The Playbook Podcast
2nd Shift Playbook aims to create a community for professional women who are all focused on addressing inequality and creating a community for them to thrive in their professional environments.
It’s not just women’s empowerment. We are focused on women who are in high stress, high performance roles and working to navigate work-life balance.
The Playbook Podcast
Rachel Zimmer on Creating Peaceful Spaces and Nourishing Your Body for Wellness
Have you ever considered the intricate dance between what we eat, how we feel, and the planet we inhabit? Rachel Zimmer joins us to dissect the hard-to-swallow truths of the modern diet's impact on our bodies and our environment. We weave through the narratives of a plant-based lifestyle, highlighting its potential to stave off chronic diseases and nurture mental wellness as we age. Together, we navigate the cultural currents of traditional foods within our families, addressing the delicate balance between honoring heritage and fostering health. Our discussion pivots on the critical issue of food accessibility, emphasizing the need for food security to shape a healthier society.
Imagine a thriving hydroponic garden nestled in an urban food desert, where community empowerment springs from each leaf and vine. This episode takes you to the heart of local food systems revolutionizing how we grow, share, and savor our produce. We'll escort you through the challenges faced by local farmers, taste the stark difference between farm-fresh and store-bought veggies, and examine how climate change threatens the very crops we depend on. Learn about innovative programs connecting patients with nature's finest through produce prescriptions and how small steps, like sampling a crisp apple straight from the tree, can redefine our eating habits.
As women, how often do we press pause on our bustling lives to truly nurture ourselves? Wrapping up our conversation, we share tales of professional women who are rewriting the script on self-care. Together with Rachel, we discuss the power of rest, the magic of a well-designed bedroom, and the joy found in mentoring young au pairs. We also offer a treasure trove of resources to help working women harmonize their personal and professional worlds. From the strength found in community to the solace of a salmon salad, join us as we celebrate growth, balance, and the mindful pursuit of well-being.
Welcome to Second Shift Playbook; the essential podcast for women navigating the dual demands of professional careers and home responsibilities. This show is dedicated to the millions of women who've had to make the tough choice between their careers and caring for their families, and to those who strive daily to balance both. In a world where women, especially women of color, in high stress fields like the medical sector and academia, face the daunting challenge of the Second Shift at home, we're here to offer support, guidance and empowerment. Our mission is to shine a light on the stories of resilience and determination, to discuss the policies and changes needed to support women fully and to explore how we can all contribute to a more equitable society. Each episode features conversations with trailblazing women like Tia Williams, the bestselling author and beauty editor at Tom Ford, Lily Panchasarp, an innovative account executive at Disney, Pamela Price, the dedicated deputy of Balm in Gilead , and Michelle Gethers, the visionary chief diversity officer and head of corporate social responsibility at Visa. These remarkable women share their journeys, the obstacles they've overcome and their strategies for managing the complex interplay of work and home life. Second Shift Playbook isn't just a podcast. It's a movement towards creating a world where women don't have to choose between their careers and their families.
Allison Mathews:As a PhD in sociology, public health researcher and entrepreneur, I have a deep understanding of stigma and discrimination, emotional intelligence, social psychology and stress management. I have dedicated my career to advocating for marginalized communities to access resources and am now committed to advocating for women to become financially independent and fully empowered to navigate life's challenges. Join us as we delve into the realities, the struggles and the victories of working women everywhere. Together, we can redefine what it means to work and live in harmony, supporting one another through the challenges of the Second Shift. Welcome to Second Shift Playbook. Welcome everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Second Shift Playbook. I am Dr Alison Matthews, interested in health equity. I like to see myself as an entrepreneur and really love supporting women. I'm here with my business partner, charlene Green. Charlene, introduce yourself.
Charlene Green:Yes, I am glad to be here with everybody and Rachel Zimmer. I am a board certified anesthesiologist but a climate change advocate and a women empowerment advocate, and we just want to make the world a better place for all people, particularly women.
Allison Mathews:Awesome. So today we are joined by our amazing guest, rachel Zimmer. Rachel Zimmer is a doctor of nurse practitioner. She has a background in food health and food security, and she has focuses on mental health and wellness, and she has actually just started a new company called Hygge Abode. Now it's spelled differently, though it's H-Y-G-G-E. It looks like Haga or Higgy, but it's Huga Abode which is based on the Swedish philosophy of interior decorating that prioritizes mental health and wellness. She also runs a satellite community clinic with Wake Forest University School of Medicine and focuses on food access and nutrition. Welcome, Rachel. Yes, yeah, thank you for having me. We're happy to have you here. So, Rachel, we typically start off in our podcast by talking about things that are happening in the news or popular culture, and so one of the things that I have had the opportunity, I'm staying here with my parents for a month in Texas and we're sitting here watching Netflix all the time, and one of the Netflix shows that we just recently watched was you Are what you Eat. Have you heard of that documentary?
