Informed dissent.

The intersection of health care and politics with Dr.

Jeff Barkey, board certified primary care physician.

And Dr.

Mark McDonald.

Board certified child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist.

All right, we're rolling.

Mark, welcome to another episode of Informed Descent.

So, Jeff, we're here together in real space and time.

Yeah, here in Corona Del Mar.

You came down.

You are uh far, far away from home and contemplating making a move down to the OC.

In a land far, far away where people are generally polite, friendly, and the streets don't smell of urine.

Well, it's kind of like you're going out of the country from where you live coming down to Orange County.

Much more civilized down here.

Yeah.

What do you think you're looking for most coming down to Orange County that you don't have in Los Angeles where you live?

Peace and mental stability.

I think people in non-LA non-urban areas are much more calm.

They're generally more contented.

They're less aggravated by their self-victimization.

And I think they lead more peaceful lives.

And people who lead peaceful lives tend to be more pleasant to be around.

They create less drama.

They're also less defended.

So they're more sociable.

They'll say hello to you on the street.

They'll carry conversations.

And I think most importantly, they are interested in meeting new people and developing social connections.

Now, of course, we're in Corona del Mar, which is coastal Orange County.

It's a very red area of Orange County.

Orange County is no longer a red uh county, unfortunately.

It's more purple.

And there are areas within Orange County that are very, very different than it is here coastally that probably mimic LA a bit more.

Have you have you explored other areas of Orange County?

I have.

I've actually been to every formal community in Orange County outside of Anaheim.

You haven't been to Disneyland.

I am going to go to Anaheim this weekend because a friend is staying there for five days from out of town to watch some kind of car race.

And I told him that I would hang out with him.

It's been over 20 years since I've been to Disneyland.

I don't think I could afford it anymore.

It is it's expensive, it's crowded, it's filled with tourists, long lines.

I, you know, I don't, I don't get the appeal.

I know that people that are huge Disney fans.

I took my kids there, oh, maybe about a year ago.

Uh, because they asked.

I don't know that I have any desire to go back.

The food was overpriced, the lines were long.

Um, people watching is kind of fun because there's people from all over the world that come to Disneyland, but I have no desire to go back.

You can go to the mall for that.

Yes, you can.

And you don't have to pay.

No, you just go to the mall, bring a beach chair, and just sit there and watch the people walk by.

And there's some crazy people at the mall for sure.

That's what I would do.

I I don't want to go to Disneyland and deal with it.

Yeah, I don't blame you.

So all the places in Orange County, what do you like the best?

I definitely prefer the coast in general.

Yeah.

And I think the views from Cronadel Mar are probably the most beautiful of all of the beach areas that I've seen.

And the fact that it's at elevation, there's a lot of greenery, there's cliffs, so it's not flat.

I really like hills, and I like green, and I like water.

And a lot of places only have one of those things and not all three.

Well, what do you got in Los Angeles?

Well, you do have a beach, but it's pretty flat.

So you kind of have to leave the beach to find hills.

You don't really have a lot of green in Los Angeles.

Even the beaches are basically sand.

There's not a lot of trees.

You have to leave LA to get a lot of trees.

And most of them are now burned down.

Yeah, there's a lot of fire damage there in LA now.

There's almost no large areas where the are the forests are still present.

I think it's been a year since that big Malibu fire.

Almost.

And I understand not a single home has been rebuilt yet.

I believe that over 2,000 permits have been requested, seven have been issued.

And just today, the LA City Council, in conjunction with the LA mayor, announced that they are not planning to forgive the costs of repermitting for all the people that lost their homes in the fire, that they're going to still going to charge them for the permits because they don't have any money left to not charge them because they wasted it all on homeless programs that didn't work.

Well, I suspect most people that lost their homes can't afford to rebuild anyways.

The insurance isn't going to cover it.

The cost of coastal commission permitting the new upgraded uh structures that they need to build, put putting pylons in the ground, earthquake code, etc.

Most people can't afford to do that.

And they don't want to waste four to seven years to wait.

Because what are you going to do after four or five years?

Your kids are already established in a new neighborhood.

Or let's say your other end of the spectrum, you're retired, you're old.

What are you going to do?

Sit around for four or five years and then what rebuild your your four or five bedroom house.

Your kids are gone for what?

To to just sit there for the next 10 or 12 years till you die.

I mean, you'd rather just live your life in a place that works better for your current stage of time.

Well, do they still have mortgage payments?

I can't imagine the banks are forgiving that.

Oh, that's a good question.

Nobody's going to buy a piece of burnt out property and then try to rebuild.

I don't know what they're doing.

Declare bankruptcy, run, move to Mexico.

I don't know what they're doing.

But I know rental prices here in Orange County because of the fires have skyrocketed.

Many people move down here, and there's a shortage of available rentals.

Um, so I don't I don't know what's going on.

It's a complete disaster.

Well, John Phillips, who has been following this on the local LA radio every day since it happened and is a very knowledgeable pundit on local politics, said today.

I hate to say this because I want to give people hope and optimism, but if you lost your home in the fire in early 2026, I think it was in January or end of December.

You're screwed.

You're screwed.

He said it will never end.

You will never ever be made whole.

So don't even try.

Yeah.

I mean, maybe if you're a billionaire, it doesn't matter.

And you can buy elsewhere or go through the process and rebuild at eight times the cost of the original cost of the home.

But for most people, I imagine that's not the case.

There are some people that have lived there for 30, 40 years.

