is why we have the mudslides right because it's not able to
grip. Later in the show, we're hoping to get a firefighter on to
talk about the thing that's always a quandary for me. I always have this
question. When it rains hard in a given season, does this increase the
risk of wildfires in the summer and fall. Hayla's running out because I know
she's calling that firefighter because I just reminded her. I watched her. She
just ran out of here because I gave her the name of a helicopter firefighter.
And here's the theory. And I don't know if it's true. Here's
the theory that when you have heavy rains in the winter, in the spring
and fall, a lot of grasses grow. Right. It's not like they're
just watering the roots of the big, heavy trees that are stabilizing. You
get all these new seeds that blow up, and a lot of them are
these invasive species. I don't know if you go hiking in the spring in
somewhere around here when we have those super tall grasses that you're walking through.
I'm laughing because Julio and I did it one time in weather like that,
those tall grasses that go right up to your armpits, but the trail is
kind of there and you can just move on through. And at one point
we were climbing up this hill and I saw something slither to my right,
and I'm like, Julio, I think that was a rattlesnake. He goes,
it's fine, it's fine, it's gonna be fine. We continue up
a little bit and then I feel a slither to my left. I'm like,
Julio, that's I'm sure that was another rattlesnake. He goes, it's
fine, it's fine, And then he gets ahead of me and within thirty
seconds, he turns around. He's storming back towards me. What are you
doing? He goes, it's a colony. We're out of here. We're
not doing this hike today. So yes, tall grasses, that's also where
the rattlers love to live. So I'm curious if anybody has information, call
and give us a top back about whether these rings mean it increased the risk
of wildfires because it creates more kindling. And remember you send that talk back
by downloading the iHeartRadio app. Maybe you got it already. You press a
microphone button on the top left corner and then you can record a thirty second
message. So when we come back, I do want to get into our
mental health, but also as it pertains to our weather. You know,
I mentioned earlier on Conway. I am Canadian and during the months, the
dark days of winter January and February, I thought everybody was in a funk,
because I sure was. I mean, honestly, in those months I
always had a depression, but I never equated. I never associated with oh
it's the darkness, or it's the cold, or it's the time of year.
It just was. I remember that I immigrated to America on April fifteenth,
And on April fifteenth, maybe the sixteenth, the day after my flight,
I walked down with my lily white skin, you know the kind of
white skin where you can see the blue veins underneath of it. I think
that's where the term blue blood came from. It's embarrassingly white. The best
I get at the end of a season is beige. And so I went
down to the beach in Santa Monica and I laid down on my back and
I felt the sun go into my eyelids and I literally could feel my neurotransmitters
exploding with happy feelings. I didn't realize that I had suffered from seasonal effective
disorder. When we come back, let's talk about seasonal effective disorder and whether
just a week of rain can trigger it, also what you can do about
it for your mental health. Now you are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls
Show when KFI AM six forty were live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're
listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI AM six forty AFI Am six
forty year of Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Wall
Show. We are covering weather in the Southland. If you are experiencing a
weather related condition having to do with floods, tornadoes, thunderstorms, hail,
we want to hear from you and hear what's going on around the city.
We're going to continue to keep you posted on all the information you are going
to need to stay safe. We have a listener on the call on the
phone right now. Brian, Hi, Brian, it's doctor Wendy. Hi,
Wendy. I love your show. Thank you for taking my call,
Thank you for having I'm in plus century right now and it is pretty bad,
pretty much up to the middle of the road. People are well.
Well, there's one living in High Hill. She haunked the horn and had
her husband come out and moved the car on the driveway and she got out
there and he had to move back out on the street. So pretty intense.
But yeah, I live in a motorhole side. Oh. I was
going to say, are you in safe in a house? So now you're
worried about the high winds, which are they're saying can are hitting sixty five
miles an hour in some places. Do you have any experience of that out
there? Yeah, I thought somebody was pushing my motorhouse. Thought there somebody
who's outside pushing it, trying to wake me up or something. It was
the wind. Oh my god, kind of weird, scary. I got
a really weird I got a really yeah it's but I got a front row
seats, that's for sure. I got one weird question. I hope it
doesn't. I love weird questions, Brian, I live for weird questions.