Rachel Zimmer:Yeah, yeah, I have. I haven't watched it, but I've heard of it. Yeah, it's kind of interesting. I'm grateful that there's shows that are continuing to come out to explain the concept of you Are what you Eat, because I think sometimes we get in our habits of doing what's easy so we don't understand all the time how that actually impacts our health and our mental health. Even so, I'm always happy to hear that there's another show kind of pushing the understanding of nutrition and the importance of nutrition forward. So, yeah, it's exciting.
Allison Mathews:So one of the premises of the show that I thought was just interesting and I wanted to watch it with my parents because as we age, the food impacts our health outcomes and I think it becomes even more important as you get older. And I think we're from the South, we're a Black family that likes to eat well, but I think it's also important for us to think about how we eat healthy food right. How recently my parents' doctors prescribed to them to read a book, "How Not to Die" by Dr Gregor, and it was talking about the same thing on you Are what you Eat, in the sense that the food. If you eat a lot of meat or animal-based products, it actually increases your risk for all these adverse health outcomes like diabetes and heart disease and stroke and cancer, versus eating a more plant-based diet that actually can reduce and or reverse some of the health conditions. So what do you think about that?
Rachel Zimmer:Yeah, it's interesting. In my clinical practice I treat people who have dementia, and something that I'll counsel younger, older adults on is the importance of nutrition, even as a younger, older adult, because nutrition plays such a role in even preserving your cognition over time. And I actually had just written a blog article explaining also that the type of food you take in influences the serentonin production in your gut. So people don't understand all the time that your mood is actually impacted by the types of foods that you eat. So if you think about, oh, if you eat a big bag with fries or whatever is popular at the fast-food restaurant, typically speaking you don't feel that great afterwards and there's a reason for that. So, yeah, there's multiple impacts of nutrition, especially moving toward a plant-based diet. That's important for your health, so I would agree, but it's something to think about.
Charlene Green:And I was just going to say that millions of Americans struggle with putting food on the table and just fulfilling the big need of just with hunger and all. I want to say that a long time ago and reportedly hopefully I'm not in the organization, but I think with the Department of Agriculture said in 2022 that 44.2 million Americans were food insecure, and that's a huge number, and so that's really really important to us to maybe deal with, because many of those families and millions of Americans are with held at households held by women, so women and children are suffering immensely from poverty and food insecurity. So that's really important for us. How do we address that? So we're glad to have you on with us to talk about some of those things. One of the things I was going to mention about the interconnectivity of climate change. Now I was wondering if you could just talk about that as regards to the connectivity of climate change and the hottest year on earth was 2023. How that's going to affect food growth in our country, but particularly around the world.
Rachel Zimmer:Yeah, those are really big concepts.
Rachel Zimmer:So I'll start with food insecurity. So, yeah, a lot of my work centers around addressing food insecurity, and when we define food insecurity, that means somebody has trouble affording healthy foods on a consistent basis. So what we'll find is, nationally speaking, about 10% of Americans will say that they have trouble. But when you look, you know, if you stratify that it disproportionately, it doubled in our black and Latino communities and our American Native American communities as well, and in fact, a report just came out today by the AARP Foundation looking at older adults and food insecurity rates have gone up for the first time in lots of years in older adults, and it had been historically going down.
Rachel Zimmer:So so we we have a worsening problem, unfortunately, of food insecurity in our communities. In addition to that, it's complicated by transportation difficulties, functional difficulties that make it hard for some people to leave their homes, difficulties in just being able to prepare foods, because, right, if you have a single person household, then they're having to maybe work more than one job and then trying to figure out how to manage a meal plan, even if they're able to get to healthy, You know food. So, yeah, there's a lot of barriers in, you know, notwithstanding climate change already, for addressing food insecurity in communities. We're trying to address that by delivering free produce to people's homes. We've been doing that since the pandemic. I study that. I've been looking even at mood and how that's being impacted just by providing produce boxes In addition to like cardiometabolic outcomes and just you know, overall well-being and quality of life.
Rachel Zimmer:So you know we're still looking at that data, but we're seeing across the country that programs like ours are making an impact, a positive impact. It's just it always comes down to sustainability when you think about things like that. And so working with the supplemental nutrition assistance program, you know advocates for strengthening programs like that help to cause some of these programs to be more sustainable. And then when you throw climate change on top of it, then we have a whole new bucket of worms. And one thing I've been encouraged by, especially here in our city, has been the growth of hydroponic locations. I think there's some promise in that. I've been interested in I got to visit the one that just opened up in one of our communities and I've been encouraged by the production already, within just you know, three months of opening, of the greens that they've been able to produce. So I'm really interested.
