Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] What's worthwhile to consume, consider, believe, say and do towards peace of mind, vitality of body, and joy of spirit. I'm Ramsey Zimmerman. Here's some more healthy living, motivation and discussion.
[00:00:31] Hey there, it's Ramsay here.
[00:00:34] Would you like a sample of my book? Tell you what, I'll read you the introduction. If you like it, please hop on over to Amazon.com and download the PDF for only 99 cents.
[00:00:46] All I ask is that you please please leave an honest review and rating on Amazon.
[00:00:52] That is the single best way for others to find the book when they're searching for solutions to managing their stress. And to let others know that you like the book. I haven't created a full audio version of the book, but maybe I will if I hear back that you enjoyed listening to the introduction.
[00:01:10] Here we go.
[00:01:12] Stress Response Manage your response to stress in order to reduce anxiety, avoid burnout, and find calm and steady focus.
[00:01:21] Read by the author Ramsay Zimmerman Introduction Stress is a part of modern life.
[00:01:29] So many things happen at once. Text messages come in, kids call out from the other room, the dog needs to go out, and we need to make dinner. Modern technology was supposed to make things easier, but instead we have digital tethers making us always available yet constantly distracted.
[00:01:49] We work from home, meaning that we can do laundry during the workday and respond to slack questions in the evening. Our devices are smart enough to answer any question, but insistent enough to constantly boggle the mind.
[00:02:04] If you're reading this, I'll bet you can relate. Maybe you feel like you're just holding it together, one deadline or one obligation at a time.
[00:02:14] Maybe you're tired of waking up already weary, or you notice that your patience is wearing thin with the people you love.
[00:02:22] Stress isn't picky. It doesn't care about your job title, your family, your plans, or how hard you try to keep all the plates spinning. It just shows up day after day, and it can leave you feeling isolated and powerless.
[00:02:38] Modern life is filled with stressors that demand responses, but here's the trick.
[00:02:44] We can control how we respond.
[00:02:47] We need to be deliberate about it, however, because our bodies are hardwired to respond in ways that are no longer optimized for our way of life.
[00:02:57] The classical stress response is a physical amp up to fight the threat or flee from it. Our modern stress response needs to be something more calm and controlled, a focused combination of awareness, thought, and action.
[00:03:13] This book is all about developing, fueling, and practicing a modern stress response so that we can be successful in our professional and personal lives before I go too far down the path. Let me introduce myself.
[00:03:27] Hey there, it's Ramsey here. I know plenty about stress, anxiety, exhaustion, overwhelm and burnout.
[00:03:36] In fact, I walked away From a nearly 30 year career in sustainable energy one day because I realized that it had all stacked up too fast and too high and I was no longer on a path that mattered to me.
[00:03:50] I should have known that day that the last minute appointment with my boss's boss was not to deliver good news.
[00:03:56] But I was too distracted to guess that I was about to be laid off from a job I had taken less than one year before in order to escape from my previous untenable position.
[00:04:08] That rejection and loss could and should have been a tremendous blow.
[00:04:13] Instead, I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
[00:04:18] Turns out, being relieved of all professional responsibility can really clear the mind.
[00:04:23] I had no idea what I wanted to do next. I had zero desire to look for another job like my last one. I asked myself what was important.
[00:04:33] What was worthwhile to me, the question became a podcast. What's Worthwhile?
[00:04:39] It began as a question and I gave myself the freedom, space and time to explore my interests beyond sustainable energy to include political reform, health and fitness, building bridges between people and Christian spirituality Within a few months I had the beginnings of an answer to what's Worthwhile to me.
[00:05:00] Building Mind, Body and Spirit Wellness.
[00:05:03] After much exploring and many thoughtful conversations on the podcast with interesting people, I became utterly convinced that mind, body and spirit are inextricably linked and that to find joy, vitality and peace, we need to build the health of all three.
[00:05:22] These days on the what's Worthwhile Podcast, I share short solo messages between five and eight minutes long and thoughtful 40 minute or so conversations with guests who have also asked and answered that question for themselves.
[00:05:38] You can find all of these on your favorite podcast platform or at www.whatsworthwhile.net. throughout this book I share insights from health and wellness experts who are guests on what's Worthwhile and near the end of the book there's a list of all of those episodes if you'd like to listen to them.
