Cultivating Joy with Jamie Belz

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:11] Speaker B: What'S worthwhile healing Mind, body and spirit. I'm Ramsey Zimmerman. I choose peace of mind, vitality of body and joy of spirit over stress, exhaustion, or overwhelm. Together, let's explore and pursue the many ways to build holistic health and wellness. [00:00:31] Speaker A: A state that's really cultivated through, as you said, like the alignment of. Of body, mind and spirit. And we've heard this. You know, there is the, the spiritual connection here that is really important because I don't believe that you can be fully joyful unless you have all three of those, including the spiritual side. And we're going to talk a little bit about how do we. How do we do that? Because the world's crazy. We've got hustle culture and the political spectrum, and there's just a lot. There's so much dis. Ease in the world today, especially in the United States. The stats are staggering and so sad, as is our standard American diet. And so there are a lot of things that can bog us down, drag us down. [00:01:17] Speaker B: Hey there. [00:01:18] Speaker C: It's Ramsey here. [00:01:19] Speaker B: That was Jamie Bells. Jamie is the nutritional therapy and wellness podcast voice for the Nutritional Therapy association, or nta, where I'm currently getting my certification. I jumped at the chance to share the mic with Jamie in a collaboration to talk about ways to find lasting joy through practical ways of thinking, living and eating. We talked about how it seems like people are all stressed out, exhausted and overwhelmed. How natural whole foods keep us going throughout the day, and how stress reduction, joyful movement, and quality sleep bring us peace. This episode is a great combo of big picture philosophical advice and practical daily suggestions. I think Jamie's got it going on and I think you will too. Let's jump right in. [00:02:07] Speaker A: Thank you so much for joining me today. Ramsey Zimmerman with what's worthwhile? The podcast host meets podcast host me. I'm Jamie Bells and I'm the host of the nutritional therapy and wellness podcast. And we had this idea, we must do a podcast together. And so here we are. [00:02:27] Speaker C: Yeah, this is like when universes collide. You know, this, like, smash into each other and you know what happens afterwards? Who knows? [00:02:35] Speaker A: Yes. Amazingness. That's what it is. It's so I looked it up because I didn't know that this was a thing. And it is a thing to. When two podcast hosts come together for one that we're going to each publish on our own channels. It is called a crossover episode or a swapcast. And so that's what this is right here, right now. [00:02:57] Speaker C: Very cool. My first swapcast. [00:03:00] Speaker A: Thank you for co piloting this with me. I super appreciate it. It's been a learning experience already. We won't get into that, but I would love for you to introduce yourself, please, Ramsay, so that my audience on the nutritional therapy and wellness podcast will be familiar with who you are. [00:03:18] Speaker C: Yes. Hello, I'm Ramsey. So started the what's Worthwhile podcast you in 2024 and just was really looking for the next thing and was going through a period of my life where I was asking myself that question, what's worthwhile? Because there's just so many competing interests and I didn't know what I wanted to do with the rest of my life and started asking that question, pursued a lot of interests of my own and really kind of came to the conclusion that what I was really interested in was all of these mind, body, spirit connections and health and wellness in particular, and launched off into a, you know, new career direction and got involved in the 12 month nutritional therapy practitioner program through the Nutritional Therapy association, the nta, and ran into this crazy lady, Jamie Bells, who is like, kind of like the unofficial voice of the nta. But Jamie, what have you got going on? [00:04:24] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much. I. So I went through the nutritional therapy practitioner program in 2016 and I have a crazy path leading up to that and how I found the nta. But. But I did the program. It absolutely revolutionized my life. That's not an exaggerated statement. That's why I'm back working for the nta because I'm like, the whole world needs to know how amazing this information is. And so I've been. I was in private practice for. For a couple of years and then covet hit and all that stuff happened and then. And now here I am. So I'm back. I get the. This incredible privilege of hosting the podcast for the nta and I also serve as our business development specialist. My husband and I are in Minnesota. We've got five kids that we're chasing all over the map all the time. And that's. [00:05:17] Speaker C: So it's very quiet at your