Overcome - A Mental Health Podcast

Calm in the Chaos: Navigating Anxiety with Jim Schreiber

• Episode 5

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In this powerful and personal episode of Overcome: A Mental Health Podcast, host Travis White sits down with Jim Schreiber—entrepreneur, wellness advocate, and founder of Vital Spring. Jim opens up about his battle with anxiety that began during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when a life-threatening case of pneumonia landed him in the ICU and left lasting emotional scars.

He shares how he navigated post-ICU mental health care, the importance of recognizing anxiety symptoms, and the role therapy and journaling played in his recovery. Jim and Travis also dive into overlooked tools like breathwork, sleep routines, and mineral supplementation—particularly magnesium—and how they can dramatically impact mental health.

What We Discuss:

  • How a post-COVID ICU stay triggered severe anxiety
  • The hidden symptoms men often ignore
  • Challenges of finding the right therapist
  • How journaling and therapy tools aid in emotional awareness
  • Breathwork, body scanning, and grounding exercises
  • How magnesium and essential minerals support brain and body health
  • Jim’s inspiration behind launching Vital Spring
  • The mind-body connection and learning to listen to your triggers
  • Advice for anyone just beginning their mental health journey

Jim’s story is a testament to the resilience of the human mind and body. If you’ve ever struggled with anxiety, felt alone in your healing, or wondered how your physical health connects to your mental state, this episode is for you.

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About Jim Schreiber:

Jim is a 15-year veteran of consumer goods startups and the recent founder of Vital Spring, the world's first premium mineral replenisher.

https://www.vital-spring.com/

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Travis White (00:00)
Hello and welcome to Overcome a Mental Health Podcast, a place where you can openly talk about your mental health. I'd like to introduce today's guest. We are talking to Jim, Jim Schreiber. Did I say your last name correctly?

Jim Schreiber (00:15)
You got it 100 % correct.

Travis White (00:17)
Perfect.

I should have asked that before. I apologize. Jim is a 15 year veteran of consumer goods startups and recent founder of Vital Spring, the world's first premium mineral replenisher. Today, Jim was gracious enough to come on the show and speak to us about his experience with anxiety, the connection between essential minerals and mental health, and tips for those that are struggling. Jim, let's just get started with your story.

Jim Schreiber (00:46)
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So my journey with anxiety probably started when I moved to New York City about 15 years ago because anxiety is just in the air here. But it really accelerated during COVID. So I unfortunately was stuck in New York City when the first wave of COVID hit here in 2020, which itself was sort of like isolating and really kind of trapped you in.

I found myself in early summer 2020 in the ICU. So I was kind of like part of that first wave of COVID pneumonia. Ended up being in a hospital for about 10 days. To be honest, it was all sort of a blur. Yeah, right at the beginning. And part of it was, if you remember back in those days, especially in like New York City,

Travis White (01:30)
So you got a really bad case of it then.

Jim Schreiber (01:42)
We were kind of told, go to the hospital until you need to. But the problem was, how do you know when you need to?

Yeah. So I ended up probably waiting too long, which was before I went to the hospital in that first round of COVID, which didn't do me any favors. So that's where I ended up in the ICU. Luckily, I was there when sort of my lung function crashed. So I was in the ER when that happened and ended up

kind of on steroids, close monitoring and all that in complete isolation for 10 days. So, mean that sucked. I luckily, you know, I made it through. And one thing that I kind of got lucky with was after that experience of being in isolation for 10 days, I don't exactly know what kind of angel reached out to me if it was like part of a hospital group or a doctor, but

Travis White (02:22)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Schreiber (02:38)
I started to get a call maybe about a week after I got out of the ICU. I got a call from an agency that basically said a huge percentage of people who go through the experience you just had being in isolation, going into the ICU for more than two days, you end up with anxiety. And in my mind, it was like so far in the back of like what I needed to worry about because I was trying to build up my lung function. I had this like thing I had to blow into. was trying to just like almost learn how to walk again.