They can't afford to buy a house where they live now.

They can't afford to rebuild.

I don't, I don't actually know what they're going to do.

I'm surprised there isn't more stories being written and broadcast about the individuals that have suffered so as a result, by the way, of the complete mismanagement of the water system and the fire authority and so forth in the LA area.

Well, particularly given that a lot of the people that live there are part of the entertainment industry and have media connections.

You would think that that would be an easy access avenue to getting your story out.

Doesn't Barbara Streisand live in Malibu.

What happened to her house?

She has multiple houses.

Yeah.

So she doesn't care.

Probably not.

Yeah, for sure.

Well, welcome to the OC.

It's great to have you here.

Yeah, it's nice, beautiful weather.

It's uh really comfortable down here, and uh I enjoy leaving every now and then.

And nice people that don't try to kill you or rob you.

That's right.

You can actually walk around at night.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's kind of nice.

It's a nice uh escapade.

For sure.

So I wrote this article recently.

Um, and I remember I've been thinking about this for a while.

It's the holiday season, we're into December.

We just celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas is coming up, non-stop advertisements on TV about how happy we're supposed to be, Christmas tree lightings, presents under the tree, old movies running on TV.

Yet in my clinical practice here, there's also a lot of despair.

Not everybody is happy.

It's probably because of the Mariah Carey songs that keep playing endlessly.

Exactly.

They're gonna shoot themselves.

Exactly.

I actually like Christmas music.

I don't know about her Christmas music.

But actually, it's it's often there's so much societal pressure and media pressure and advertising pressure that this is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year.

We're all supposed to be joyous and happy, and I hope most of us are, but there's a lot of people also that the holiday season brings in depression.

So I wrote this article, and it's titled, Of course I'm depressed.

Tis the season to be jolly.

10 ways to survive the holiday season.

I mean, I know people who have lost loved ones right around Christmas, and now as a result of that, Christmas is a time to remember them, to be sad, um, and not necessarily to be happy, or people that are estranged from their family, for example, somebody that's gone through a divorce, somebody that's estranged from their kids, uh, where they're no no longer talking because of politics or whatever reason, this is a very difficult time of year.

You must see this as a psychiatrist.

It's happened every year since I've been in training.

Yeah.

What so what do you do about it?

What do you tell people?

I think the source of the problem is the disconnect between the same way that you see on social media, the idealized life that's probably not even real to begin with, that you start to feel, if not envious of, perhaps depressed about because your life doesn't look like that.

Because you compare yourself.

Exactly.

And I think that's one of the problems because you see and hear so much cheer and so much joy.

And you ask yourself, well, if I'm not feeling as much cheer and joy, then there must be something terribly wrong.

And that leads you through the comparison, as you said, to a stage of depression, even though nothing's really different than it was a month ago in your life.

No.

So what's different?

It's not your life, it's the environment that's changed.

Well, what's different is now when you watch TV, anything, sports or whatever, there's advertisements about Christmas, newspapers if you read them, there's advertisements about Christmas, social media.

If you're scrolling through Instagram or Facebook or X or whatever you're scrolling through, there's advertisements about Christmas.

People are posting their happy family pictures.

We get a bunch of Christmas cards, and it's the best of picture of everybody's smiling and happy and mom and dad and the kids and the grandkids and the dogs and so forth.

And it's an unrealistic picture of reality of what's going on.

And we we do this to ourselves all the time.

It's not unique to Christmas season.

It's what happens on the internet and social media in general and why social media for many people can be a very destructive, uh despairing uh event and it causes more grief than it than an uplifts.

Well, I think there's two prevailing themes that lead to the loneliness.

One is the comparison through social media through all the information you get from television, shows, radio.

And then the other is just the reality that a lot of people do not have a full life, they don't have a full social life, and Christmas exacerbates that hole for them.

And so those two pieces combined together can lead to depression.

Now you can't, of course, fill your social hole quickly over a holiday season, and you can't avoid a lot of the Christmas cheer, even if you wanted to, that would lead you to perhaps not comparing yourself as much.

But I do think that what you what you are able to do, what anyone is able to do is to become more involved in the life of Christmas during that month through, for example, going to church, volunteering.

There's a lot of people who are less well off than you.

There always is.

And so if you're going to suffer from the comparison of people who are better than off than you, why not take advantage of the comparison of people who aren't as well off than you?

And it's very easy to find.

Oh, at Christmas, you there people are begging for help everywhere, volunteers.

You know, my local church, I go to Mariner's church, which is in Irvine.

They've got a bunch of sessions on Sunday and Saturday, and I think Wednesdays and so forth.

And this last Saturday, the last Sunday, rather, the pastor made note that they have something like eight or 10 Christmas services coming up.

And he specifically said, you know, of course, we want you to come to the service, but more importantly, we want you to volunteer at one of the services.

Come volunteer and be part of what we're doing.

And there's opportunities everywhere.

And I tell this to patients that are feeling despondent, depressed, anxious, is one of the strategies is find somebody else that you can help.

Find somebody else whose life sucks more than yours suck and lift them up.

And when you help other people, you help yourself.

That's just the nature of being a helpful person.

So that's one way for sure.

I wrote the article specifically.

It's sort of tongue tongue in cheek, but it's not because this is real.

There are people where this is the most difficult season of the year.

They go into the Christmas season, they immediately get depressed because of memories, because of comparison.

It's like a giant, you know, yellow highlight pen on why your life sucks.