house? [00:05:19] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. Super, super quiet. Yeah. Low mileage on all of her vehicles. It's great. Great. Yeah. [00:05:27] Speaker C: Right, right. [00:05:28] Speaker A: Yes. [00:05:28] Speaker C: Sure. [00:05:29] Speaker A: Okay. So when we were talking about what episode, like, what do we want to do? What do we want to talk about? I had just watched a clip from the movie Meet Joe Black and. And there's a part in that movie where Anthony Hopkins wants his daughter to accept experience. What was it, Ramsey? What was the word? Delirious. [00:05:47] Speaker C: Deliriously happy. [00:05:50] Speaker A: Deliriously happy. And, and. And this sparked this entire conversation. And because I loved that, I'm like, yes, like, just be so happy. But when we break down the definitions of the words and such, we landed on instead, rather than going with the fleeting side of happiness, really truly bringing it to being joyful and what it means to be joyful, and how do we get there and then how do we maintain that status? [00:06:20] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And I think of joy differently from happiness. Like, I think of happiness as something that you chase and you pursue, but joyfulness, I think, is something a lot deeper and something that sticks with us. And so, you know, happiness, you can chase after it. It's very fleeting and sort of. You do all the quick and easy kinds of things to try to. To get happy. But to become joyful, I think you really need to sort of do some things in. In life. And it has. And it speaks to, you know, what you think and how you feel and, you know, that whole mind, body, spirit thing. So it's definitely something that I, you know, would have a good time unpacking. [00:07:07] Speaker A: Yes, yes. And it is, it's the, you know, it's a state that's really cultivated through, as you said, like the alignment of. Of body, mind and spirit. And we've heard this. You know, there is the, the spiritual connection here that is really important because I don't believe that you can be fully joyful unless you have all three of those, including the spiritual side. And, and that's. Since I was a little girl, we sang the. Got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart Right. And this little light of mine I'm going to let it shine. We got to go with that one too, because both of those are like great theme songs for life is to. To. To do it that way. And we're going to talk a little bit about how do we. How do we do that? Because the world's crazy. We've got hustle culture and the political spectrum. And, and, and there's just a lot. There's so much dis. Ease in the world today, especially in the United. Are staggering and so sad, as is our standard American Diet acronym. Seems fitting. S A D. And so there are a lot of things that can bog us down, drag us down and. And really put a wet blanket over that little light. So, So I think that this is a great topic to talk about. What does it mean to experience joy fully through our. Our foundations of wellness as kind of the. The source code here. Let's go there and. And talk about what it is. How can we experience abundant joy in this life, Ramsey? So where do you want to start? [00:08:48] Speaker C: Well, why don't we start with what it isn't or start with what we have now instead of joy? Because I feel like what we have now is we're basically all stressed out and exhausted and overwhelmed and, you know, potentially lost. [00:09:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:07] Speaker C: And so, you know, you start with. With those things. What are you going to do with that? Because it's part of that whole, I think you mentioned already, like, hustle and bustle kind of culture that we have. But that's. That's not really where we should end up. But instead, you know, we should be seeking things like peace and vitality and joy and purpose. [00:09:29] Speaker A: Yes. [00:09:30] Speaker C: And so there's. There's lots of ways to do that. That's not. Obviously, that's not an easy thing to get, but, you know, there are many ways that we can start to find those things, I guess, you know, a piece at a time. [00:09:44] Speaker A: I love that. I love that. The idea of. Of just honestly being intentional in this space period. I feel like so many of us are so distracted and we're just crashing through life with one day after another without intentionality. It's like you wake up, your alarm goes off in the morning, and you wake up and grab your phone and potentially check email, check calendars, check whatever. And it's like we're already on the conveyor belt through to the next morning, and not a whole lot of thought goes into what happens between alarm and alarm. But if we approach life with intentionality, who am I going to be today? How am I going to show up for myself, my family, my career, for, you