Jeremy Reymer (00:07):
This is the monthly show for Project 61. We're here to help drivers take control of their health one mile at a time. The reality, the average life expectancy for a truck driver is 61 years old, but it doesn't have to be that way. This show is about simple, practical changes that can add years to your life and life to your years without taking away from the job you love the job that's so vital to our nation's economy. I'm Jeremy Reymer, Founder of Project 61. On each episode I talk to health experts, drivers, and other industry thought leaders working to create a healthier future for themselves and our industry. Because your health isn't just about you, it's also about the people who count on you. Let's get started.

Jeremy Reymer (00:57):
As a commercial driver, you have one of the most difficult and most important jobs in our nation. The very nature of the job takes a toll on your ability to easily manage proper nutrition, regular movement and exercise, and consistent sleep. And if that weren't enough, the stress and anxiety of operating and isolation in an environment where circumstances are often out of your control can wreak havoc on your mental health. Stress and anxiety are rampant amongst most professional drivers and only add to the ongoing and increasing challenges they face. But what if I told you that there was hope against that backdrop, that a handful of small changes could make a huge difference with your mental health? On this episode, I'm joined by Becky Schmitz, Executive Director with Viking Land Community Support Program, a nonprofit and motivational speaker with the mental health toolbox. Together we'll break down exactly how you can make some minor changes today that can lead to major results. Welcome to the show, Becky. Great to have you here.

Becky Schmitz (01:55):
Thank you so much. I'm super excited to be here.

Jeremy Reymer (01:57):
During the time that we have together, I'd like to talk about your background and your passion for mental health and how you're empowering people, especially drivers and other industry stakeholders, just to take better control of their mental health. And then during our low hanging fruit segment, I want to make sure that we can get into some practical takeaways, some specific changes that drivers can make today in order to improve the quality of their lives, especially as it pertains to mental health. Are you ready to dive in?

Becky Schmitz (02:24):
I am now.

Jeremy Reymer (02:25):
I had the honor of meeting you in person during a Minnesota Trucking Association event in 2024 and really appreciated your passion around mental health and so much of what you shared resonated with me and what I'm trying to accomplish with Project 61. I'd love to touch on your background for the audience sake. Can you share a bit about your journey and what led you to focus on mental health?

Becky Schmitz (02:46):
Yeah, so I've been working in mental health for the last 18 years, and I originally became interested in the world of helping others. My mom was a paraprofessional back where I grew up, and so I enjoyed her work and I just loved that kind of passion behind taking somebody and giving them the tools that they need and then seeing them grow from there. But my love for mental health really came from one of my first college courses, just a general psychology class, and it was fantastic and it was interesting and I loved that it just had so many different levels and I had so much to learn about it. And so from there, I just continued to take more and more and kind of fill up my cup of knowledge with mental health. And so I've been here at Viking Land for almost 17 years now.

Becky Schmitz(03:35):
I worked at a halfway house here in town for a while. And so really from there, it just has grown not only from my own personal experiences in life, but the people that I've gotten to work with in the past 18 years have really truly given me that energy and that passion and that drive to help as many people as I can because it's so unfortunate, whether you are in trucking or any sort of industry, how many people feel so lonely and feel helpless and aren't getting the help that they need even though we are in 2025 and resources are fairly abundant, I want to be able to give them tools, simple tools to be able to help themselves work through those situations. And so that's my mission, and I love when I got an opportunity to meet you and just everybody along the way has given me just bits and pieces and more understanding and more awareness and more motivation to keep doing what I'm doing. I know that it's impactful and I know that it matters.