And it doesn't.

It's that you believe that because you're comparing yourself to people whose life you don't actually know.

You know what's funny?

Uh, somebody's asking me about Dennis Prager today, who we both know.

We were blessed a year or so ago to go on his show.

Uh, we went to a studio, we spent an hour with him.

Um, and I remember he has this expression, and it comes from his friend Joseph Toluskin, who is his co-author on some of his books.

And his mother had an expression, something like, and I'm paraphrasing the only people I know that are truly happy are people that I don't know very well.

And so when you get to know somebody on a deep level, you realize they have drama and pain and struggles because it's the human condition.

And when you don't know people well, they often put up a front where you think they are something that they aren't actually.

You think they are happy, you think they are all put together.

You think they don't have drama and pain and difficulties in their life, but they do.

And showing that vulnerability, I think is very healthy.

And reaching out and helping other people that are vulnerable that are in pain is a great way to lift yourself up and to put things in an actual realistic perspective, as opposed to sitting and scrolling on social media, seeing all the wonderful pictures and Christmas stories and trips to the snow and meetings with parents and grandparents and kids.

That's not reality.

They don't show you the pain and the drama of what's going on in their family.

Maybe maybe there should be a we can start one, a social media site for pain and drama.

Call it life sucks.

Life sucks.

Post here.

That's right.

It's actually a good idea.

We should we should start that.

So here are the ways.

Number one, top 10.

Number one, honor your feelings.

Don't fake it.

It's okay to not feel good.

It's okay to be sad.

It's okay to be anxious.

It's okay to feel depressed.

It's really okay.

It doesn't mean that there's something wrong with you.

In fact, it means that you're normal.

However, you need to have somebody that you can express that to, not just sit at home watching TV feeling depressed.

Call your mom, call your dad, call your boyfriend, call your girlfriend, call your best friend.

If you don't have one, go to church.

Look for opportunities to help people that are struggling themselves.

And uh, I think that will help you as well.

Number two, get sunlight.

Too often it's winter time.

We're indoors more because it's cold out.

We spend less time in nature and less time in the sun.

Supplement with vitamin D if you need to, but get your ass outside, get sunshine, get in nature, go ground, go to a park, shoes and socks off, go to the beach, walk in the water, do something to get in nature uh because it's very, very helpful for depression, for lifting your spirit, and certainly make you healthy.

You do that a lot, right?

You're outside.

Every single day that I can, I go outside.

In fact, the first thing I do in the morning is I walk out to my deck with my tea mug, and I stand outside for 10 minutes in the sun.

The very first thing I do, even if I can't go out for a walk, which I generally try to do before 10 a.m.

every day.

Yeah, I do the same.

I get my morning coffee, I go out, I have a little deck where I live.

Whether the sun is out or not, I try to go outside for 10 minutes, sip my coffee, open up my eyes, no sunglasses, let the sun hit the back of my eyes and my skin.

Uh, I think it's very, very healthy.

And then I am very blessed as we're sitting here in my office, my studio in my office in Corona Del Mar.

I'm literally an eight-minute walk down the street, and you've got a beautiful overview of Newport Harbor.

So I try to do that every day as well, uh, rain or shine.

Uh, next on the list, number three, and this is hard to do this time of year because there's so many parties is limit the amount of sugar, junk, and in particular, alcohol that you drink.

I wrote an article all about how to do this, by the way, as well.

But sugar is toxic.

Uh, I know it's it makes us temporarily feel good, the same thing with alcohol, but ultimately it's very destructive.

And so, what I try to do if I know I'm going to a party is either pre-eat.

So, I'll I won't go to the party hungry.

I'm I'm gonna eat all the shit that people are serving.

And then I make a decision either I'm gonna have one drink or no drinks at all, I'll go immediately to the bar, get like a glass of club soda with a lime, walk around with that, nobody knows it's not vodka, and make a decision.

I'm not gonna drink alcohol or I'm gonna limit it, and then I'm not gonna eat crap, or I'll very strictly limit it.

Right now, in my office, in my kitchen, there's a whole bunch of boxes of chocolate and cookies and garbage in there.

It's hard.

I love cookies, and I love that crap, but I try to do the best I can not to eat that junk.

Tastes good immediately, uh, but then later it you get a sugar crash, uh, and it's certainly not healthy, especially if this time of year is difficult for you.

And in the holiday season of Christmas, a lot of the alcoholic drinks are also spiked with sugar more than the rest of the year.

For sure.

There's lots of mold drinks, there's lots of cocktails, cocktails are by definition full of sugar.

Yeah, even cocktails with no alcohol have sugar in them.

Sure.

There's no such thing as a cocktail without alcohol or a uh cocktail without sugar.

So the sugar is is present in everything.

And if you don't consciously choose not to eat it or drink it, you're gonna be over-sugared.

Yeah, for sure.

What's your strategies to um not eat terribly and drink too much during the holidays?

I also eat before I go to parties.

I find that's very helpful.

When I was a student, I always use the parties as a way to avoid purchasing food because I had no money.

It was free.

And now, unless I'm going to a really, really high-end event where I know that the food quality is going to be phenomenal.

Yeah.

We're going to have sliced, cured, healthy, grass-fed meats and cheeses and amazing fruit flown in from the parties.

I want to go to one of those.

They're in Newport.

They're in San Clemente, they're in Tuston.

I actually invited you to one uh a couple of weeks ago, but you declined.

So that's on you.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

So I find those events and uh often am able to eat well.