Rachel Zimmer:I think Americans, I think people, are innovative. They come up, you know we're very resilient. That's why we're still alive as a race. So you know the human race, and so I'm hopeful that even despite, you know, problems like climate change, we can come up with some solutions that that may help sustain us. I think we will, but I agree, climate change and of course you know this is disproportionately impacting urban centers of cities, and so you know you have food deserts within urban centers of cities, so you've just got this worsening problem that's perpetually by climate change.
Charlene Green:So, yeah, it's a big problem, and one of the last things that I was going to mention is the interconnectivity of inequality or poverty. I know one of our colleagues, dr Mark Massey, has done, you know, some slide presentations for you know some organizations that we've been a part of, and one of the things that has always been impressive to me is that in one of his slides he says that the three richest billionaires have more combined wealth than the poorest 50% of a hundred. So three billionaires have more wealth than 165 million Americans. But the most interesting thing of one of his slides for Dr Mark Massing was that 26 of the richest billionaires in the world have more wealth than than the poorest 50% of the world population. Wow, that's a lot. That's a lot.
Allison Mathews:It continues to grow to, the wealth gap, continues to grow.
Charlene Green:And that was in 2021. So you know it is worse now, but yeah.
Rachel Zimmer:Yeah, that reminds me of Matthew Desmond's book Speaking of Books, poverty by America. He talks about that, so I think that's a really good point to bring up.
Charlene Green:So thank you for being here and thank you for what you're doing, Awesome.
Allison Mathews:Yeah, what? So can you tell me a little bit more about this hydroponic is. When I think about hydroponic, I think about something else, but when you can you tell me more about this hydroponic garden and
Charlene Green:what like.
Allison Mathews:Yeah, yeah, tell me more about it, I'm curious.
Rachel Zimmer:Um, so I don't. I don't want to like give communities, because people you know who are listening to this, probably not going to know exactly where it is. But there is a hydroponic location that had been held by the city for a while. They were waiting for somebody to contract and open it up. So one of the local nonprofits here opened it up and it's being managed by some of the urban farmers in partnership with the nonprofit and they're using it to distribute produce out to the community. So people are not buying what's coming out of the hydroponic garden. They're using it for food distribution within, because it's located in a community that's considered a food desert.
Allison Mathews:Oh, so they're giving the food away for free, mm-hmm.
Allison Mathews:And then. But so how do people I don't know if you know this or not, but how do people sign up to even know or get access to the free food?
Rachel Zimmer:Well, this nonprofit serves the children in the community, so they're already in hubs across the community on certain days, and so they've been doing that, for it was started by a pediatrician here in town.
Allison Mathews:Was it helping
Rachel Zimmer:Yeah, helping our people eat, yeah, and so they've been in those community hubs for a while. So that's what the distribution channel for the hydroponics right now.
Allison Mathews:Yeah, I could see churches being a part of that too. I know a lot of churches do food distribution as well, Charlene what are you going to say?
Charlene Green:I'm actually just going to say that reminds me of that's fabulous what they're doing, but there are some huge manufacturing farms that are like some of the biggest producers of food in this country is only produced by three or four monopoly companies, one of which is a we're talking about a tomato farm out in California and it was an article in White a long ago that basically said that the produce for tomatoes for the pizza companies, the three major pizza companies, are all made in one huge 1020,000 acre hydro hydrophobic farm. Right, the pros and cons of that sometimes is that it takes the farmers productivity away when it's one company producing everything, but that's not the same what you're doing, what you guys are doing is fantastic, but I think there's pros and cons to maybe having one company have one huge farm that's taken away the farming or agricultural needs of local communities, you know?
Rachel Zimmer:Yeah, oh, I agree with that. And there's a huge land ownership issue right when it comes to thinking about farmers and land access. So that's the other thing I think, when you think about climate change, is the ability of good lands already limited to certain groups of people. So yeah, I mean it's complicated. We can have a whole podcast about this.
Allison Mathews:I know, right, that's awesome. Oh, I was thinking about also there's kind of networks of black farmers that you know in North Carolina, I think about the black farmers market, and there's another company, a small company called tall grass food box in Durham, who work with black farmers across the state of North Carolina to get their food, their produce, and then sell food boxes, food box subscriptions to people, but it helps support the black farmer economy as well, and it just it takes
Allison Mathews:it requires us to have kind of innovative solutions like that and to think about like to get beyond the kind of big box one manufacturer system that we have right now that has this monopoly on the food.