know, God, that's. That's. I'm always like, hey, God, who do you help me be? Who you want me to be today, Please. You know, I think that that's. That's one of the biggest things, is don't get so distracted that you can't be intentional, be intentional, live each day with purpose. And, you know, and that goes for all of it. It goes to. And we talk about, you know, the foundations of health as we. As we move through this episode, because I want to hit on all of the. The different foundations which, as they're taught through the Nutritional Therapy association, our foundations of health are digestion, because we have to be digesting the food that we're eating. We're eating the healthiest diet in the world for our bio. Individual selves. But we're not digesting it well to where we're actually breaking it down to be able to assimilate it. That's a problem. So we need to optimize digestion. We need to focus on, as I mentioned, that nutri nutrient dense diet. We need to be getting the right foods in for our unique bio individ bio individual selves. Meaning there's no one size fits all approach to anything. We need to make sure that our blood sugar regulation is on point. We need to be sleeping, we need quality sleep, not just quantity. You know, the eight hours of sleep per day status quo that we set for ourselves. Yet it seems like nobody's actually hitting that. But we need to be making sure that we're getting good quality sleep. We want to be reducing stress as a whole. And that's all the stressful inputs. It's the stress that you think about like you know, conflicts and pressures from work and the go, go go and financial constraints and all of, all of that. But it's furthermore, you know, a lot of physical stress is put on our bodies too from the toxins in the world, the foods that we're eating, medications, we're taking lots of different stressful inputs. And so stress management is really important when we're looking at the foundations of health. And then also, and I will say joyful movement, not just for this episode, I actually say that all the time because I do think that there's a big difference between moving your body with joy versus grinding through a workout because that's what you're supposed to do. So we'll, we'll, we'll kind of talk about all of these things as we move through this episode. But to circle back to the intentionality, it's like you wake up in the morning and, and what do you do when. Well hopefully you decided that the night before when you went to bed. Right. So if I'm going to bed, I'm looking at how many hours do I have to sleep? Because sleep is more important than gym time. I know that. And so as I'm going to bed, I set my alarm to get up in the morning. And when that alarm goes off, feet on the floor and you're out the door, gotta be, otherwise you know, you'll never go to the gym. If you let yourself decide first thing in the morning whether you're going to the gym or not, you will never ever go to the gym. And I think that first thing in the morning, right out of the gate, worst time ever to be making life changing decisions. You can't do that. [00:13:35] Speaker C: Does your alarm clock have a snooze? Button or did you deactivate it? Like, did you just, like, rip the snooze button out of the alarm clock? [00:13:43] Speaker A: No, I have. I. Because I use my phone. I know I shouldn't, but I do. I use my phone as my alarm and. And I have it set at a specific time and then I have another alarm set for minutes after. So in the event that I even do snooze. [00:13:59] Speaker C: Built in snooze alarm. [00:14:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Because what I do is I wake up and I. I don't look at my phone, I turn off my snooze. And as I'm kind of groggy and right there, like, I start praying first thing in the morning, I'm like, all right, let's have a conversation about where we're going and what we're doing today. [00:14:17] Speaker C: Well, that's good. And I also my. I put my phone across the room so I have to get out of bed to turn it off. But I guess, you know, the point is that nobody's perfect. And it's like, you know, to. To say that you're gonna be that disciplined every single morning. You know, good luck with that. But it's definitely better to make that decision the night before because, you know, you wake up at 4:00 in the morning. 