Go ahead, Okay, do you remember the movie? It's Pat? No?
Oh, I answered the weird question. So it's Pat. P a
t like Patrick. Yeah, it's Pat. Yeah, it's Pat. And
nobody ever knew if she was a woman or a man, and they always
try to. They make two they make two movies out of it. And
what's your question about people? I just want to know if you ever found
out that she was a man who or a woman? Nobody knows? You
know what, I'm gonna have to put that on my Netflix list or something.
It's Pat. Never heard of it? No, but god, yeah,
it's it's a comedy. It's it's a really good comedy. It's really
funny. But everybody she comes to encountered in uh encounters at work or doesn't.
I'm a dating scene. She'll she'll date men and she'll women, but
nobody knows what pat is a man or a woman. Well, there are
a lot of non binary people in the world today. I wonder how old
the movie is. But thank you for that question. And please stay safe.
You're in a motor home, and if you feel those winds get too
high, Brian, then you need to take cover, take action, and
get out somewhere. Thank you so much for that call. I appreciate it.
Okay, So just to let you know, the high risk that we're
talking about extends. You know, we're in a state of emergency. The
governor has announced a state of emergency. It covers all of Los Angeles County.
According to the National Weather Service, they quote life threatening flash and urban
flash flood is possible in all kinds of areas. But the good news is
we have a record number of first responders out eighty five hundred emergency responders are
out dealing with floods, landsides, slides, travel emergencies. So please don't
crowd their lines unless it truly is an emergency. Okay, because the operators
who are getting the nine one one calls need to field it to the correct
first responder, so please make sure it is an emergency before you make that
call. We do know that this risk of dangerous flash flooding is going to
continue through Monday. I happen to be a professor at California State University Channel
Islands, which is in Camerio, and we've already gotten notices about basically being
careful. They have not closed the school yet. They're watching closely to see
what's happening, but we have to be very careful on our commute tomorrow.
Obviously, if you live in the foothills, the mountains, burn areas,
you have to be prepared for the kinds of mudslides that we do see in
southern California. I find it interesting that the National Weather Service is even saying
that we may experience a few severe thunderstorms, and that some of these thunderstorms,
if they take place out over the specific the Pacific I'll get it out,
could spawn what's known as a water spout. I had to do I'm
reading about this. A waterspout is basically a tornado over the water. And
then if the sixty five mile an hour winds that we can be expecting send
it inland, then it can actually turn into a bona fide tornado. Right.
I mentioned that the amount of rain we get in January is three inches
a month on average. We're getting an inch and a half every hour today.
This is no joke. What's happening here, and it will continue through
Monday and Tuesday. Unlike the recent atmospheric river that we had last week,
it's not gonna go away fast. This one's gonna hang out. It's going
to go through Tuesday, maybe even longer. Watch your weather reports, stay
close to KFI and so basically, the saturated soil, the more rain,
the strong winds are going to continue for the next few days. This is
happens to be Grammy night. To turn it over to some entertainment news.
I was less interested in who one what or who wore what. I was
much more interested to see who kept their hair and make up together in the
rain. I mean literally, like, how does that happen that they show
up on the red carpet? They must have covered it up of course,
and look together. According to Steve Gregory, apparently all the celebrities and the
stars have some underground tunnels that they're able to access the build. I don't
know if he was being funny. He was talking to Chris about it earlier.
Cenner, Yes, they can go underground and like get their nice,
dry, safe and beautiful. Did you have it to catch the open of
the show when Trevor Noah was vamping for way too long, I missed it.
Is it not entertaining? No, it's very very entertaining, because he
would move from table to table and you could see his brain trying to recognize
who is it. Like at one point he turns, He's like, what
are you doing there? Lenny Kravitz just sitting there like Lenny Kravitz like uh
blah blah blah. And he would find great jokes to make about everybody.