But the generic party that's just put on by like a bunch of guys with a guitar, they're probably they're probably gonna have Cheetos, chips and dip, crackers, a bunch of Mrs.

Fields cookies, and uh a few bottles of uh sparkling, yeah, cheap seltzer wine with a lot of uh artificial sweetener.

So I just eat before I go and I hydrate really well.

Yes, and then when I get there, I might have one beer, one glass of wine.

Uh and if there's anything that I can eat that's like fruit or something that's uh clearly fresh, I'll do that.

But I'm not gonna go and stuff my face with all these casseroles and heavy sandwiches and tons of sugared cake particles sitting on the table.

And then I don't have to end up feeling like I'm hungry.

Yeah.

So I think the best the best uh way to deal with it is to just to eat and hydrate in advance.

Yeah, totally.

Uh number number four, we talked a little bit about this is and and again, this is how do you how do you struggle through the holidays when the holidays are a very difficult season for you and you tend towards depression because of either past experiences or you're just not as happy as everybody tells you you're supposed to be when you're looking at social media.

So the other way is daily exercise.

I exercise almost every day, anyways.

Um, but I recommend that people start the day every day with some sort of movement.

It could be just a walk and walking is great exercise.

If you want to go to the gym, go to the gym.

But even walking is great exercise, and you can up your game with walking by getting some hand weights, or now everybody's using these weighted vests.

You can buy them on Amazon or sporting goods store.

They're not bad.

Don't go too heavy, you can hurt yourself, but walk, move every single day as a mechanism to help you with your mental health.

I think they also stop low caliber bullets as well.

So you can use them in urban environments.

If you're getting up before it's light and there's a lot of gunfire, uh, you might be protected.

Plus, it just makes you run faster.

Just or just carry heavy guns with you just in case, and that'll add extra extra weight and a little bit of resistance.

Yeah, for sure.

We're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back, we're gonna finish the list of ways to get through the holiday season.

Uh, if this is a difficult time for you.

So we'll be back in just a minute.

And if it's not a difficult time, screw you.

Yeah.

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Okay, we're back.

Mark and I were here solo in Corona Del Mar in my office, and we're talking about an article that I wrote recently called Of course I'm depressed.

Tis the season to be jolly.

And the top 10 ways to get through this holiday season, this Christmas season, or if you celebrate Kwanzaa, you might want to turn turn the podcast off right now.

Uh, but to get through this holiday season and survive.

Uh, and so number one was honor your feelings, number two, get sunlight.

Number three, limit your sugar and alcohol, number four, move daily, and number five is protect your sleep, like it's a gift.

Sleep is so important.

If you get shitty sleep, it's hard to feel good.

And especially when there's a lot of parties and things going on, tend to get home late at night, wake up early in the morning.

I think sleep is really important.

If you can get seven or eight, you're doing awesome.

If you can get six, that's great.

There are some mechanisms for sleep hygiene that I think are really important.

Go to bed the same time, wake up the same time every single day, make your room dark and cool, get rid of the electronics in your bed.

Don't sit lay in bed and watch TV.

That's a terrible thing to do with the blue light.

Then you end up staying up really late.

So there's there's two things I think that are acceptable to do in bed.

You can read and you can breed.

Other than that, go to sleep.

Um, so I think proper sleep is another way to survive the holiday season.

If you need some supplements before you go to sleep, magnesium, ashwaganda, melatonin.

We've uh talked a lot about this before.

Alcohol interrupts good sleep as well, may help you fall asleep, but then you wake up uh and very disruptive.

Try to go to bed at least a couple, three hours after you eat last.

Don't go to bed with a full stomach, not good for you as well.

What do you what do you do for sleep, Mark?

What's your strategy?

I hit myself in the head until I pass out.

Just keep tequila shots until until you pass out.

It's very difficult to do, but I know that if I don't use a computer or a phone screen for at least an hour, preferably two hours before I sleep, and I turn the lights down and I do something having to do with writing on paper or reading, yeah, that really slows me down in a good way.

And if I combine that with some mint or chamomile tea, yeah, I generally get really, really tired very quickly.

I what puts me to sleep is I just read your Substack articles and I'm I'm asleep instantly.

I should uh I should get a an application ready for an FDA indication for insomnia and just use my articles exactly as a way to put people to sleep.

By the way, you are a brilliant writer and you do have a substack site.

It's actually not Substack, it's like Substack, but it's your own called dissident MD.

Encourage you to go there.

Uh the articles are fantastic.

I love reading them.

They're often controversial.

They're they're often inflammatory.

Uh, but if you you know send hate mail to Dr.

Mark McDonald, but they're very very much worth reading.

Okay, next, set boundaries.

We were talking earlier today uh with a nurse who does some work for me, and she was telling us about how she has to set boundaries with her family because her family is crazy.

And if she doesn't set boundaries, she's she just gets sucked into childhood trauma.

So she has to say no and set boundaries to her mom and dad and her family.

And I think that's important, especially this time of year.

If you differ in politics with your siblings, it may not be a pleasant experience going to family dinners and family parties.

So protect your peace and set boundaries.

That's really important when there is already an amplification of emotional energy for the reasons we talked about earlier over Christmas, certainly between Thanksgiving and New Year.

And people that don't normally come together in groups in the family, but maybe see each other just one offs, all come at the same time, and they all bring in whatever their amplified feelings are, and it's like a tinder box.

Yes, and it's just it's just waiting to explode.