4:00 clock in the morning. God, 6:00 clock in the morning, if I'm lucky. And you know, I'm not the same person the first 10, 20 seconds. I would much rather make decisions based on the person the night before who was, you know, responsible. Yeah, maybe. [00:14:57] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think the discipline that comes along with that, Ramsey, is really important that, you know, it's intentionality and discipline. It's like, it's the same amount of work, it's the same amount of thought putting, you know, being put into everything. But are you doing it the day before so that I know what I'm cooking tomorrow, I know where I'm going tomorrow, I know what I'm doing tomorrow, what am I eating, and, you know, what do I have time for as far as movement is concerned? Those types of things being decided, you know, it's kind of like kids getting their clothes out for school the night before. It's like that, like getting up and setting your gym clothes out for the next morning is one step in the right direction to actually making it to the gym. And, you know, and so. So I think that, like, planning tomorrow today is one really great way of being able to kind of free some of those stressors. You feel good going to bed the night before because it's like I've got my day lined out ahead of me. And again, it's actually a lot easier to just figure it out one day in advance rather than flying by the seat of your pants and trying to figure out like, oh my gosh, I need to find lunch from a convenience store now. Because I didn't plan for this. Like, we know we're going to want food. [00:16:07] Speaker C: Like that's a given, at least for me. [00:16:10] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, let's think about that in advance. Or is it a fasting day? That's fine, as long as there's some thought that's put into it, some discipline behind it. But intentionality is key. All right, let's talk about this side of things. [00:16:25] Speaker C: Yeah, let's talk about food side things. You know, food is interesting. It's, it seems like the, the message that I've been getting from all of these studies with nutrition is that we just need to go back to eating how people ate before. You know, we started just industrial manufacturing of food in factories. [00:16:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:48] Speaker C: You know, it used to be fact farming. Now it's just straight up factory manufacturing. So it seems like the, the answer in food is to eat the way that our ancestors ate and to eat whole foods in that are the least amount of processed. Instead of the really glitzy, shiny, food coloring, full blazed neon food that we have now. There's a great term called hyper palatability. Ooh, hyper palatability. What's that? Oh, that's something that tastes amazing because it's sweet and salty and fatty like and hot and spicy all at the same time. Did you know that's a human invention? Like basically nothing in nature tastes all of those ways at the same time. But, you know, that's what we manufactured in food. And oh, we'll just go ahead and do that because then people will buy more of it and eat more of it and oh, here's a bonus. It doesn't make you full. [00:17:48] Speaker A: Yes, yes. [00:17:50] Speaker C: Well, that's helpful to the people selling the food. Yeah, to you. [00:17:55] Speaker A: When I was in Vegas a few years ago, I realized that there was this massive. It wasn't the Bellagio. I don't know, it's one of the big beautiful buildings right on the strip. And I looked closely, I'm like, oh my goodness, that's crazy. It was like they were doing construction, but they don't want the strip to be ugly. And, you know, that's an eye sort of scaffolding all the way up this big building. And so they had this massive tarp over the side of it that actually just looked like. I think it was the Venetian perhaps, but. But it just looked like the building itself. [00:18:26] Speaker C: But it was this massive screen printed. The building. [00:18:29] Speaker A: Yeah, they literally. Yes, exactly. And so it just looks like a building, but they're scaffolding behind it and everything. And I feel like that's where our food is now. It's like. It looks like food. [00:18:39] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:18:40] Speaker A: But it is not sort of. It is not food. It is a food facade. [00:18:44] Speaker C: Food facade, yes. And then, I mean, the other thing about food is that there's some really good food to eat that is natural and you can eat it and be really happy eating it. So, you know, I'm. I enjoy beef. I eat lots of beef. But, you know, hey. And. And things like red meat. You know, when we were, you know, younger. When I was younger, back in my day, they used to tell us that, you know, as long, oh, you just need to be fat free and, you know, can't eat that fat, can't have saturated fat. But of course, they didn't say anything about the mountains of sugar that were in the food. And so it's really, you know, really what we need to be eating is basing our diets around protein and then adding healthy fats, hopefully like omega 3 fatty acids and things like that and carbohydrates kind of as needed or as, you know, we like for our diets, but not be, you know, afraid of things like fat, because it's actually not necessarily bad for you. You know, like that we get all kinds of crazy health messages and many of those are distorted. So it's good to be able to sort of sort