But I mean, Julio was watching it with me and he's like, why
is he vamping? Something's going on because he's so off script right now and
this open is going way too long. I go, there's a reason.
He's definitely filling. He's doing great at living. He's a supreme talent,
he's amazing. But why and then all of a sudden, who walks in
with her entourage and has to circle all the way through the room. Taylor
Swift oh, and we knew Taylor Swift was late. That's what was happening
late to come and sit at her table. Maybe the rain, maybe the
traffic, maybe the entourage whatever, And so then of course he has a
field day talking about Taylor Swift. He goes, you know, all you
people sitting near those tables that she's walking past, your local economy has been
risen right now, like because she wove her way through. And then the
other funny thing before we are getting back to the rain. But you know,
we're all obsessed with Taylor. She's the sweet angel of the moment,
right is, he said? Instead of you know, all the criticism the
NFL gets for doing close ups of Taylor during the NFL games, they have
decided that for the Grammys, whenever Taylor gets mentioned, they're going to do
a close up of a football player. So they immediately go to Terry Cruz
and Taylor laughed, she thought that was very funny. Okay, listen,
you can call any time here because we're going to be taking your calls.
We are community in southern California, and we want to know that you're okay.
We want to know how bad the flooding is. If you're seeing mud
slides, if the traffic is particularly bad in an area, if you're sitting
in your car, call us the numbers one eight hundred five two zero one
five three four. That's one eight hundred five two zero one KFI. You
can also go to the iHeartRadio app. All you got to do is press
the microphone button on the top left ten corner and you can record thirty seconds
that we can play. But we want to make sure everybody's okay, and
if there's news happening in this storm, we want to talk about it when
we come back. Let's talk about why the weather and how the weather impacts
our mental health and what you can do to stay happy in the rain.
You're listening to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI AM six forty. We're
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand
from KFI AM six forty. KFI AM six forty, you have Doctor Wendy
Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy wallh Show. We don't have
much news about school closures yet here in Los Angeles except for Vineland Elementary School
in Hollywood. I believe has announced that they will not be holding in person
classes tomorrow. We have an LAUSD teacher on the line who can give us
an update in her neighborhood. Hi, it's doctor Wendy. Hi, doctor
Wendy. My name is Lossandra. How are you good? And where do
you teach? Love? I teach that seventy fifth Street eec of South la
And what is your weather like? Now? It is nasty. My street
is flooded. It's been raining NonStop since one o'clock this afternoon. The winds
are blowing. My umbrella went down the street and it's too wet for me
to go look forward. Hopefully I'll find you tomorrow. The dogs won't go
out. It's just really nasty. Oh no, you got to put out
those peepee pads for them so they won't right. I don't know, ruin
your carpets and your floors. So have you heard anything from LAUSD? Is
your school in LAUSD School? Yes? I am la USD. The last
thing that we heard was the biggest controversy on closing the schools one when Carvallo
closed them last year because the hurricane that never happened, and so maybe taking
slack if he dries that again and it's not as bad. Two, they're
most concerned with the children not being fed tomorrow. Over half of our students
their only meals are what they receive at school, being breakfast and lunch.
So if they can't come to school, they don't eat. That's a huge
concern. That's heartbreaking. It's to think about that. I remember if you
saw what the kids were served. Yeah, even more heartbreaking. Oh,
I remember when that topic came up during COVID quarantine too. It's like kids
were able to come to school sometimes to pick up meals, right, just
to get the fop wall centers, get pickup centers just for meals. Yes
they did. Oh, I guess it's hard to get that together overnight.