And also grievances come up, uh, memories and regrets from previous years.

So it can be very difficult to have a good experience when you're in a large group.

Something that I've often recommended that people do, particularly if they have some challenging relationships, is to try to set aside time to meet with one person.

So it's a private meeting outside of the purview of the actual holiday, like you're in town for a few weeks, you're not just sitting around everybody talking at the same time.

You say, Hey, uh, you know, cousin, mother, father, uh, why don't we go out and have coffee alone?

Just the two of us.

And sometimes that can really help uh defuse tension.

And then you bring better energy back with you.

And then sometimes that can help the household.

Before the big Christmas movement.

Exactly.

That's a great idea.

Unless it's festivous, of course.

And festivists, the point of festivist is the airing of grievances.

Around the pole of shame, I believe.

That's right.

And then physical feet.

So you have to throw food and plates at each other.

And uh, and I think wasn't there combat involved.

I think there was actual physical fighting.

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah.

So yeah, good luck with that.

So this is not boundaries about festivists.

This is uh the other normal holidays.

Number seven, uh, I think this is important, especially for me.

Stay spiritually anchored.

So for me, going to church is important, especially around the holiday season.

I don't know if I'm going to volunteer, but I might volunteer at one of the Christmas services at my local church.

I've never done that before.

I think that would be fine.

Um, but staying true to whatever your spiritual beliefs are, and especially if this is a difficult time, it's a good time to ramp that up.

Read the Bible, pray, meditate, go to church, go to Bible study, at least for me, those are some things that have been very helpful.

Christmas is a religious holiday.

Yes, it is.

Believe it or not, it actually is a religious holiday.

And the fact that the religion has been so removed, not only just through commercialization, but also due to anti-religious.

As an example, there was a city, I think it might have been Portland that just put up their Christmas tree a few days ago.

And there was no mention of the word Christmas in the ceremony of raising and lighting the tree.

Holiday tree.

They called it a holiday tree.

Exactly.

And putting aside the politics and the idiocy of that, I think it also does a disservice to people who find some form of solace in the religious aspects of Christmas.

You're not forced to be observant or to pray or to have a faith to celebrate Christmas.

But for those who do feel part of that, to not have that religious aspect up front and center, I think does create a loss of meaning and focus and purpose for those people.

So I do think that to the extent that if you if you are interested in the religious aspect that you try to go somewhere and participate in services that still highlight that, that can really be very comforting and can help build that community, which, as you were saying earlier, is one of the antidotes to feeling depressed and isolated over Christmas.

I agree.

And I can't stand it when people wish me happy holidays.

I don't know any Jew that's offended if you wish them a Merry Christmas.

No, that's a that's a straw man argument.

If I know somebody's Jewish, I will say happy Hanukkah.

But for everybody else, I say Merry Christmas.

When somebody wishes me a happy holiday, I say, what holiday are you referring to?

Festivus.

I can't remember when the made up holiday Kwanza is celebrated, but it might be about the same time.

It's like, what what holiday?

What do you what are you talking about now?

Well, you know, I don't want to offend, I don't know what you celebrate.

No, it's Christmas.

This is the Christmas season.

The reason why Hanukkah is a big deal to Jews, is because uh it's a it's a holiday that occurs during the same window of time as Christmas, but from a biblical and religious standpoint, Hanukkah is a minor player.

Now Jews build it up in eight days and you get presents and Hanukkah Bush and whatever, and some blue lights on your house.

Perfectly acceptable.

But the Christmas season is important to Christians, right?

It's the celebration of Jesus' birth, not even in comparison to Hanukkah.

I don't know what the hell Kwanzaa is.

And festivist is just a fun Seinfeld made up holiday, and by all means celebrate it.

This is the Christmas season and the Christmas holiday.

Please, if you're listening, wish people a Merry Christmas.

And if you live in LA, then watch them get offended.

Especially if they have a mask on, then definitely wish them a Merry Christmas.

I have yet to meet a single Jew that took offense at being wished a Merry Christmas.

I remember Dennis wrote an article years ago.

It's okay to wish a Jew Merry Christmas.

And I think that's true.

I do too.

So try it out, see what happens.

If people are offended, anyone that is offended by being wished a Merry Christmas is not someone that you want to associate with.

100%.

Just like somebody that's wearing a mask.

I see someone wearing a mask.

I think now, thank goodness this is someone that I don't want to be associated with because they're probably crazy.

And you can immediately see that.

Yeah.

I think I think more people should wear masks.

Yeah.

I want to know who I should talk to and who I should not talk to.

It's like the uniform.

It's like a war, and we and you you're wearing the uniform of the combatant side.

I don't want anything to do with you if you're wearing a mask.

Yes.

Okay, number eight, give generously.

I think charity and giving both of your money and your time is really important, even if it's not the Christmas season.

But helping other people helps yourself.

One of the quickest ways to relieve depression is by finding people that are more depressed than you and helping them.

I say that tongue in cheek, but it's true.

Look for people to help that you can make a difference in their life.

And it can't help but help you in return.

If you have the wherewithal, write a check to your local church or your favorite charity.

It makes a difference, especially this time of year.

And by all means, find somebody that you can physically help and make a difference.

Friend, family, church, soup kitchen, goodwill.

I don't care, but find somebody to help.

And I think it's important.

What's your favorite charity, Mark?

The cat club.

No, I'm just kidding.

I think that's a uh a strip bar in San Francisco, actually.