I could only walk around my apartment five times before I'd run out of breath. So they were calling me and I kind of put it in the back. I'm like, yeah, sure. Anxiety, mental health, like I've got bigger problems. But turns out I did. So they convinced me to kind of do a screener and they explained sort of this whole process with their like kind of post ICU mental health kind of like fix.

and convinced me to talk to a therapist. And after I talked kind of like this first person, like a screener, they're like, you have moderate to severe anxiety. Like you don't even realize it. And that's when I started to like start to recognize like, I'm completely ignoring like not being able to sleep, sleeping at weird times of the day. My heart's starting to race at different points of the day.

And I started to take it seriously. that, that screening got me into a kind of an intensive program. So it was at least two months of twice a week. I had a behavior coach and I had a therapist just talking through like what anxiety was. So it honestly took me probably two or three weeks of that, just to like recognize that what I was experiencing was anxiety. This isn't normal, which I think that's almost like the first thing, especially, ⁓ not to be stereotypical, but as a guy, you're kind of told to like,

Travis White (04:28)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Schreiber (04:28)
suck it

up, like ignore it. And that thing that like, yeah, that pain in your shoulder, that's one thing. It's another thing when you justify like not sleeping days at a time or like drinking way too much caffeine or like almost like shaking with nerves. It became overwhelming. So took a couple of weeks started to recognize that, you know, recognize that I had anxiety and I dove in and really kind of took that that program really, really seriously, you know, for the last the last couple of weeks from that and then

continued on with a therapist for kind of a year or so after that as well. So that's kind of my journey of how I ended up with anxiety. And yeah, that program, which I also would love to kind of hear about your journey too about how you discovered mental health challenges.

Travis White (05:13)
Yeah. Yeah.

yeah. So mine started, the ones, I mean, nothing like really growing up that I can think of, but my mental health challenges started back in 2009. I started having seizures and the first little bit, it was like really, really rough. had like probably 30 to 40 seizures in the span of a month. And they, I went in and out of neurologists.

Jim Schreiber (05:29)
Mm-hmm.

Travis White (05:41)
like saw like five of them, they would promise stuff and I just never got any results. And during this time, like, so so mine's like, it's kind of a split between anxiety and depression. And during this time, like things, you know, started getting a little bit dark. But it wasn't until years later that I actually admitted that I have a problem.

Jim Schreiber (05:47)
Yeah.

Travis White (06:06)
Then it got to the point where I didn't want to go places. I wanted to be alone. Big crowds made me nervous. It didn't get to the point of big panic attacks, but it would be like, if we were going out somewhere, I'd definitely be like, I could feel my heart flutter and I'm like, I can't do this. Luckily for me, my fiance back at the time, she stayed with me throughout all this and we're married now.

Jim Schreiber (06:22)
Yeah.

Travis White (06:34)
I picked out a good one. So, um, but it honestly wasn't until I think it was at least five to six years later that I was like, you know, I have a problem. I people kept telling me, you know, your anxiety is really bad. You need to do something about it. And I started a therapy. Um, I didn't start therapy until like 2017, 18. And then at that time I lost my job and so I couldn't afford it. And.

Jim Schreiber (06:34)
Congratulations. Yeah.

Travis White (07:04)
Then, by this time the seizures had completely stopped. So was like, I'd get migraines and have seizures like once a year. And then back in 2024, I had a setback. I started having those seizures again. I had about 30 in about a month. I ended up going to the ER and my anxiety just got really bad. I had a...

running by dissociating myself like really, bad. Um, but I got diagnosed with what's called P N E S which is, uh, psychogenic, non epileptic, psychogenic, non epileptic seizures. And so basically that means that the seizures aren't firing from your brain. It's just, they say it's usually based on trauma. I am convinced that they can be physiological too. So that this sub

Jim Schreiber (07:49)
Mm-hmm.

Travis White (08:01)
towards the of 2024 is when I actually was like, you know what? I really need to dig in and see therapists. And that's when I did and started going. I think I started out going like twice a week and now I'm, I'm still going once a week now. And I'm just to that point where I think I'm kind of get back to once a month, just cause I'm like, you, you hit that point and you're like, you know what? I could see the difference this is making.