Charlene Green:But if we keep increasing the temperature, you know, by 2050, reportedly in North Carolina, the data shows that you will not be able to grow like much of any crops because of the that, oh, wow. So that's, that's new data that's coming out, but, in addition to the intensity of the heat, that's going to kill Americans and North Carolinians and so, like you said, that we that's another long topic, but it's all interconnected.
Rachel Zimmer:Yeah, definitely, and there are. You're right, there are good programs right now that yet, like our program, uses regional produce. When I first started the program in 2020, we only source from regional and urban farmers. So we did that very intentionally, because I was chair of the or co chair of the regional food council at the time, so I had great connections with some of the farmers and and we knew that their distribution channels were going to be limited during the pandemic, and so we wanted to support them. And I'll tell you, we did do qualitative research as a part of the first round of produce prescriptions and they love that produce because it tastes different.
Rachel Zimmer:Local produce tastes different than going to a big box store. So a tomato is not a tomato, is not a tomato, right like it is, it is not the same thing when you think about local versus going to a grocery store and grabbing it, and so, yeah, I mean I think that that's the other thing, too is, sometimes we forget how good produce tastes, and I do wonder how much that influences people's choices, because if all you're getting is what's in the grocery store and you never taste fresh produce, then I can imagine that that's, you know, a part of the reason that you may not be as interested. Anyway, I digress.
Allison Mathews:That's real. I remember I went to a food farmers market and I got this carton of okra from a local farmer and I brought it to the house and I just sat down and I was like, oh my God, I can smell the okra. It reminds me of my grandparents garden and now, and it just, it was so fragrant and it made me realize that the okra and the food that I was getting from the grocery store was so, because it has been refrigerated for so long, it loses a lot of the flavor and the freshness, and I was just like, oh my goodness, so yeah, that point.
Rachel Zimmer:Totally, totally agree. And I listened to the minimalist podcast. I don't know if you've ever heard that, but they just did an episode where they were talking to a local agriculturalist. He was also a physician, but he was really interested in food and health and he was talking about even eating tomatoes with his teeth off the vine and just how connected he felt to the earth as a part of that exercise and just being connected. His premise was to be more connected with the food that we're eating and how important that is for our bodies.
Allison Mathews:So okay, so switching gears, or maybe not. How did you get into starting this company, Hygge Abode?
Rachel Zimmer:Yeah, it's kind of an offshoot. Yeah, it sounds like a jump, but it's not. The other I think I had mentioned that I do a home-based primary care, so I am a primary care provider for people who have dementia or older adults with functional disabilities, and I also go into people's homes every week. I've been in thousands of homes and so I understand how the environment impacts your health and I've done so much teaching one-on-one with people around the importance of not having a cluttered house. And even beyond fall risk your anxiety, the anxiety that that provokes for somebody if they're sitting in a room, they're not able to get up and walk very well and the room is completely cluttered and dirty. That mentally takes a toll on them.
Rachel Zimmer:And then, of course, my cultural heritage. My mom is Hungarian, my dad is Swedish, and so I had gone to Sweden actually about four years ago and I don't know. I just felt really connected to the aesthetic of the Swedes and I've always joked that if I weren't a health care provider, I'd be an interior designer. I love interior design, the idea of it, how it impacts your health and your mood, and I've always had friends come over and say, gosh, I love how your house looks. How do you do that? And I don't really think about it, and so I said I wonder if I could just pull that together, the educational pieces of it, my love of sort of the Scandinavian concept or it's a Danish word, but it's sort of a Norwegian concept of making your home a space of respite, connecting with others. Like I understand the importance of social connection and how that impacts your life, your quality of life, but also the trajectory of your life, and so I think that these are concepts that people maybe underestimate.
Rachel Zimmer:And the other thing, too, is when you're in communities and you feel like you don't have a lot of control over things, your environment is something that you do have some control over, no matter how much money you make. You can put pieces in place around you that provide respite and rest and connection with others. You can do that, and so I wanted to be able to empower people. And then the other thing, too, is I wanted to think about how I was sourcing for our business, so I wanted to support women, women owned businesses, especially black-owned businesses, and so when I'm buying the products I'm thinking about are they eco-friendly, are they sustainable? Are they made by women? Are they global makers who are interested in this aesthetic? So I kind of think about all those things. And then also my husband is a designer as well, and so it gives him a space to make products out of artists and concrete. So we just I don't know, it's just sort of every all of me wrapped up into a business of what it's become.
Allison Mathews:I love it. So, Charlene, you're on mute.