through those things. [00:20:08] Speaker A: Yeah, you're absolutely right. And a great rule of thumb, and it's the common sense approach. It's like, eat it as close to the way you found it as nature in nature as possible, and understand that there are certain things that make food taste good. And I think it's awesome we have taste buds because we're supposed to enjoy the flavor of food. But furthermore, we have this innate intelligence in us that helps us to know what it is that we are supposed to eat. We see it with animals. So you see an animal in nature walk up to a plant and it might sniff it, maybe taste it, and it'll either eat it or it'll move on and sniff and taste and eat something else. Right. We see dogs eating grass. That's not a natural food for dogs, but they have an innate intelligence about them that shows them like, you should eat this because you need it right now, you know, for their digestion. So we have that same incredible innate intelligence in us, but it's just been completely, completely bastardized by all of the chemicals in our food. We have over 10,000 industrially produced chemicals that the FDA says, two enthusiastic thumbs up. There's nothing to see here. It's perfectly fine. [00:21:07] Speaker C: But I generally regarded as safe. [00:21:09] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Ask your doctor. Oh my gosh, don't get me started. Anyway, but here's the thing. The things that naturally make food taste good. Fat. Fat makes things taste good, period. Sugar. Sugar, sweetness. That makes things taste good. Salt makes things taste good. Spices and seasonings make things taste good. And in nature. Let's think about that. So obviously we should be eating fat. And animal fats are really good. We get fats from nuts and seeds, lots of different sources of fats in the world, but only eat the fats that are actually found in nature. We don't want anybody eating Franken fats. Those gunk up your hormones and cells and all that. Second. When it comes to sugar, sugar isn't found in nature in its own. Like, you know, we have. I mean, we can do things with honey and maple syrup, but the amount. I forget what it is, but the amount of like, what you would have to do to actually get an overload of cane sugar, like, it's. It's crazy how much the concentrated sugars have just completely blown our taste buds out of the water as far as being able to. To really, like, we're not supposed to be eating sugar concentrates with fruit. It has the fiber intact. And you talked about carbs before, but. So it's like carefully selected carbs are very important. You want to make sure that if you're eating carbohydrates, they have the fiber intact and. [00:22:44] Speaker C: Yeah, like actual berries. [00:22:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:47] Speaker C: Eating actual berries. [00:22:48] Speaker A: Yep. And the last meat. [00:22:50] Speaker C: They're delicious. They have fiber. [00:22:51] Speaker A: I'll mention on that is is with the salt. Sodium bombs from prepackaged food. Avoid that. That's what the doctors are talking about when they say avoid sodium. That's what we mean is like, you know, 2,000 milligrams of sodium in one little package of something that you're gonna nuke in your microwave before you eat it. Don't do that. But when it comes to sea salt, salt is actually really important. And we need salt for our bodies. And so. So getting good sources of these things, they're not bad. They're great. They make food taste good. They're found in nature and enjoy them as close to the way that they're found in nature as possible. And if you are eating something that's missing all of those things, if it's fat free, sugar free, low sodium, you gotta think, and what is it? Cause if it still tastes good after that, it's probably just a chemical storm. [00:23:43] Speaker C: Well, it gets back to that notion of chasing happiness versus finding joy in the sense that, you know, those sugary drinks might make you happy for a few seconds, but the, the healthy food is going to make you joyful in the long term. And, you know, let's talk a little bit about some other things too. Let's talk about like stress reduction and movement because, you know, we're all just dealing with stress kind of all the time. And it seems like when you have stress coming at you, you know, sometimes you can reduce your sources of stress, but sometimes you can't because they're just part of life. So what do you think, Jamie? So what are some of your go to stress reduction strategies or stress dealing with strategies? [00:24:32] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I, I will. I'm going to kind of bring in the stress reduction and the movement into this response because I used to like kill it in the gym every morning. I put myself through these intense workouts and then I did crossfit for a little bit and I just reached a point in