But they did say the next update will be first thing in the morning,
so you'll be up thoroughly waited out looking for your messages. So what grade
do you teach? I have pre k's. I get them ready to go
to kindergarten pre K fours, so they need outside playtime. Yeah, so
what we do is more music and movement. We'll stay on the carpet longer,
do more songs, do more calisten eggs, going on a bear hunt
two or three times around the class we just found. Yeah, we definitely
find ways lots of calisten eggs to get them going, to get that heart
rate up and work off some of that energy. Now, I know,
if you've been teaching pre K four for a very long time, I can
assure you that you have a very strong immune system. You've probably been exposed
to every new bug that comes along. But when I hear about going on
a bear hunt with twenty five kids in a classroom in hot, humid indoors,
all I could think of it's a petri dish. Well, unfortunately,
our heater hasn't worked in about three months. Also, it's actually good that
we run around to keep warm. That's a whole nother story. Can we
talk about public education? How is this possible in our city that we're talking
about kids who are getting substandard food, that are in classrooms that aren't heated,
And may I ask you how many students are in your class four year
olds? Well, since the pandemic, LAUSD has lost over three hundred thousand
students, where at first my center would hold one hundred and forty four students
and nothing now as of tomorrow, we're getting eight in the students, so
I think we'll be up to like seventy six. And how many in your
class? Don't say there's seventy six. One clumbers around fourteen? Yeah,
no, no, I'm sorry. My actual classroom is about fifth. I
think tomorrow get to the students of like fifteen. Oh good, good,
good good? And do you have an aid or is it just you and
fifteen four year olds? I'm two as Oh good, and with rain tomorrow,
like last week when it rained, I think I had six. Oh
yeah, Thursday, I think I had six out of the fifteen. Oh
oh, so they don't some of our students walk to school? That's another
huge concern. Oh a lot of them. Yeah, hopefully they're not walking
along if they're four years old. No, no, no, no,
they need an adulgence to sign them in and out. Well, Assandra,
thank you so much for calling. I am going to watch closely to see
if there are any more school closer closures that are announced at LAUSD. And
good luck to you tomorrow. I hope you do find the bear on that
bear hunt. Thanks for calling in. Thank you so much, doctor much
so, if you want to call in, let us know what's going on
in your neighborhood having to do with weather related stuff. The numbers one eight
hundred five two zero one five three four. That's one eight hundred five two
zero one KFI. I do want to get to the neuroscience of these dark
days, but before I do, I want to make sure that I mentioned
that if you are a skier, this is a very good day for you.
If you are living in any of the towns in Sierra Nevada, please
stay inside. I don't even know. Look, I grew up in Canada,
and I remember hearing the sound of the snowplow at like four am and
thinking, darn, we're not gonna have a snow day, right, And
so when the snowplow did, when I heard the silence early in the morning,
and sometimes we couldn't even open our front door. You know who I'm
If you live in Sierra Madre, you know that snow will just pile up
outside your door and before you can even get to your car, your shoveling
sidewalks and snow blowing your driveway, et cetera. Anyway, stay inside.
But the good news for skiers is that we're talking about feet and feet of
snow two to force feet down below anything above five or six thousand feet,
we're talking four to six feet expected of new snow. I know you skiers
are like, Oh, it's gonna go for Monday and Tuesday. Maybe the
roads will be open by Wednesday. We can get out there and go skiing.
So for some people this is good news. However, if the storms
are completely keeping you inside, then please stay safe. I'm going to tell
you, guys a little Canadian trick that I want you everyone to put in
your cars, especially if you live in a snow area or a cold area.
But you know, everything seems to be cold nowadays, So if you
get stranded in a snow drift in your car, do not leave your car.
Make sure you carry in your car with you a six inch pillar candle,
like one of the ones you buy at Ikia. You can buy a
whole set of them for like twelve bucks. You have one in your glove
compartment. Make sure you have a lighter or matches in there too. And
did you know that you can put a six inch pillar candle. You can
light it inside your car and it will give off enough heat to keep you
from freezing to death. Simple Canadian trick. Right, people think, oh,
I should have some warm gloves in my car. How about a fire?