Charlene Green:Yes, I was going to say what are some of the challenges that you face with all that you're doing and how have you been able to overcome some of these challenges?
Rachel Zimmer:Oh goodness. Well, I do work. In terms of my work, I always say that the worst thing I ever became was a nurse and the best thing I ever became was a nurse. I think being a nurse has allowed me to be a part of very vulnerable situations with people. I've had the pleasure of helping people as they exit this life into the next life, right, and those are beautiful moments that I treasure. But it has also pigeonholed me in a lot of ways.
Rachel Zimmer:I tend to be a very global thinker.
Rachel Zimmer:I think about things in systems, and I've found that in the traditional healthcare setting that has been very limited for me, and so I've struggled to find a path inside of a system that doesn't always support leadership, especially from a nurse's perspective, and so I think that's, and then, of course, my programs are very much to support you know, I'm always fighting for you know, what you would call the underdog right, like I'm always. I developed a mobile health program for people who don't have health insurance in North Carolina, and you know food prescription programs people who have struggled, you know, getting to healthy foods, and so these are not programs that necessarily have, you know, financial viability when you're thinking about a capitalist system and so that can be difficult to implement and sustain inside of, y ou know the American healthcare system. I would say that in Europe, especially in Sweden, it's a different situation where they just have a different culture and mentality around supporting the people in that country, versus like how we think about supporting people here. Not to say there's not problems, it's just so different.
Allison Mathews:So how'd you deal with the challenges to the lack of support of your, of the work that you did it?
Rachel Zimmer:had a some of it started with me. I mean, Hugo Abode, kind of came out of, even like my own journey. I was, I think I had a moment of breakdown during the pandemic. I was doing way too much. I was trying to like do everything. I saw a lot of need and I'm trying to like meet all the need.
Rachel Zimmer:And then I, you know, and my husband said like, you are one person it is not possible for you to continue at this level. And I was sacrificing my own family in that space, and so I had a moment of breaking, and it was through that breaking that I started to take care of myself. I was not taking care of myself and so I had always exercised that was never a problem, but just to walk for peace, you know, just to get outside and be in nature again, because I enjoy nature, or to journa l. I hadn't journaled in years and so the practice of mindfulness and journaling and just taking those moments for myself, I started there, honestly, you know, about four, four years ago, and I didn't think I could sustain it, but with a lot of counseling and support, I was able to sustain a practice that brought me dealing for myself. And then, I think, learning that my path within a system was not going to be one of corporate leadership. I'm not a corporate person. I'm always pushing the envelope on what, what should be or, what looks right, and so I knew that my ideas need to be captured and something I could manage and so that's where you go kind of birth it out of was something that was just me, that I could own, that my message could be my message and not anybody else's. And so I think, and then also just wanting to empower other people because I have seen the pain of other professional women.
Rachel Zimmer:I've worked with lots of physicians and nurses and healthcare providers and we're, you know, we're struggling. You know, as a profession, you know, professional group of people, especially women. Women are juggling too much and we always say work life balance. I don't know if that's even possible unless you take, you know, intentional spaces for yourself. And so I wanted to be able to give tools for women, especially to be able to help take care of themselves. You know, I think Hugo Abode is about home design and bringing sustainable things and supporting women.
Rachel Zimmer:But it's also about supporting women in other ways, like you know coaching through self care and and coaching through like, how do you rest? You know, how do you bring what is rest, how do you bring connection back into your life? I was just talking to our friend. She's pregnant and her mom had moved to town and she was just talking about how she's working all the time she's pregnant, she still doesn't see her mom, even though her mom moved to town to be with her, and just, you know, feeling disconnected, you know, even despite the fact that they were very intentional about her being there while she was pregnant. And so you know, those are the, those are the things that I think we, we as women, struggle with, and maybe you know I can help in whatever way through the business.
Charlene Green:So this is exactly you know why Allison and I thought the Second Shift Playbook would be needed for women, particularly because it's really hard to balance a career and family and but I'm really interested in just maybe you, given some examples of you mentioned about coaching, you know how to rest and things like that. What are some of the tools, what are some of the books, maybe you recommend this to the women, for that one of the things that's so fascinating, fascinating about the brain for me is how the glial cells work and many people don't know, you know how glial cells work, but if you don't get enough sleep, your glial cells can't, can't function and do and eat all those those toxic things from your brain to make you a better person for the next day and memory, and things like that. I was wondering if you could maybe highlight some of the coaching you know, not give away your secrets, of course some of the coaching tools and things like that you do for helping people rest.
Rachel Zimmer:Yeah, thank you for that. Yeah, I was actually just working on that. I'm, I'm working on, I've developed a tool. Specifically, I've been focusing on the bedroom and sleep right now. We are a sleep deprived society, and sometimes we don't prioritize that in our lives, and so so I've been doing some research just around.