Jeremy Reymer (04:32):
Well, you remind me. When I grew up, I watched a lot of Mr. Rogers, right? Mr. Rogers neighborhood, and I remember reading much later a quote that he said about Always look for the helpers. You're one of the helpers. And that means a lot. That means a lot to me. I really respect and appreciate that, but it means a lot to the people out there who they need help. We all of us at some point or another need help. And we'll get a little bit deeper into that and the stigma around that. But May was mental health awareness month and not that every month shouldn't be. I know there's a lot of alarming statistics across so many industries, including trucking, stress, anxiety, even suicide. If you want to touch on the importance of having a mental health awareness month, but also I do want get into the mental health toolbox, so I'll let you choose kind of the order there, but I'd like to get into the origins of the mental health toolbox and what exactly it consists of.

Becky Schmitz (05:27):
Yeah, so Mental Health Month, and I always say during that time it can't stop there. So our agency puts on a very large walk, which continues to grow every year. To me, that represents a movement. And this was one of our biggest years yet, even though it was rainy and cold because Mother Nature's confused. She's not sure what should be happening right now. But anyways, it's really great to see it continue to grow. And like I said, I feel like there's this movement happening that it's becoming more acceptable to have a conversation about mental health. And so Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I do live videos on our Facebook page for Viking Land. And I always just make it a point to say, don't stop talking about this. Don't just stop working on yourself after having a conversation with me for 20 minutes. It's always something that we need to be mindful of.

Becky Schmitz(06:14):
It's always something that we need to strive for, kind of like what's next on our list to help ourselves feel better. So the mental health toolbox really all came to be during COVID. We were shut down for a couple of weeks and during that time we were really just trying to get creative of ways that we were still going to be able to be impactful and help those that we serve. We work in the community, so we're in their homes or here at the office we have a drop-in center. But either way, it started to kind of transpire from there. And so I started doing these live videos, and then at that point, I had gotten asked to write a blog for a blog out of India called HealthyYou.com. And so when I started, when I got asked that, I was thinking to myself first and foremost, what am I going to write about?

Becky Schmitz(06:56):
I never really pictured myself as a writer, but I knew I wanted it to be about mental health. Obviously that's what they had asked me about. I've been the group facilitator here for many years. I love speaking in front of groups of people. And so I have always talked about the toolbox, but in my mind I was like the toolbox to me, it really has a lot more potential than just a verbiage. And so I started writing about the tools. So I started with the hammer. I researched, I did a lot of Googling and I was looking up different definitions of the hammer and what that means. And then I was like, what do I feel like which coping skill resembles the hammer? And so the hammer to me was that driving force. So it represents motivation and purpose. Why you get up? What brings you joy?

Becky Schmitz(07:42):
What are your hopes and dreams? And so that's how the book starts. That's how my workbook starts. And so from there, everything just took shape. It actually has been humbling and an honor to be able to take something that I didn't really, I just did for probably just people that I serve here. And now I have the opportunity to share it with many people. So I'm also very lucky. I have a brother that's a lawyer, so the toolbox is a trademarked project now, which is even better yet, but there's 11. I'm up to 11, 12 tools now, and I have more ideas that I keep on. And so yeah, I mean we have the level and the pliers and the saw, and it's just great, and I love how people are connecting to it. One of the things about it I actually bought a toolbox with too.

Becky Schmitz(08:29):
So my toolboxes are red, and I did this on purpose because obviously green is kind of the notorious mental health color symbol, a green ribbon. But I made this red because I wanted people to actually stop and ask questions. I think that if you saw a green toolbox, you'd probably walk right by. You'd see the words mental health. There's so much stigma behind mental health, and people don't want you to, I don't think they want to be seen having this conversation, but I tricked you and you stopped and you looked at a red toolbox, and you ask questions and people are intrigued by tools and the coping skills that it comes with it. So it's really developed a mind of its own, but most importantly, if you can at least take away one thing from it and you can remember one tool or one coping skill, my job is complete because I got you to talk about it for one, which we need to do more of. And I got you to think about at least one way to help yourself, which is huge.

