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Align Podcast

Ginger Zee: Destigmatizing Mental Health And Discovering How The Weather Relates To Our Moods | EP 409

Align Podcast

Aaron Alexander

Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.8923 Ratings

🗓️ 22 September 2022

⏱️ 64 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Have you ever asked yourself what effect the weather can really have on our moods? In this episode of Align podcast, Ginger Zee and I discuss the negative connotations surrounding mental health and the effects this can have on someone who is struggling with a mental disorder. Ginger shares her own personal experience with suicide and what we can do to create a better future for ourselves. We also talk about the similarities between our minds and the weather, how climate relates to our moods and find out what the real definition of a storm actually is.  Ginger Zee is the chief meteorologist at ABC News, reporting on the nation’s weather for “Good Morning America” and across ABC News broadcasts and digital platforms. Additionally, Zee is the managing editor of the climate unit at ABC News. Since joining ABC News, Zee has covered almost every major weather event and dozens of historic storms. She broadcasted from the devastated Jersey Shore during Hurricane Sandy, the Colorado floods and wildfires, and covered the aftermath of tornadoes in Moore and El Reno, Oklahoma. In 2018, she was in the eye wall of Category 5 Hurricane Michael live in the Florida Panhandle and in the 2020 hurricane season, Zee told the stories of devastation from the record number of named storms. From the epic bushfires in Australia to Boston blizzards and record-breaking heat in Death Valley, Zee is there to warn and show the impacts including the relationship to climate change. Zee’s passion does not stop with storm chasing. Her love of adventure has taken her and ABC News viewers across the world.  She has gone para-hawking in Nepal, flown a drone into the fissure of a volcano in Iceland, hiked the largest cave in the world in Vietnam, para-glided from the Himalayas to the Andes, dove with sharks in the Bahamas, rappelled 27 stories down the exterior façade of the Wit Hotel in Chicago, explored the 275 waterfalls of Iguazú Falls in Argentina and talked climate change on the edge of Victoria Falls in Africa. Plus, skydiving, ice boat racing and surfing live on “GMA.” Prior to joining ABC News, she was a meteorologist at NBC station WMAQ-Channel 5 in Chicago from 2006-2011, also filling in for several NBC and MSNBC News programs. Before that assignment, Zee worked at WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she part of the Storm Team 8, also covering the environment, science and the impact of weather throughout West Michigan. From 2003-2005, Zee worked at WEYI NBC 25 in Flint, Michigan. She began her career at WLAV FM/ WXMI in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Zee, who has storm chased since college, has a genuine passion for the atmosphere and a dedication to getting young people interested in science. Zee is the author of a trilogy for 8-12 year-olds called “Chasing Helicity.” She is also the author of two bestselling memoirs, “Natural Disaster” and “A Little Closer to Home,” which feature Zee’s life and mental health journey. Additionally, Zee and her husband, Ben Aaron, starred in “Renovation Realities: Ben & Ginger” on DIY Network. Zee is the co-host of Hearts of Heroes on ABC Saturday’s, highlighting the natural disasters she knows so well from the first responder and hero's point of view. The Emmy Award-winning meteorologist attended Valparaiso University and holds a Bachelor of Science in meteorology. She also served as an adjunct professor at the University from 2008-2011. Zee also holds the CBM Seal for Meteorology. Thank you to our sponsors: Colima Salt: Claim a free bag of salt on your first order - just pay shipping! Just go to: alignsalt.com BiOptimizers: Use code ALIGN10 during checkout to save 10% on Mag... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome back to the Aline podcast. My name is Aaron Alexander and this is a place that we bring

0:05.7

together in the world's leading experts in all things, health and wellness to help you optimize

0:09.6

your mind, body, and movement. Today's guest is a little different and then the standard.

0:17.4

It is one of the world's most renowned meteorologists on this sweet planet of ours,

0:24.2

referred to as Ginger Z. I greatly value Ginger's existence on this planet. Not only is she an

0:30.8

Emmy award-winning meteorologist. She also is, she's just a very kind, empathetic, compassionate human being that is going through a ton of her own process.

0:45.4

She was suicidal multiple times.

0:47.6

She has herself checked into a mental health hospital when things were especially hard for her.

0:53.7

And she has done a ton of really brilliant work around normalizing conversation of mental health.

1:01.1

And looking at, this is something I find very interesting, like looking at, say, like

1:05.9

homelessness, seeing people in the streets that are mentally unstable or ill. I think if someone has a broken leg

1:16.6

and someone was laying in the street with a broken leg, you would very obviously want to help that person.

1:22.5

You'd say you need to get to a hospital. You say, we need to address this thing. There's internal

1:27.1

bleeding. We need to sort this out

1:28.7

right now. Our culture is not really equipped or designed to be able to tend to people that have an

1:39.6

injury within their mind or their consciousness. And so I think that Ginger Z being, she's got like

1:46.2

over a million followers on the Instagram, she's a very large platform. She's on Good Morning America.

1:53.4

She's ABC's main meteorologist. She's done some crazy stuff. Like all of her, her bio is like just absolutely ridiculous.

2:03.1

And she's bringing light to this conversation of mental health, which I think is invaluable.

2:09.6

And we get in this conversation, we talk about the weather, we talk about climate, we talk about what weather is in the first place.

2:16.6

It's an interesting question.

2:18.4

I'm here just ask the question like, what is weather? What is heat? What is rain? What is a tornado?

...

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