my life where I'm like, okay, this is no longer serving me well or my poor adrenal glands. And so I've kind of switched over to, to joyful movement, whether that's yoga. I love yoga now. I've better flexibility now than I've ever had before. And I'm. I'm really appreciating going to yoga classes and Pilates classes and allowing an instructor. I go to the yoga. It doesn't always have to be super expensive to do that kind of stuff. It's. I go to our YMCA and they have free classes and that's what I do. And it's awesome because I show up and somebody tells me what to do, and I get to leave an hour later feeling accomplished and joyful and with, you know, some reduced stress. But I think that finding some peaceful movement, finding movement that brings you joy can be a really great stress reducer. And that can be gardening, that can be running, that can be walking, that can be getting out on the water in a canoe or on a paddleboard or, you know, whatever. I think bringing joyful movement into your life, that's one of my favorite stress reduction techniques. What about you? [00:25:55] Speaker C: Yeah, I'M right there with you. I'm doing a lot of running these days. I'm training for a half marathon coming up in a. [00:26:03] Speaker A: Is that bringing the stress down or does that, like. Does running bring you joy, Ramsey? [00:26:08] Speaker C: Running does actually bring me joy. The thing about running is that when you do enough of it, you get to a space in the middle where you've, you know, you're warmed up, and then you can just get into this really Zen kind of place. And, you know, your thinking is great. You can listen to podcasts like ours, I mean, other great podcasts. And, you know, as your. Your body is working through that. So, yeah, I really love running it. It's definitely a great way to do it, but you have to sort of get to that place, all right, and then you got to get rest afterwards. Like, that's the other thing about stress and stress reduction is working through that stuff and then creating spaces afterwards where you can kind of come down and calm down and, you know, find the right way and the right time and the right environment for sleep, you know, and getting good quality sleep has a lot of factors in terms of kind of what you do leading up to when you go to bed, and also sort of how, you know, your space is laid out. Like, what do you think about that stuff? What are some of the ways that we can get good sleep? [00:27:27] Speaker A: Yeah, so it's really important. So melatonin is a very. It's, like, completely known as far as, like, everybody's heard of melatonin, and everybody associates it with sleep, but melatonin is actually something that is really. It's really beneficial to the body, fights against a lot of the things that we want it to be fighting against, and promotes a lot of the things that we want it to be promoting. And so. So that's a whole episode on its own, so I'll leave it at that. But your body produces melatonin in complete darkness. And so really making sure that you do an audit of your sleep space to ensure that it's the right temperature, it's the right darkness, we want as much darkness as possible. So we're producing that melatonin. Even. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but even if you have electronics in your room, you know, covering up the lights that are the power lights and those types of things, blackout curtains are really good, especially this time of year. But I'd actually love to kick it back to you, because while we're talking about making sure that we have our. Our sleep. Oh, by the way, put your phones on like turn em off, put em across the room, put em on airplane mode at minimum. Because we want to make sure that we're not just soaking in the, the EMFs while we're sleeping, besides. But I wanna, but I wanna kick it back to you cause I mentioned the blackout curtains, but let's talk a little bit about the stress reduction and the just being within the, the rhythm of nature and living with nature while we're living in the world that we live in. Talk a little bit, Ramsey, about getting up with the light and circadian rhythms. [00:29:11] Speaker C: Well, yeah, I mean these days we could spend our whole lives like not having a connection to what's happening outdoors. You know, we might not have windows or our windows might be closed or you know, some of us work remotely, right. So we might be working in a completely different time zone like on the other side of the world. But the best thing to be able to connect with nature actually is to get sunlight, natural sunlight in our eyes. And I'm not saying look at the sun because that's a great way to cause corneal damage, but I mean like being outdoors and even looking down, but having your eyes open, you can get the sun in your eyes. And you know, first the, the daylight in the morning, it's, it's a different frequency. It