Jeremy Reymer (09:23):
You talked about the stigma, and we're in a trucking industry. It's old school by and large, you got an aging population largely and also very salt of the earth. People probably grew up in an era where you sweep these things under the rug, that's where they belong, and maybe you smash 'em down with a hammer. That's not where you were going with that, I'm sure. But the reality is that stigma that it's a sign of weakness maybe or some new woke approach to life. But the reality is it's not weak, it's strong and awareness to know that, Hey, I need help. We are human. We need that connection. How do you address that, especially in an industry where that's just not the norm?

Becky Schmitz (10:08):
Well, first and foremost, I know that there are men and women truck drivers, but there's a pretty large number of statistics that show us that generally men are not as upfront about how they're feeling, right? That's just not something you talk about. Again, it's seen as a sign of weakness essentially. There's this mindset that if I tell you that I'm anxious or I tell you I'm depressed and I feel like crying, that makes you less of a person. So it's unfortunate that it has to be that way. But when I think about when I visit with people, and mainly it's just about having that conversation, and it's not about necessarily getting into your emotions, but what's going on in your life and recognizing that it's important to talk about your stressors. That clearly is kind of that driving force for so much of how we feel with your mental wellness.

Becky Schmitz(10:58):
I just try to encourage talking as much as I can, making those connections, understanding personally, especially with those that we serve here, the more of a connection I can build. Hopefully you trust me enough to have those conversations, but as far as breaking that stigma behind it, the only thing that I continue to do and will continue to do is just to talk about it, talk about it. I want to normalize it. I want to normalize how important it's to talk about it. I want to normalize it. Just like for instance, it's completely acceptable to go to the doctor for a sinus infection, right? Yes, it is. And so it's completely acceptable to go to the doctor or to reach out, to help to say, Hey, I'm not feeling well. I'm not sleeping well. I've kind of noticed that I've been getting kind of this racy heart lately, and I'm just feeling a little more worked up and I don't really know what's going on. And to start that conversation, like I said, I just want it to be normal and natural to about it.

Jeremy Reymer (11:53):
And I think what's important there is to be self-aware, to recognize in yourself that, hey, this is happening.

Becky Schmitz (11:58):
It's so funny because we hear so many people talk about the winter blues. It's like when we say the winter blues, we're skirting around the fact that that's a part of a mental illness. I don't like to say it like that, but if you have a brain, you have a mental illness, you are susceptible to experiencing less than desirable things like the winter blues, like anxiety. It's funny because we use certain words as a way of, like I said, kind of going around that conversation of feeling depressed. But the problem is too, is that as a society, we've just created some pictures of what we think mental health looks like. For instance, commercials. You generally see a medication commercial for depression, and they're crying next to a dark gloomy window, but that's not how it looks like all the time. And so one of the things that I get concerned about is just kind of those people have this assumption of what they should be looking for, and that generally is not what's happening at all. And so people are really good at hiding it and unfortunately hiding it or shoving it under the rug, like you had mentioned, generally makes a mountain out of a mole hill. And before you know it, you get so far into this place that's really difficult to get out of and hard to find somebody or something to turn to. And then obviously people will self-soothe in a way to help themselves feel better doing things that actually make it worse and aren't helpful.

Jeremy Reymer (13:28):
You know whether that's alcohol or drugs in some cases, or if you're a professional driver, it may just be sometimes eating or even with boredom sometimes. Those are some of the habits that we get into. I say this a lot, and this is something that for Project 61, it really stands out to me, and you can have a thousand problems in life until you have a health problem, and then you only have one problem. It's really just, obviously, I think you and I both are cut from the same cloth as far as let's focus on preventative things. Let's focus on ways to not get to at least reduce the risk or the odds of experiencing that significant health issue from that perspective. This might be a good segue into our low hanging fruit segment where we get into some specific takeaways for drivers, for anybody who's listening, but again, we understand that being a truck driver is hard. It takes a toll on your physical as well as your mental health. It takes being very intentional to combat the inherent challenges that drivers face on a day-to-day basis. So let's touch on three or four things, some small impactful baby steps that they can incorporate into their day and improve their mental health immediately.