Rachel Zimmer:I'm not a sleep expert that I know a lot about sleep right and so so, and then tying that into your environment, and then also tying that into what can I do about my environment to impact my sleep, and so. So I've put together just like a digital course, where I'm, I gave, I have a worksheet that you can work through, you know, to do sort of a pre assessment of your own sleep habits and your bedroom, and then teaching people why is sleep important, right? Like what are the different stages of sleep and what do they actually do for you. Like, why do I even need REM sleep? And then, if I don't get REM sleep, why does that even matter, right? So I think sometimes people say, well, I get four hours of sleep every night, I'm good. Well, you know why, why does it matter that you didn't get the REM sleep, you know, in a sufficient amount? And how is that going to impact you later? And then, okay, now that you know that, what can you do to make your, your sleep habits better, both within your environment, like your bedroom, but also within your own habits, right? So?
Rachel Zimmer:So coaching around relaxation techniques, sleep hygiene techniques, things that we provide one on one, and, like I clinical care, but more, not necessarily, you know, like in a one on one situation. But but you know, generally speaking, and I've never found content out there that puts it all together for people. And so I'm trying to, I'm trying to do that, put it all together for people. And then I have just like a little ebook where I consolidated the resources so that people could do more research on their own and, you know, hopefully be able to find and do some more Like, oh, how do I make a mood board? Like, how do you even start to design a bedroom? You know it's not for interior de signers, you don't have to have (inaudible). Sure, if you want one, you can, but if you want to take control of your own environment, that there are tools that you can use to do that.
Allison Mathews:was going to ask, where, like does it matter where you put your bed or like where you keep your phone in your room, like so what's your,
Rachel Zimmer:temperature is yeah, what the?
Rachel Zimmer:Yeah, I mean, if you were thinking about your bedroom, the color of your room matters. So, thinking about calming colors that are not stimulating, right? So having red in your room may not be the best color because it is a stimulating color. It is associate we, our culture, tends to associate it with, you know, more of a movement when, versus, like you, have a calming blue, then a blue tends to be more of a, a restful color. And then, even thinking about the type of lights you have in your room, so, yellow, red lights,
Rachel Zimmer:those are longer wavelengths and so your brain processes that differently. It's more calming for you, and then you know where the blue lights, you know, people hear blue light all the time and I'm like oh blue light, what does it matter?
Rachel Zimmer:and and those are actually very stimulating for you use that. That's why the daylight is stimulating, that's why the sky is blue, you know like it's, so that you stay awake and alert. And so, so thinking about the science behind it. So I try to dig into the science behind it a little bit. And then just the importance of the materials that are on your bed, that's actually important, right, the breathability of your sheets. People actually think that the higher the threat count, the better, but actually you want it to be a little bit lower so that it's breathing. You want air exchange to be happening, um, and and then even this is a sweed thing, but, um, sweeds tend to sleep with two blankets, two different types of blankets. So that way, if your partner is, is hot natured and you're cold natured, you have temperature control on both sides of the bed to support your sleep habits. So it's just things like that.
Rachel Zimmer:Thinking about the textures around your, um, your bed. So, for example, I have a sheepskin beside of my bed, and the texture of the sheepskin on my feet before I get into my bed, just is, is another thing to remind my brain. It's the only place in the whole house that I have sheepskin, but it reminds me that, oh, this is, this is time for bed, and then, um, yeah, so those are the sorts of things that I cover in the course, just those pieces in addition to, you know, the scrolling problems that we all have. Putting your phone outside of your bedroom, only using your bedroom for sleep and sex, you know, not not using it for for work, um, the, even, um, the clutter that's in your room. People don't realize that, even when you're asleep, that leads your brain in the more active state. So, um to the anxiety that clutter can cause, even though you don't realize that. So it's really just um, um, pulling science and environment together and trying to help people
Rachel Zimmer:you know, think through the room, in a more um scientific way, I guess and and then saying okay, what can I actually do about this and what are the things that I love how do I integrate what I love into my space, right? So, being so, I'm providing some guidance on how do you include the personal things that are important to you in your space and how do you put that together, and what should be on your nightstand those sorts of things.
Charlene Green:I was wondering how do you get your your um people to um Keep their phones outside the bedroom?