That could be the kitty, the kitty cat ranch or something.

Exactly.

I think you're thinking about the bunny ranch.

The bunny ranch.

Yeah, that's in Par up, Nevada.

Okay.

I wouldn't know.

I often will donate a lot of belongings to local uh church charities around Christmas because there's a lot of um need for toys, clothing, furniture.

Yeah, and that I have a lot of things every year that accumulate that are still in excellent condition, but I just don't need them anymore.

Yeah.

And I don't want to throw them away.

And I know someone can use them, and I can get a tax deduction through the donation.

So I organize and collect all of that.

And then I make my donations often with with uh extra personal possessions that I don't really need.

It's too bad you can't get a tax donation for donating your time.

I think a lot more people would step up and uh and do that.

Um, I think they should try to add something like that into the tax code.

But yeah, donating clothes.

If you haven't worn something in over a year, you probably aren't gonna wear it, put it in a bag, go over to goodwill or whatever your favorite donation place is uh and donate it.

Or, you know, especially up in LA, less so in Orange County.

You got guys on the street with their little signs, homeless help me.

So instead of giving them money, uh hand them a jacket, hand them some clothes, hand them a uh a new shirt that they can wear if they make sure you wear goggles when you do that because they'll probably spit in your face.

That might be all right, number nine, supplement smartly.

There are supplements that can help you with stress and anxiety and so forth.

And I'm a huge fan of supplements.

There are a few that I think are important, one of which is omega-3 fatty acids or fish oil, powerfully anti-inflammatory.

The DHA and fish oil is really good for brain health.

Many of us are deficient in magnesium, so I think supplementing with magnesium is also a good idea.

B vitamins as well, be complex, and especially if you have the MTHFR mutation, then a methylated B vitamin is important.

And then what's known as adaptogens, things that really help your hormonal balance, like certain types of mushrooms like lion's mane, for example, and ashwaganda can be very helpful to help kind of quiet your nerves and help you get through the season.

Is caviar a good substitute for fish oil?

Uh if you get enough of it, I guess, yeah, you can, or sardines.

Sure, that's right, or krill.

Some people like to eat krill.

Krill are these little shrimpy things.

I'm not sure that's a good idea because it's very expensive.

And some people argue that you're eating whale food, so you're the poor whales aren't getting enough food.

So taking good supplements, and you know, earlier on, we talked about clean eating, avoiding alcohol, avoiding sugar.

I think that's really important as well.

Uh, number 10, maybe the single most important uh mechanism to get through the holiday season if you're struggling, and that is practice gratitude.

Gratitude is one of the most important and often overlooked qualities.

Anyone can practice it.

It's as simple as a notepad next to your bed, writing down one or two or three things when you go to bed or when you wake up that you're grateful for.

Looking for others that have made a difference in your life and saying thank you, especially in the work environment, your boss, your colleague, or whatever, if they've done something nice, walk up to them and say, Hey, by the way, I just wanted to say thank you for all the help that you've given me.

Gratitude and practice.

Practicing gratitude is really good for your own mental health.

It can and even if it's just little small things, I think it's important.

I try to do that.

Try to do that with my medical staff.

I try to do that with people in my life.

My loved ones, my mom who turns 91 in a couple weeks.

I try to spend as much time with her as possible because I know she's not going to be around for a long time.

So I want to spend as much time with her.

And then just say thank you to people that are in my life and let them know how important it is to me to have them in my life.

It's so nice when you tell somebody that what do you think about that, Mark?

Well, I think gratitude is the foundation for happiness.

And you can prove this quite easily by asking yourself, how many envious people have you met that are actually happy?

Not many.

Just don't see it.

Yeah.

And most philosophies or ideologies that are grounded in envy, which are basically all communal philosophies, starting with Marxism, lead to unhappiness because they are grounded in envy, which is the desire to spoil something good that you don't have.

And that's the antithesis of gratitude, uh, which is to feel a sense of um indebtedness for what you do have.

So the antidote to unhappiness to a large degree is actually gratitude.

It's certainly the foundation for it.

And without it, I don't believe that you can be happy.

It doesn't matter what you have, because having something and not being grateful for it does not lead you to feeling happy.

No question.

And social media leads to envy.

It's hard not to.

You see people living the perfect uh, you know, textbook, storybook life.

You don't see pain and drama and difficulties on social media very, very rarely.

And it's so hard.

It's like human nature to compare yourself to other people.

And social media lends itself to that.

And I think it's very destructive, uh, especially for children.

There's nothing worse than going out to dinner, and you see kids sitting around the table.

They're not talking to each other, they're all on their phone, scrolling through whatever social media.

I think it's a terrible way to raise kids.

You know, my daughter, my daughter and son-in-law were just out here, and I have a granddaughter who is now 16, 17 months old.

They flew out on Southwest.

They were very lucky to get a middle seat free.

Uh, and my daughter took some pictures, videos of their adventure.

And on the on the video was uh was Claire.

It's my granddaughter, and she's standing up and she's looking through the seats and playing peekaboo with the people behind.

And her caption was the challenges of raising a screen free child.

So they don't have an iPad, they don't watch videos on their phone, they're not watching Sesame Street at home on TV.

She doesn't watch TV, there'll be a football game on or something in the background, but they don't watch children's shows, and she's trying to raise her child without screens.

And it's so easy to do the opposite.

You get on an airplane, you put on some stupid Sesame Street show, some child show.