Jim Schreiber (08:28)
it's worth it. And you hit at one thing that was really eye opening for me. That program that kind of that they kind of pushed me into like, hey, what you just experienced is going to, you know, cause anxiety. It was fully funded by my health insurance. And they argued it. I mean, they explained it. They're like, you doing this program would be cheaper for us long term than you having to develop like severe panic attacks. And it

Travis White (08:40)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jim Schreiber (08:57)
I realized that like in the back of my mind, like I probably, and I've always kind of thought maybe it's a New York city thing, like, Oh, I should go to a therapist. I should see somebody like I'm not sleeping well. Work is causing too much stress, blah, blah, blah, blah. But then I saw the expense of it and it's impossible to find a therapist. It's covered by insurance and you kind of go through all of that.

Travis White (09:03)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jim Schreiber (09:18)
I don't know how many hours I had spent over the years on like psychology today, which I feel like, you know, to trying to define, you know, define the right match of somebody who takes, have Aetna health insurance and like, I had, and this is probably maybe part of the anxiety thing. I have all these rules. like, I don't want to go too far away. Like I don't want to like commute 45 minutes, but I also don't want somebody down the street because I don't want to accidentally run into them like at the coffee shop. ⁓ yeah.

Travis White (09:23)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. So,

so when you started going to therapy, did you find a good therapist that fit like with your personality to right away or did you did it take you some like, did you have to go through multiple?

Jim Schreiber (09:53)
multiple like it wouldn't in like the heat of post ICU, like it was sort of like anybody would have been fine. And I was really lucky that the two was two women that I got matched with got along, got along pretty well with them. And at that point, it was like, so I think the word might be acute. It was so acute that it was like, I just needed anything. Then I have had problems with like, finding like the right therapist match.

Travis White (10:13)
Mm.

Jim Schreiber (10:23)
Since then, kind of when I'm on my own, and that's why, you know, I'm spending so much time on psychology today, you know, trying to find that needle in the haystack.

Travis White (10:23)
Yeah.

Jim Schreiber (10:31)
yeah, mean, finding a therapist, I wonder if you've had kind of a similar challenge with like you you find somebody and then you have to schedule them. I've had issues over the years with like

Travis White (10:43)
Yeah. Yeah. See, you know, I've,

I feel like I really lucked out. So the first time I went to therapy in like 17, 18, I, uh, got along really well with him and honestly didn't have to go to anybody else. But then when I stopped going and started going back just recently, I went to one place that sounded like really good, but I could not get on their schedule. Like I got in one for one session and then they didn't get a hold of me for like another month. So I was like,

you know what, I gotta make a decision and I just honestly went back to the guy that I saw before and we've meshed really well.

Jim Schreiber (11:20)
Yeah, I had that happen to where like something happened with scheduling. somebody went out for maternity leave and they ended up being like, ⁓ you know, the one time we could we could see you now. Right. And just have got I had gotten over the hump of like getting to know a therapist and feeling confident. She's like, well, I can see you at eight a.m. on Mondays. I was like, well. No. Well, one of my problems is not sleeping well, so like that seems.

Travis White (11:27)
Mm-hmm.

Mm. Yeah.

Yeah, it was kind of funny. So the guy that I started back up with, ⁓ he's like, during our first session, he said something along the lines of like, don't let me, you know, like, cause I'm the one who picked him when I found him online and I matched really well with what he was doing. He's like, but don't let me be the one to stop you from getting the help that you need. And so I had to get on a wait list and I was like, well, I want to keep going with him.

Jim Schreiber (11:51)
counterproductive.

Travis White (12:17)
But at the same time, he's telling me not to stop from getting the help that I need and I'm in a really dark, kind of rough spot right now. So I think I just have to go with somebody else.