Rachel Zimmer:I do it, but it's taken practice and I can't say that I have always, I have fallen off the lag in a couple times. It takes intentionality. I'm not perfect, but I've bought an analog clock, like you know, um, and so people will say, well, I need the alarm. Well, you know, they have alarm clock, they've had them for years and so so I um, I have an analog clock beside of my bed, so that way I'm not tempted to use my phone as as the alarm clock. So that's one tip that I have keep the phone out of your room, and then you know. And then, also, thinking about, um, you know, what do you absolutely need to do at nine o'clock at night on your phone? What is that? What is it that you feel has to be done? You know, just taking a step back, like the why, you know how your mom says Ask a bunch of why's and then you'll get to the answer. Or at least my mom used to say that.
Allison Mathews:I feel, I feel judged right now.
Rachel Zimmer:I do. I have problems too. I still, I preach it, but you know, there's nights, where I'm, I'm on my phone at nine o'clock and I'm like why am I? Why am I on my phone?
Allison Mathews:I'm horrible with that. That's like probably the hardest thing for me to, to stop doing is use my phone at night and right before I go to bed, but I do, I did buy a sunrise clock. So yeah it simulates this, especially when time changes and it's like super dark in the morning. It simulates the sunrise so that I can wake up.
Rachel Zimmer:So I like that, that's a beautiful.
Allison Mathews:That's a great first step.
Charlene Green:So my next question is and this is something that you know Work-life balance and all that good stuff that we're talking about um, you know everybody has different in streams of income and you know different socioeconomic levels and that type of thing, but what would you pay any amount of money to make your life easier?
Rachel Zimmer:clone. A clone. Another one another one of me.
Allison Mathews:Wouldn't we? I want a wife.
Rachel Zimmer:Yeah no, uh, seriously. Well, any amount of money, yeah, uh, in all pair, I guess, would be the closest thing that would be possible.
Charlene Green:Okay.
Rachel Zimmer:Yeah, if I could make my life easier by having somebody else help me with cooking and cleaning and it's all that stuff that just takes so much time.
Charlene Green:But then you would have to manage that person too.
Rachel Zimmer:Yeah, but if I had any amount of money I would think we would get somebody really good.
Charlene Green:I mentioned that because I've had experiences with friends and have had Opares, and many of them are young, young people, um, under the age of like 25, and it becomes you mentoring and and and um becoming a mom to them too, and so, right, you know they, they're coming, but many of them come from different countries and so they're coming over and they're like, oh, I'm in the U. S. and they have to be managed like they're teenagers too. It's actually an interesting story. That's another whole Uh podcast on that.
Allison Mathews:Yeah, I never thought about that, because I dream about having an opare in my house.
Charlene Green:And interestingly and interestingly, if there's a, they have many my experience with what people have talked about it. There's a limit of how long they can work at times. So if it's 40 hours a week, because if they watch your kid, uh, you know, for a school day that's from like 7 am, do you get back from work to 7 pm. That's 12 hours of their work day and they actually can't work anymore. It's actually an interesting story. So Sometimes you have to be careful what you ask for, but I would, I think most people would love to have one as well, but yeah.
Allison Mathews:So, um, what are some things that you do? I get, I mean, I guess we've kind of talked about it with the Hugo Abode but, like, what are some of the things that you do to take care of yourself, especially as a mom of two children?
Charlene Green:Yes.
Rachel Zimmer:Yeah, um, so I really I think I mentioned this I really like nature, I'm uh, I actually like to hike and I find hiking to be very uh meditative for me. So um, we, we do that. I I had mentioned my daily practice. I do a daily practice of prayer. I'm a person of faith, so every every morning I wake up early. I'm an early bird, so I wake up really early.
Rachel Zimmer:I I make the coffee in the old way I do a chem X, you know, like the whole drip, drip, drip coffee, and then I use that time for prayer. I'd do my journaling before everybody gets up. Um, I exercise almost every day, um, not anything crazy, but whether it's a walk or strength training or I just bought a road machine I think I mentioned that like just to just because it's cold, not all like the cold, so I wanted to find something cardi um cardiovascular to do. So those are things that I enjoy doing. Um, I have a uh group of women that are really supportive and we do like a bible study every week and that's my, you know, sort of friend support and, yeah, the consistency of finding space too, for friends, so being mindful about the people that I care about, and and finding space even within the week to say, hey, you want to grab coffee or do you want to you know, catch up and I count that as self-care because it energizes me to be around other people and then
Rachel Zimmer:I like to give back, like it also energizes me to be giving and there's a lot of Research that shows that right like that, if you give back, you actually get a lot more out of it. Um, then you're giving and so I find that very energizing. So people may say, oh, you're busy all the time, but a lot of it it's stuff that really energizes me, so finding spaces that that do that.
Charlene Green:So I have a question, and this is just out of the blue. I'm you know, I'm working on trying to eat right and eat better. I was just wondering, like what? What would be something you enjoy, that is, a really healthy meal for you?