Becky Schmitz (14:37):
The best part about it is, is that coping skills generally are free, so it's cost effective, and they don't take a lot of time, like you said, as long as you're intentional and mindful of that. There's a couple of different things I, visual aids, I love when I have something I can look at to make me think. And so that's again, one of the things that I love about the toolbox is it's that visual aid. But one of the most important ones that I talk to people about is HALT, H-A-L-T, hungry, angry, lonely, tired, very, very simple and fast. Check in with yourself. Hungry. Okay? Like you said, for the most part, we would like to believe we eat three meals a day, right? That's kind of suggested, and I actually think one of the dieticians in town here one time said it was important to have six small meals a day, but food and nutrition is huge.

Becky Schmitz(15:26):
Fruits and vegetables are important. Making sure you ate, it's as simple as if you're going to put gas in your truck for it to run. The same concept applies to your body, so that's hungry. If you haven't eaten, please do angry. What's going on in your mind? Is there something you need to talk about? And a lot of times what's important with anger is that we have this thing called the anger iceberg. On the surface, you're seeing this very angry feeling, but below that is kind of the core emotions, which are generally sadness, guilt, shame, loneliness that's coming out in a way that seems like you're just really upset. You kind of need to ask yourself some questions that what's really truly bothering you. Maybe it's that you haven't been home in a while, or maybe you missed an event with your family because you were busy, you were four states away trying to make a deadline.

Becky Schmitz(16:19):
And so understanding that it's okay to feel that way, but then not allowing it to really create more issues past that anger and having that level of acceptance, which kind of also goes with a lonely. So HAL loneliness. When's the last time you connected with somebody? I know that that can be a pretty difficult situation. Socializing and visiting, spending a lot of time alone over the road. What do you do to fill that time? Do you spend it talking on the phone? I don't know. Do you listen to audio books to have, it's like almost having another kind of beating heart there with you, keeping you company, but what does that look like? I said, have you spent time with somebody lately in the last week? Have you spent time with somebody? If not, that might be a really good place to start to kind of find somebody to just visit with or at least surround yourself by a person.

Becky Schmitz(17:12):
And the last one is tired. So sleep is huge. And I don't know about you, but if I don't get good sleep, I generally can't function properly. And so when I think about trucking, I think about deadlines and I think about where you sleep, how you sleep, the time you sleep when you get off routine or you're kind of making do with what you have. I think it makes it more difficult to be able to have a good sleep routine or get the proper eight hours that you need, and then you get up and then you start all over again, right? So halt really does matter. It makes sense because if you're doing this pattern every day, it really starts to add up to a whole problem.

Jeremy Reymer (17:52):
I like that. You keep it simple. Halt, right? A, it's stop. Take stock of what's going on. Are you hungry? Are you taking care of that? And just to add a little bit to that, is the importance of the quality of the food that you eat, not just that you eat, but are you eating real food? One of my favorite authors around health, especially from a nutrition standpoint, Michael Pollan, he says, eat real food mostly. Plants, not so much. Pretty simple. But if we did that more often, a we'd be a lot healthier, probably would address a lot of the obesity issues that we have as a country, not just in this industry. And then the A for angry, I think it's easy, especially as a professional driver, you have a lot of stress. There's a lot of responsibility. 80,000 pounds barreling down a highway with four wheelers cutting in and out, have no understanding of what it takes to stop a vehicle, what sort of distance that truck needs in front of the truck, the car vehicle in front of it. And so those sorts of things can easily be frustrating and lead to anger.

Becky Schmitz (19:00):
One thing I want to say about the food piece too is that people don't always recognize that the food or whatever you're putting in your body can be contributing to certain things. So for instance, if you are somebody that experiences a lot of anxiety, take a look at one of the things. So I am gluten-free, not really by choice, but physically needed to be. And man, did my anxiety really start to reduce at that point? There is a lot of research that shows that gluten can contribute to that. And if you think about the foods that we're eating on the fly, a lot of sandwiches, a lot of microwave dinners, processed foods that are contributing to how you feel, because we haven't given our body the proper nutrients. It needs to feel better or to feel motivated. So paying attention to what you're eating on a daily basis too is important.