Jim Schreiber (12:26)
Yeah, yeah. ⁓ it's rough. One thing when you started therapy, one thing that I just wonder if this helped you as much as it helped me, it was my coach convinced me to just start a journal. So like I had an anxiety journal that was kind of caring with me because I think one of my challenges was just recognizing that something was triggering anxiety or that I was having an anxiety attack and

even just like writing it down and learning to recognize it was so helpful and like so cathartic with like realizing that this isn't normal. You know, I think that was my first step.

Travis White (13:01)
Yeah.

Yeah, that was one of my first steps was like, I kept like a, it's an app and it reminds me three times a day and I rate it like, you know, not good to like really anxious or something like that. I can change them. And it's kind of like tells me if I'm in a depressed mode or an anxious mode. And then it kind of maps it out for me.

but you're right, you hit it right on the spot. It's kind of recognizing that you have these problems coming up. Because sometimes you don't even know what's going on until you stop and think for a second, like, ⁓ this isn't normal, it?

Jim Schreiber (13:47)
Yeah, yeah. was months after I started therapy and when, so was months after I started therapy and I was on my first work trip. So it was like when the COVID vaccines had come out, it wasn't, it was probably pretty early in 2021. ⁓ and I had a complete panic attack and it was when I went to, so I was traveling alone, going to visit a warehouse for work.

And it was like back when like Hilton's and Hyatt's had like, every room was sealed and there was like, there's a blue seal on the room and it's like cleaned with Lysol. And that's how they like showed that it had been, it had been disinfected. And then when you break the seal and you go into the room and that, you it was, I I forgot what they called it. was like disinfection theater kind of like, we know now it didn't really matter to wrap everything with plastic. Like, but you know, they had done that.

Travis White (14:38)
Yeah.

Jim Schreiber (14:45)
And when I opened the room and had turned it into like, like I was in isolation again. And I had this like bizarre panic attack that even if I remember it, was like, I walked into the room and I was back in the hospital in isolation and like completely freaked out. in a way I was really clad that I had that intervention to talk to the therapy and the coach because I recognized it and I didn't completely freak out.

Travis White (15:01)
Ugh.

Jim Schreiber (15:12)
I mean, I freaked out. Don't get me wrong. Like I was like, do I do? And I remember kind of like, I remember going into like the bathroom of the hotel and like looking in the mirror and I saw myself in the hotel room. And it's been one of the craziest things was like, I had to talk to the therapist afterward where even if I like, know cognitively, like I was not in the hospital. I was in a hotel room outside of a warehouse, like by near a warehouse in California, but

Travis White (15:33)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Schreiber (15:40)
Even like rewinding, you you think about your memories and you rewind. When I remember that that moment, I'm in a hospital. It's like it was like my brain just like spliced it and it's like I'm there. It's it's insane.

Travis White (15:49)
It's yeah,

it was it's crazy to me like dealing with some of the stuff like what the brain can actually make you think

There's so much we know about the brain, but there's also some little, mean, same with like mental health. Like I, it's just so many, like even myself, there's so many unexplainable things that have happened to me. Like what? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's, I touch base on this a little bit, but, ⁓ during some of my hardest times I dissociate, ⁓ not all of it was because of the medicine I was on, or if I was just like that far gone, I

Jim Schreiber (16:04)
Yeah, yeah.

And like triggers change too, you know, over time.

Travis White (16:30)
can't tell you to this day, but I would become childlike. So back in the day, when I was having so many seizures back in 2009, I actually moved back home with my parents for a bit. And I'd get in these modes where I'd act like a five year old and I'd want to watch like, you know, Horton, Here's a Who. And not that I love my animated movies, but

Jim Schreiber (16:59)
yeah, yeah, it's comforting. Yeah, yeah.

Travis White (17:00)
And I don't remember any of this. Yeah, I don't

remember any of this. This is all from like people telling me like you did some really bizarre stuff.

Jim Schreiber (17:09)
When I've noticed that that's kind of stuff happening for me, it's sort of like, I wonder if it's a defense mechanism where it's like something neurons are firing in the wrong way and you go to like extreme comfort. For me, it's often like food where I'm like, I need Burger King. Like I need.