Rachel Zimmer:Hmm, Like yeah, yeah, I, I'm a big salmon fan. I love a really good salmon salad like a salad, like a cold salad that's got blackened salmon on it. It's not hard to make and I love that, that's like so good.
Charlene Green:So what would you put in a salad Pomegranates?
Rachel Zimmer:Yeah, yeah, like I love pickled red onions. Um, um, uh, deviled it like the eggs not deviled eggs, but the eggs that are hard boiled you know, to cut up and put in. I tend to be a little bit more on the savory side when it comes to the salmon salad, but you know stuff, stuff like that.
Charlene Green:And you eat it plain? No dressing?
Rachel Zimmer:No, I make, I make the dress, I'll make the dressing for it. Where, yeah, which is not hard, like you, just, you know, get olive oil, a little balsamic, throw it in there salt and pepper, put some Italian, you know spices in there, shake it all up, throw it on there and taste much better.
Allison Mathews:I, I, you know anything with salmon on it, I'm going to eat like salmon tacos just salmon, and then other side, uh, salmon salad, anything with salmon, I'm good.
Rachel Zimmer:I'm really picky about the salmon, though, like I want, the taste of it has to be right. Like you know how, like the pale pink salmon, it doesn't taste right. So I always, you know, like I, I check out the color before I buy it.
Allison Mathews:So in that, you are, you are what you eat, oh my God, this is freaked me out cause I love salmon so much. yeah, cause I love salmon so much. In the in the you are what you eat documentary on Netflix, it goes into salmon in particular and I was like why are you ruining salmon for me? But it talks about like salmon farms and how the pale salmon is actually fattier and it's not, it doesn't have the health benefits that you would want because it's um, they're basically eating, uh feed and eating their own feces.
Allison Mathews:I was like, oh my God, I don't wanna know, but um but you definitely want to go for a wild caught salmon because it's healthier it's leaner and it also tastes better. Yeah, it's more flavorful.
Charlene Green:So for you fish lovers, I'm going to say that there was a report out I think it was in the New York Times a couple years ago that basically said that the most, a lot of the fish is imported from, like from China, right, and when they get to test the fish um and look for high levels of um, um, antibiotics and contamination, all of it gets sent back and is high levels of everything. But we only test maybe less than 1%.
Rachel Zimmer:Yeah, so I'm really intentional about the fish actually. So if we're going to go into this, this line of thinking, so I will shop at a market that will tell me where it's coming from and if it's wild caught. And then, um uh, there's one grocery store that has Norwegian fish, norwegian salmon and I really like Norwegian salmon.
Rachel Zimmer:So so there are, there are ways to check where you're, where they're sourcing from um and they're graded. So so you are correct that there's some difficulties with the fish industry, um, but there are ways to sort of watch it.
Charlene Green:If you ever feel comfortable, uh, send a hashtag of the places where you get your healthy fish so that we can share it with our podcast.
Allison Mathews:Actually, also, like I um, you know, as I'm thinking about having children and starting to do research on like what, how, what kind of foods have impact on me and my fertility, and they talk about fish in particular, and mercury and iodine poisoning and things like that so also just being very aware of, uh, where your fish is sourced from, because of the contaminants that can come in the fish.
Rachel Zimmer:Yea, unfortunately, yeah and I'll say that I mean I don't want to like main drop but, like the some of the grocery stores that you would consider more higher end, are the ones that gonna they're going to tell you where they source from. So, that's really because they, their clientele, expects it. So yeah, but I will tell you, the price is no different, which I think is now the price is no different. In fact it's, It may be sometimes better. I think because of the volume that they bring in a center.
Allison Mathews:So I guess we want to wrap up and ask you you've mentioned some like books and podcasts and things like that, but what are some of the your favorite tools books, articles, podcasts that help you navigate your life as a working woman?
Rachel Zimmer:Well, let's see as a working woman podcast wise, I don't know that I want I follow anything as a working woman. I really like the minimalist which I had mentioned, which does help me navigate my life as, just as a person, I like health rules, which is by another home designer in North Carolina, so I like to listen to her.
Rachel Zimmer:She's she's got just, you know, small tidbits of tips which are fun. She talked about decluttering your Christmas stuff, so that kind of stuff is really practical. I enjoy listening to her. In terms of books, there's a book called Home Therapy which I really like, and it just came out last year. It's the only other person in healthcare that I have found who's in the home design space. She's a mental health therapist and she did family and couple counseling and she wrote the book from the perspective of a therapist, and so she is teaching you how to put your things together in spaces like that help you with organization. Thank you, you, you, you.