has a lot of that blue light in it. And that'll wake you up. That, that's a great way to wake up, especially if you have a sunny region. But here in the Pacific Northwest and we're lucky if we get sun. But, but even if you get outdoors, that does the thing. And then also just that at that sort of end of the day, at dusk, you know, the sunlight is a much more kind of a red hint to it. You know, you've got like the, what is it? The golden hour, which is perfect for photography. You know, that light in your eyes will calm you down. But then in terms of like these, the devices that we mentioned, if you don't turn off like the blue, then you know, your screens that you're looking at, if you're looking at that late at night, it's just kicking your eyes right back with that like morning sun kind of frequencies. And that'll throw you off. So you definitely benefit from getting out. And then getting outdoors is great for exercise, it's great for fresh air. Outdoor air quality in most cases is much better than indoor air quality. And you know, there's a lot of value to getting up and walking around, even if it's just, you know, short bursts throughout the day. It gets your, your blood flowing and keeps things moving in from a digestive perspective. And yeah, so getting up, getting out. [00:31:25] Speaker A: Blood sugar regulation too. That's. We don't, it's so crazy because we kind of segment all these different things off in their own parks. But, but really when we, when we talk about like circadian rhythm, for instance, you get up in the morning and our bodies are far more intelligent than what our brains are processing. And so we have to remember that as I mentioned, with like the innate intelligence when it comes to eating foods and the foods that you crave are, are likely for. And I'm going to give a caveat on that, that if you're craving chocolate, I've been told before that that's a very. Well, it's been documenting that perhaps you need some of the, the components of that. So like perhaps magnesium is something that you're, you actually are craving and need. Or like if you're craving macaroni and cheese, you probably don't actually need the macaroni and cheese, but your body has associated that with protein intake. And so you actually need some proteins and some healthy fats. And, and it's really, it's tough because we've, we've kind of gone off into this like I mentioned, it's like the chemicals of the world have confused our brains. But there are some things that our bodies are really in. Tuned with, with still. And if we pour into that and be intentional about honoring that piece of it, like with our circadian rhythm. So when our bodies are just waking up in the morning, those melatonin levels that we've been producing all night, like those levels are coming down and our cortisol levels are going up as we're adventuring into the day and we're waking up and, and most of the time we don't give our bodies enough time to actually make that adjustment. Instead it's like, like the alarm is going, kids have to get out the door. Let's go, let's go, let's go. Or you know, and, and it's just like, you know, like I pick, I hear like the bugle of the military, you know, like, up and out and go, go, go. And instead it's like, instead of chugging that coffee on your way out because you're not functional without the coffee, it's like, give yourself a second. I mean, if you get up five minutes earlier and just go outside and look, you know, look at this. It sounds super weird, like, like crazy, whatever, but, but for real, like go outside and Just experience nature. Allow your body and your brain to wake up, to go from sleeping, to transition into being awake and. [00:33:48] Speaker C: And take off your shoes and socks and actually, like, put your feet in the grass and connect to the earth. [00:33:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:56] Speaker C: But, you know, before we start wrapping up this episode, I do want to kind of mention one more kind of big topic, which is the role of connecting with other people and with a higher power. Because we. We've been talking a lot about individual stuff, but I think that when we're looking at being joyful, it's. It's really important to. It's important to reach out and connect with other people. And I think part of finding that inner joy that lasts is understanding kind of our place in the universe and how we're connected to the people around us and how we're connected with God and, you know, and it's not just the people. It's not just our family, it's not just our friends. It's not just the people who think like us. I think it's really important, too, to reach out to people who think differently from us, who have different perspectives, who don't see the world exactly the way that we do. Because our. Ultimately, I think joy and peace comes from understanding truth. And, you know, no one has