[00:05:59] I had gotten lost in work related stress, relational isolation, personal overwhelm and physical burnout because I was not dealing productively with any of it. Sound familiar?
[00:06:12] This book was born out of my own struggle and my search for answers, but it's also built on science, on what we know about how stress works in the body and mind, and more importantly, how we can respond to it in ways that are actually helpful.
[00:06:29] My mission is simple. I want to give you tools that work, tools that are rooted in research and real life experience.
[00:06:37] But here's what makes this book different from most guides on stress or burnout.
[00:06:42] I'm not going to tell you how to make all the stressful things in your life disappear.
[00:06:47] Life is always going to bring challenges, setbacks and surprises.
[00:06:52] Instead, I want to help you focus on something you can control your response to stress.
[00:06:59] The science is clear. The way we respond to stress can actually change its impact on our minds and our bodies.
[00:07:06] When we learn to manage our response, we can lower anxiety, avoid burnout, and find a steadier, calmer focus, even when life is busy or unpredictable.
[00:07:19] Even though the podcast addresses many broader issues, I wanted to get focused training on the most practical, tangible aspect of health and wellness that I could find.
[00:07:29] So I became a Nutritional Therapy practitioner, or ntp.
[00:07:35] The NTP sees food as medicine and focuses on the foundations of health, including a whole food, nutrient dense diet, effective digestion, daily body movement, high quality sleep, and productive stress response. All of these are tied together too.
[00:07:54] Inside the pages of Stress Response. I seek to teach you how you can manage your response to stress in order to find calm and steady focus.
[00:08:03] When we are in the throes of stress, feeling increasingly anxious and zooming towards burnout, we we need to start with some immediate first aid interventions.
[00:08:15] Then we can get some rest and build our capacity.
[00:08:19] Finally, we can look at a bigger picture and towards the future.
[00:08:24] The book is therefore loosely organized into those broad categories.
[00:08:29] The approach of these pages is practical. It's about small shifts, not giant leaps. We'll talk about things you can do right now, like how to breathe when you feel overwhelmed, how to use movement to boost your energy, why what you eat and how you sleep matter more than you think, and how setting boundaries is not selfish but vital.
[00:08:53] We'll also talk about bigger ideas like how your mindset shapes your stress and how you can begin to rewrite your story. You tell yourself about what stress means.
[00:09:06] You are also not alone. We all deal with stress and we're all hardwired in the old way to deal with physical threats and challenges.
[00:09:15] In our personal lives we have friends and family who care about us even if we're often lousy at showing it. In our professional lives we have colleagues, bosses, direct reports and customers who are only human that themselves trying to succeed, but who also have compassion for their fellow rat racers.
[00:09:36] I recently formed Worthwhile Advisors LLC to work one on one with individuals and teams to cultivate cultures of health and wellness where organizations thrive and people feel well.
[00:09:49] The strategies I provide to respond well to stress at work can and should be cultivated, encouraged, and adopted by teams and built into corporate culture.
[00:10:00] If you've tried to reduce your stress before and nothing stuck, don't lose hope. The journey toward calm and steady focus is possible no matter where you're starting from.
[00:10:10] Change doesn't have to be dramatic to be meaningful.
[00:10:14] Sometimes it's just about noticing, pausing, and choosing a new response.
[00:10:20] Here's what I want you to take away from this introduction. You are not powerless.
[00:10:26] You have more choices than you think. Your body and mind are not the enemy. They are trying to help you, even when it feels like they're working against you.
[00:10:36] By learning to respond to stress in new ways, you can find more energy, better health, and a deeper sense of peace.
[00:10:44] So let's start this journey together.
[00:10:47] Let's look at what stress really is, what it does to us, and how, step by step, you can change your relationship with it for good. You don't have to settle for just getting by.
[00:10:59] You can find calm, you can find focus, and you can find joy right in the middle of a busy, unpredictable life.
[00:11:09] Ready for more? Visit whatsworthwhile.net to listen to podcast episodes. Master your response to stress by reading my book, Stress Response, available through Amazon Amazon or to get better before burnout sets in by requesting the free guide. Regardless of where you are in your journey, I'd love to hear from you and talk about how we might move forward together. Please contact me, Ramsey Zimmerman through the website or on social media like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or X. Thanks, Sa.