How about a can that would be lovely. So if you are in
a snow area, hopefully you're not going to get in your car, but
if you do, make sure you bring a candle with you. It's something
that all Canadians know. It's just a thing. Listen. Years ago,
I remember when the Scottish comedian Craig Ferguson moved to Los Angeles. He had
a little bit that was pretty funny about Los Angeles sunny weather, and what
he said was, how does anyone in LA get anything done? Because in
Scotland, I can't do the accent, so I can't do it. His
funny way, he said, as soon as the sun comes out, everybody
runs outdoors and they just hang out. They don't go to work, they
don't do anything. And he said, so every day I would arrive in
LA and I'd be going to work and I'd see the sun and I'm like,
oh, not going to work. I'm going to the park today,
I'm going to the beach today. The sun is out. And he said
he just doesn't understand how anybody in La gets anything done well. We do
have these other days, these days now where we have this time of days
and weeks of a little bit of darkness and a lot of rain. I
keep promising it, but we keep running out of time. When we come
back. The scientific reason why rain can dampen your mood and what you can
do about it. Also, if you'd like to call in and let us
know how things are in your neighborhood, the numbers one, eight hundred and
five, two zero, one, five, three four. You're listening to
the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty with Live Everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI AM six
forty AM six forty. You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is
the Doctor Wendy Walls Show. We're changing our changing it up a bit tonight,
staying close to you in Southern California regarding your lives and the storm and
what you're going through. If you're new to my show, I have a
PhD in clinical psychology. I normally talk a lot about our mental health and
also our love relationships, the science of love. But we also have a
relationship with our environment. You know, some people get cheered up by the
rain. Other people experience a damper mood. Right, there's actually giants behind
it. Oh did you know, by the way, that the research that's
supposed to lead the weather that's most associated with a good mood is about a
temperature between sixty and seventy degrees. Now, I would have guessed it would
like eighty degrees suntanning weather, but no, Apparently, nice, comfy sixty
to seventy degrees with the sun out and no clouds in the sky is the
best for our mood. But here's one of the reasons why when it rains
like this, many people, even in just a few days, can experience
a depression, a real depression in their mood. It has a lot to
do with the lack of sunlight. Right. So when the sun enters our
brain, we get a release of more serotonin that's an antidepressant, more dopamine,
and we do better. In fact, the other thing that sunlight is
very good for, of course, is to set our circadian rhythms. We
need to have that dose of morning sunlight to help us feel alert and wake
up, so we start to feel lethargic when it's gray all the time.
We do know that when we get lots of sunlight, that's when we boost
ourselves with those feel good hormones dopamine and serotonin, so we get a dip
a depression in those. For some people, rainy weather affects their body physically
right well, partly because they're less active, they're more lethargic. But for
some people who have joint illnesses, joint pain, et cetera, the humidity
and the barometric pressure can actually physically hurt their body, and that can be
a little bit of a downer. Some people are more sensitive to that than
others. So what can you do? Can you boost your mood? Well,
I want to tell you right now, keep all the lights on as
bright as possible. It literally tricks your you know, normally, I'm always
saying to my students I teach at cal State Channel Islands. I'm always saying,
you know, you need to learn digital hygiene. You need to get
off your phones at least two hours before sleep time. That blue light is
tricking your brain into thinking it's morning. Now. I'm like, get on
those phones, okay. I want you to have as much light in your
house going on during these dark, rainy days as possible. Also, when
we feel lethargic, when we get a dip in our dopamine and serotonin,
we get Some people suffer from something called brain fog, and it's very difficult
for them to get organized. This is why you need to make a list.
The list might even be for household chores like I gotta change the sheets,
I gotta do laundry, but it also might be about paying bills,
calling people, emailing people, et cetera. I know it's rainy, don't
skip your workout. You may not be able to. If you have a
gym you have to drive to, then you're not going to the gym.