Of course, the kids are immediately enamored and focused on the screen, which in and of itself is really interesting and unhealthy.

Um, so it's a challenge.

And screen time, especially on social media, lends itself to envy, comparison shopping, and depression.

So take some time off of social media during the holidays.

I know, listen, I've got an addiction to social media.

I spend a lot of time doing it.

I post on Instagram, Rx for Liberty.

Um, and it's part of my persona in influencing people towards holistic health.

I remember I was out visiting my brother who lives in Dallas, and we were driving somewhere and I was doing something on my phone, and he looked over, he goes, dude, you are so addicted to your phone.

I'm like, shit, he's right.

And ever since then, I've tried to, if I go out to, if I go out to dinner with a friend or whatever, I tried to, yeah, there's a siren going by right now, and this is an emergency.

And I think uh I think this is an emergency for all of us that we need to be careful of social media.

So when I go out to dinner with a friend, I don't I leave my phone.

I don't take my phone, I'll leave it in my car, I leave it at home.

I don't need my phone for a couple hours when I'm out to dinner.

And I think taking time off social media is a healthy thing.

I'm not on social media on Sundays, so I've taken Sundays off.

I don't post, I don't scroll.

I try to stay off social media on Sundays.

And I think it's uh an important lesson to all of us.

Develop the gratitude, get rid of the envy, uh, and spend some time actually talking to people, reading a book, and not just scrolling on Instagram or Facebook.

I have been traveling overseas a lot.

And there have been times when I have been in foreign countries where there is no realistic possibility of cell phone access.

Oh, interesting.

And so the only time that I have connectivity with the internet or with cell service, I mean, whatever information comes with a phone, is when I'm in my hotel room on my computer.

Or with Wi-Fi or something.

Or with Wi-Fi if I connect to it if I'm out and about, correct.

And I find that doing that completely changes not only my habits of where my attention goes, but it also changes the way I make my plans.

I actually start to plan things out in advance, and I create more structure, and I make sure that I know where I'm gonna be or who I'm gonna be with at a certain time.

And it creates more accountability for me and accountability for others because I tell them, look, I'm gonna show up at three o'clock.

You will not be able to reach me all day.

Yeah.

And they know that.

So they can't tell me at two, you know what, we're we're gonna come by about 345 because we want to finish hosing down our lawn.

Yeah.

Now they could show up at 345, but it would look really bad.

Right.

And this is the way that life used to be before cell phones.

We would make plans, and if people were late, they looked bad.

Yeah.

Unless it was an emergency.

Yeah.

And now you can just decide at any point up to a minute before the appointment, you know, I'm just gonna text them and say I'll be 30 minutes late.

I don't even have to give a reason.

Right.

I think this is horrible.

You know, we're the last generation that will know what it was like to grow up without cell phones.

I remember when I was a kid, my dad, who is also a doctor, had one of the first car phones in his car.

The brick is a big Motorola thing that was in the car, big box in the trunk that connected it.

It was all analog.

And what you had to do is you picked up your mobile phone, you had to call a mobile operator, and you'd give the mobile operator your number, and then the mobile operator would make the call for you and connect you to whoever you needed to call.

Sound like a radio.

It was kind of like that.

Yeah, or like the old-fashioned phones, you know, from I Love Lucy, where you'd have to plug in your phone and then you talk to an operator, and the operator makes a makes a call for you.

That's what that's what it was.

And I think it was, you know, in, you know, of course, connectivity is good and you can communicate and all this and and information, but in many ways, I don't know that we're living in a better society.

I never had a cell phone growing up.

I had no way to communicate.

There were pay phones, you'd put a quarter in to make a phone call.

I'd go out of the house.

My parents didn't know where I was.

They knew who my friends were, and we'd be out until dark, and then we'd come home.

We didn't have that instant connectivity like kids do now.

And I'm not sure it's any better, and I'm not even sure it's any safer than it was when we were kids.

But the reality is kids today will never know what it's like to live and to grow up without that type of connectivity.

And I'm not sure that's a healthy thing.

I don't think it is.

I think having time in your life where people don't know where you are is very good.

Yeah.

And not being able to reach people is good.

It's similar to being out in the forest and going hiking and camping.

One of the advantages and the benefits of doing that is that there is a disconnection from everything that's not immediately around you in your environment.

Right.

So you get hyper-focused and connected with the only thing that matters, which is where you are, who you're with, and what you're touching.

Yeah.

That's it.

Isn't that nice?

It's amazing.

And it's in a completely different experience.

And it's it's so much more rich and meaningful than wandering around a city with this thing beeping and honking and uh blipping and vibrating in your pocket, and you're constantly looking to see.

Is it something I need to attend to?

Oh no, it's not something this happens everywhere we go now.

And it's it's it breaks your attention.

And I also I also think it creates a kind of chronic low-level anxiety.

I think you're right.

You always need to know what's going on.

You need to uh, you know, what's it?

FOMO, fear of missing out on something that's going on.

Um, I you know, as a matter of fact, as I'm sitting here thinking about it, I might even not just be not not just not be on social media on Sundays.

I may just turn my phone off completely.

Just not even have a cell phone on Sundays, just turn it off, put it in the charger.

You know, if I'm if I I'll make plans ahead of time, if I'm gonna do something with friends, uh, show up where I want to show up and not be available at all.

Although I can't really do that because I have a concierge practice and patients expect to be able to reach me.

Oh, it was a good idea for about 30 seconds.

Well, That's what the Orthodox Jews do.