a complete grasp on truth. Truth is big, and truth is complicated, and truth is nuanced. And the. The best way that we can really understand truth is to get as many perspectives as we can, to ask lots of questions and to think it through and to look at, you know, evidence and, and look at. And. And match that up against what we already know and match that up with our discernment. And that. That journey of exploration and being open to understanding what's really going on, that leads us to having peace of mind and joy. And. And then when we're able to honestly express that, that's when, you know, we can lead kind of full lives. And so when I think about this whole question of how do we find joy that lasts instead of happiness that we chase and it's fleeting, I think that's a big part of it. Part of it is learning and understanding what's true and what's real and connecting with all of the people around us. [00:36:16] Speaker A: I like all of that. Ramsey, I'm glad that you brought that up. And they're there. There's a whole lot that we could unpack. There'd be a whole episode on its own. But one of the things that we say at the NTA all the time is that we don't Want to be right, we want to get it right. And I think there's a lot to be said for that mindset and approaching life in that way of understanding that, you know, everybody has a slightly different vantage point. Right. I was a past life, paying off student loans, debt. I was a 911 operator in Juneau, Alaska. And I, I will tell you that there can be three different people on scene who witness the exact same thing, and they each have a different story. And our stories are what make us who we are, but they also can impede our ability to see things from others perspectives. When this is my truth and these are, you know, this is my package of my bio, individual life experiences. And so I'm sensitive about that, but love this. And, and, and I think that, you know, there's kind of a kumbaya that can be had in all of this and the, the, you know, the togetherness of really trying to push forward, especially in this time when we have big political things that are happening, big spiritual things that are happening right now. It's really cool. It's a great time to be alive. And there's a lot of hopefulness to be had. And I think seeking out the commonality with each other in that community, we have a lot more in common than we do have differences. And so, so really, you know, looking at life with excitement and trying to understand things that we don't understand. We don't know what you don't know. And so it's always being on the lookout to learn something new and have new experiences and, and just keep learning. And then whatever it is that you learn that has positively impacted your life, please do share that forward with as many people as you can, because that's how, that's how bigger changes happen faster. And so I really thank you so much, Ramsey. [00:38:14] Speaker C: Well, new experiences like this one, being on each other's podcasts at the same time, this was, this was a lot of fun. So Jamie, how can, how can people find you online? How can they learn more? How can they get connected with you? [00:38:28] Speaker A: Yeah, so nutritional therapy and wellness podcast is the number one place. I'll put some links and then I'll send them to you to put on your side as well in the episode description and you do the same back. We'll put some links so we can cross promote and do all these wonderful things that, that we are to do. And, and so our listeners on this side can learn what's worthwhile and, and years on that side can, can come on over and learn some things from the perspective of the Foundations of Health as taught through the Nutritional Therapy Association. [00:39:00] Speaker C: Yes. And you can find the what's Worthwhile podcast on all of your favorite podcast platforms. And you can find more@what's worthwhile.net and you can find me on social media places like Instagram and X and LinkedIn. All the good places. So this was fun. We'll have to do this again. Thanks a lot. [00:39:21] Speaker A: Yes, thank you so much, Ramsey. And thank you for listening today. We look forward to hearing you on both sides, both podcasts, or to seeing you, talking to you, being with you wherever you're at and listening today. I thank you for being here with us. [00:39:37] Speaker C: Where to Go from here? [00:39:38] Speaker B: Visit whatsworthwild.net to learn more about About Me, Ramsey Zimmerman and please reach out to me and let me know what you think. I don't want this podcast to be some message in a bottle thrown out to sea. I want to hear back from you. Please send me a message or an email or hit me up on X, LinkedIn or Instagram. And please leave a rating and review for the what's Worthwhile podcast on Apple. [00:40:01] Speaker C: Spotify, Iheart or Amazon. [00:40:04] Speaker A: Thank you, Sam.