Jeremy Reymer (19:48):
And the L for loneliness, right? It's isolated industry just by nature, very isolated. I think it's really important. One of the things that's important to me with Project 61 is to really build community around that we all are in the same boat. We all understand the challenges that the industry and specifically this driving career entails. So let's build a community where we all can engage with each other and address and talk about openly and candidly, and it's okay in a safe place about some of these challenges that exist. And then the tea being tired. Not only am I not functioning optimally if I haven't slept, but to your point earlier, same with food, it's going to negatively contribute to your health, mental health to your brain health, your cardiovascular system, all facets of your body if you don't sleep. I mean, I actually posted something once I read about sleep that I think if you deprive a puppy, I can't even remember if it was like two or three days of sleep, it will die. And the point of that was, do you want to kill a puppy? No, of course not. But certainly it'll grab your attention when you see a headline like that. But we need sleep, just like you need water.

Becky Schmitz (21:01):
I analyze people. I really like to assess things, and I've been doing some traveling lately. And one thing that I noticed, because ever since I had the opportunity to speak at the MTA, trucking and mental health in that world has really become something of interest to me and what that could look like or what kind of help is needed. So I'm kind of always paying attention. And one thing that I notice when we're driving past truckers is just kind that almost autopilot, zoned out, kind of somber look. I think some of it, like you said, it comes from constant stress. I don't envy their job at all of trying to haul something and then have inconsiderate drivers on top of it, lack of sleep, missing out on things. I mean, there's a lot of factors that play into that one look that you see on somebody's face, and being able to address that and understand what are some things that we can take off your plate?

Becky Schmitz(21:57):
Hungry is one of 'em. I think about the level and just understanding where am I at each piece of the pie and there's eight pieces of the pie. And when six of those pieces are off and not right, it's hard to feel well. It's hard to keep yourself well. And so that's just something that I think about, just kind of giving yourself a check-in every day. Super simple, where am I at? How am I feeling? Do I need to check in with somebody? And then just making it at a point to share how you're feeling I think is important or what's bothering you so it doesn't sit there and just kind of spin. It's like being on that hamster wheel, and then it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And before you know it, you're not really for sure where to turn to. And at that point, how to even start that conversation because it is uncomfortable. It does cause some anxiety sometimes, and it's hard to ask for help. It's hard to admit that you're not well and that you have a problem, but it's important. It's important to you and for you, it's important for your family, for your job to be able to keep yourself well and to be able to address anything that you do feel.

Jeremy Reymer (22:57):
No, and I'm glad you mentioned how important it's for your family too. I mean, that's a critical component. Rebecca, just for our audience who'd like to learn more about the mental health toolbox, where should we direct them?

Becky Schmitz (23:07):
I'm really poor at social media sometimes. I'm not going to lie, but I do have a Facebook page, the Mental Health Toolbox. You can also check out our Viking Land Community Support program page. We are in the process of getting our website up and running and needed some love, but you can also email me anytime. I would love that. If you have any questions or comments of any thing or you want to know more information, you could email me, beckyschmitz1106@gmail.com. I would love it, and just have the opportunity to have a conversation. If something's bothering you, would be great, or at least direct you to some more resources. So Facebook, email, those are kind of my two biggest places to get ahold of me.

Jeremy Reymer (23:45):
Perfect. Well, thank you once again for joining me. It's great to see you again, and I hope to see you again soon.

Becky Schmitz (23:50):
Yes, I do too. Thank you.

Jeremy Reymer (23:58):
That's it for this episode of Project 61, but remember, change doesn't happen overnight. It happens in the small decisions you make every day. You don't have to do everything at once, but you do have to start. Try at least one thing we talked about today and see how it feels. If you found this episode helpful, share it with a fellow driver or leave us a review. Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, and keep moving forward!