They just shut everything off on Friday sunset and then they finish keep the Sabbath.

They do.

And I believe that when they're physicians, they have some roundabout way of being reached because it's a medical emergency.

So there's an exception for using devices and communication for that purpose.

Well, I mean, from a religious standpoint, it's allowed if you're uh if you're treating, if you're a physician or whatever, it's allowed.

You know, it's like on Yom Kippur, you're not supposed to do any kind of work, uh, et cetera, and you're fasting.

But if you're a physician and you're responsible for patients, then you're allowed to do that.

I don't I don't know.

I'll I'll figure something out, but or go on vacation where there is no cell phone access.

That'd be nice too.

I mean, think about it if you're listening to this.

When's the last time you win a week without a cell phone?

A day, let alone a week.

When's the last time you went a day without immediate instant cell phone access to anybody and everybody?

A text away or a phone call away, or scroll on Instagram to see what your friends are doing, or what's going on in the news.

It's it's not good.

I don't think it's good.

It's not good for our brain, it's not good for our psyche.

It's like information overload.

It's like a computer that's just going to, you know, you know, overheat and die.

I don't think it's a good thing.

You know what I'm wondering is if AI comes in to take over the management of our devices as an intermediary, like a butler.

Maybe I should do that.

Then you can use an AI program to block everything except for this one thing that you actually need.

Like emergency calls from the following four people should go through.

Yeah, and everything else should just go into a silent zone.

Yeah.

That's one example.

And in fact, you could even say that because we have become slaves to the devices.

Every single device we have, we spend more time on managing it than actually using it for its its intended purpose, right?

Like imagine if you had a hammer, and instead of using the hammer an hour a day to hammer nails, you spent four hours a day polishing it, shaving it down, sanding it, putting it in and out of its case, checking on it to make sure the humidity was proper, and then an hour using the hammer.

You would say, why the hell am I spending four hours a day managing my hammer?

That's what we're doing with the stupid phone.

You're right.

And the computer and the tablet and the cable TV, all of that stuff, but it's a really nice hammer.

I suppose it was a really nice hammer you can get away with it.

So here's the last bonus tip of the article.

Seek support early.

Listen, depression, anxiety, it's real.

Suicide over the holidays is a real thing.

Uh, there's nothing to be ashamed of if you are depressed and you need help.

Reach out and get help.

The avenues to get help are almost endless.

You can call your local doctor if you have a primary care doctor, if you have a psychiatrist, there are suicide hotlines.

Uh, most churches have pastors and elders that can counsel you.

It's really important to not be embarrassed and not be ashamed if you're struggling uh to reach out and get help.

There are holistic therapists, there's nutritional support, there's hormone balancing, there's all kinds of things you can do.

But if you're struggling, and it's not just something that you can holistically address with some of the ways that we've talked about, go find yourself a good therapist and uh make sure you reach out and get the help you need.

You don't want a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

And sometimes that is exactly what's going on over this Christmas holiday season.

I think that's pretty comprehensive.

Yeah, it is.

I think we're out of time.

Any last thoughts.

Sounds like you asked me if I had any last words before the execution.

Before before we kill ourselves.

Jeff's holding a gun to my head and his.

It's a double-barreled gun.

Yeah, for sure.

I think Christmas uh is a challenge inherently.

It shouldn't be, but it is.

I think you can still pull something good out of it by focusing on religious aspects, on community, on giving, on generosity.

Think of Christmas not as a time for effortless comfort and fun, but as an opportunity to grow and to challenge yourself.

I try to do that with Christmas because it seems like whenever I just let it happen and I don't make an effort to organize and plan what I need to do to overcome some of my own limitations in my relationship with Christmas.

I wind up feeling sad, resentful, frustrated, and disappointed.

And so I set my expectations very concretely and very reasonably to have, let's say, a good conversation with someone that I don't normally see over Christmas or I have a bad time with to make sure that I uh buy a thoughtful gift for one or two people before it becomes too late.

So let's say an experiential gift, or I call the pickup to have my things donated.

So I feel like I'm doing a good deed, and I get my garage cleaned out for new year.

And if you do just a few of those things and you organize them and plan them, it does make a huge difference.

And you wind up feeling like, okay, Christmas is over.

It's the beginning of the year, and it actually was reasonably pleasant.

Yeah, it improves your mood.

Yeah.

So set your sights and your bar at a reasonably low level and don't expect the stars because that's not what Christmas is about, actually.

For sure.

It's not the point of the holiday anyway.

No, it's not about shopping and gift giving, it's really about the religious part of it.

So learn about that, embrace that.

And uh, we hope.

I don't know if this is the last episode before Christmas.

I think we will probably have another one before that, but just in case we don't wish you all a merry Christmas and uh appreciate you listening to Informed Descent.

Send us your comments, your feedback, other topics you want us to talk about.

If you're interested in sponsoring, we're always looking for new sponsors and would love to have you.

We take Bitcoin, Bitcoin, gold, chocolate, uh, whatever whatever you want to donate, we're happy to take.

Extra shares in your Gulf Stream jet.

Yes.

Experiences.

You've got a home in Aspen that you want to donate.

Uh, we will record a podcast from there.

All right, Mark, until next time.

Thanks for coming down.

Merry Christmas.

You've been listening to informed dissent with Dr.

Jeff Barkey, board certified primary care physician, and Dr.

Mark McDonald, board certified child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist.

Informed dissent, the intersection of health care and politics.