There's a lot you can do on your living room carpet in front of a
TV screen, And there are a lot of free workouts on there because I
find them on YouTube all the time. But today my fiance Julio and I
did dry. He drove me to the gym in our neighborhood. And you
know, all I did is put on some if I tell you, Donna
Summer okay, some disco music, and then I made sure that I did
my twenty minutes of cardio and that was enough to boost my mood. Right,
the endorphins will come up. Also, this is not the time to
do a couch potato deep dive with a bunch of junk food. Okay,
well, you can do a deep dive if it's with your honey and you
want to get you know, those other hormelones going. But otherwise, this
is your time to be a chef, a good healthy chef that means protein
and vegetables. By the way, you can hold me accountable. I'm doing
dry February. I missed Dry January because I was in France and I was
drinking wine. You can't go to France and not drink wine, so there's
no dry January for me. So just to let everybody know, I have
found substitute drinks that are doing just fine by me. I take. I'm
telling you to do this because in rainy days you shouldn't be drinking alcohol,
which is a depressant, which adds to the depression. Okay, I do
now an alcoholic beer and I put it over ice, and then I squeeze
in a bunch of limes, you know, like you might do at the
beach with a corona or something. Anyway, it tastes so good. It's
got enough acid that I crave. It's not sweet, and so that's my
goat to drink. But I've also been trying to find the best kind of
non alcoholic wine, because you know, I like to just hold my glass
when I have my dinner. And I found it. It's called French Bloom
and it's like a rose champagne and it's really close. It's really really close.
You can trick your brain into that one. All right, back to
things that you should be doing. If you're feeling a little bit down during
this dark days of winter and this bad weather, call up some loved ones.
I called some friends in Canada today. We had a lovely old chat.
You know, it's really hard to complain about the rain and the darkness
when, as Julio told me today, I have cousins that are in white
Horse, Yukon territories and it's minus thirty five today, Okay, minus thirty
five and zero light. Right Well, I don't want to see zero,
but you know they get twenty four hours of darkness on December twenty second,
so it's starting to open up the day a little bit. So all of
a sudden, I'm like, yeah, well we have rain, we have
a little rain, and well, well we have a lot of a lottering
and it's dangerous for people here. And they're like yeah, yeah, okay.
You know, one time I was home in Ottawa for Christmas, and
you know the big question Canadians always say to Californians, how can you live
there the earthquakes. Aren't you afraid of the earthquakes? Because apparently that is
what our pr Department for the State of California tells the rest of the world
so that we can try to reduce some of the traffic on our freeways,
right, we want everyone else to be afraid to move to our paradise.
So they always say, what about the earthquakes? So one time I was
there in Ottawa at Christmas and I had the Weather Channel on because they keep
it on in the background all day long. It's like their important news constantly.
Okay, we do it for a couple atmospheric rivers a couple times a
year. They have it on twenty four seven, So the Weather Channel's on
and they were talking about driver safety and they said, you know, every
year in Canada, more than two hundred people die in weather related car accidents,
And I thought, huh, two hundred people every year just because of
the snow and the ice, skidding out, dying. So I did a
little research. How many people I google in California have died in an earthquake
in the at last year, zero year before zero? Okay. Since the
time I've lived in La thirty years, thirty seven people. Thirty seven people
have died. Okay. So what's safer that bad weather and that darkness or
us we live in paradise. Unfortunately, every once in a while, Paradise
gets a reality check and it's happening right now. So all your loved ones,
I know, the ones who live in the north won't feel sorry for
you. But the other people are people that you can check in with,
because our social support, our connection to each other is the best thing for
our mental health. And I know I say this a lot, and I
know it sounds corny and very Californian, but it's true and there's absolute science
behind it. Find gratitude even in the storm. You have to tell yourself
that remember all those years when we complained about the drought, when we had
to turn the water off, when we brushed our teeth. I think you're
still supposed to do that, when you're supposed to take short showers, or
shower with a friend, or do something to save on the water. Well,
now here, we are too much water and they're filling up our lakes,
they're filling our snowpack. So we're gonna you know, we've been able
to last year. We got ourselves out of the drought I think in most
of California, and I think this is going to continue. So tell yourself,
thank thank you for the rain. The farmers are happy if the crops
aren't being flooded. I'd love to get a call from a farmer actually to
find out how this is affecting them. If you'd like to call in and
tell us a little bit about what's going on in your neighborhood. The numbers
one eight hundred five two zero one five three four. That's one eight hundred
five two zero one KFI. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show
on KFI Am six forty were live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been
listening to Doctor Wendy Waalsh. You can always hear us live on KFI AM
six forty from seven to nine pm on Sunday and anytime on demand on the
iHeartRadio app.