Travis White (17:19)
Yeah.

Yep. Yeah, I,

I am definitely an anxious eater. Like, like when I during my biggest spouts of like anxiety, I would go downstairs like two or three in the morning and I would just like dig in, get me a bowl of ice cream, get me some cereal and sit down and watch a show.

Jim Schreiber (17:30)
Yeah.

Mine is, it's like a grilled cheese, a grilled cheese with like a ton of hot sauce. And it's like, have to, it's like, then I'll calm down and be able to sleep, you know, at like the two or three AM kind of thing.

Travis White (17:52)
Yeah.

Yep. That and loads of caffeine. Like I used caffeine as a vice for many years.

Jim Schreiber (17:58)
⁓ it mean that's the worst because it's so temporary and it works until it doesn't. And then like two hours later, like that, you know, the crash or yeah.

Travis White (18:06)
You're like crashing. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. What? What like therapy type stuff has like worked for you the best? Like what techniques were you taught that you're like, this is something that really helps me out.

Jim Schreiber (18:24)
for me, I mean, it just sounds corny, but it's meditation. So I got a, kind of the, the one black Friday, probably 2021. got the, the like permanent annual membership, ⁓ to calm the calm app. And that was one of the things that the behavior coach, like when I was kind of doing the intensive therapy, was lots of worksheets. was lots of like stuff and it was kind of circling around meditation.

And I found such a huge difference in my day when I sit. And for me, it's doesn't it almost doesn't matter what of like the Calm app has like five different kind of daily 10 to 20 minute long meditations. It doesn't matter which one I do or what the intention is. As long as I do it, it helps me so much like calm my mind and center myself. And I see such a huge difference. I don't do it every day. I forget or I get lazy. But I see such a huge difference like

Travis White (19:09)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Schreiber (19:22)
in my heart rate and my breathing. If I just do that for like 10 or 15 minutes there and also for like an intervention, like when things are really bad, like I have like take like stopped, you know, with a work meeting or something like that, like gone to meditate. But it helps just just closing my eyes, like sinking into kind of wherever I am and just like forcing myself to breathe. I one of the things since

Travis White (19:35)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Schreiber (19:51)
Um, since kind of 2020, I wear, I wear an Apple watch. I'm not the biggest kind of fitness person, but it's being able to tell like my blood. Uh, this is one thing that's probably never going to go away, but, um, it has a blood oxygen monitor. I can't tell you the number of times when I like start to get anxious, I just test my blood oxygen. It's sort of like this grounding thing for me where if my blood oxygen is fine, it's sort of like, I know I'll be fine, at least for this point in my life.

Travis White (19:58)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jim Schreiber (20:21)
Um, because my blood oxygen got so low. It's like one of those things that causes anxiety. If I don't have it on me, then, and I, and I'm like, Oh, I start to get short of breath or something like that. I'll be honest since 2020, I've never actually, you know, like it was like the pneumonia was bad. I've never actually had low blood oxygen since then, but I just need that as sort of a crutch. And that's along with, uh, the, like the, the, the meditation, I can see the difference. I'm like my blood oxygen, my, um,

in my heart rate as I'm meditating it.

Travis White (20:55)
Yeah, yeah. And see, I've never got like way into meditation. But one thing that really has helped me is breath work, some breathing exercises, and then it's just a couple. There's a method that they call it's called the five, four, three, two, one method. So if I'm feeling like overly anxious, you kind of just take a step back and you look around the room and you pick five things that you can see.

Jim Schreiber (21:16)
Mm-hmm.

Travis White (21:25)
and you can just kind of briefly explain them in your mind. And then four is touch, kind of just go around, touch four different things. And then number three is, what one was that? I can't remember the order, but you know, there's smell, taste, just all the five senses and you just go through them. There's a specific order, but I am not recalling it. And it's, yeah, it pulls me out like immediately.

Jim Schreiber (21:48)
As long as you do it, yeah, yeah.

You know, thing that sort of it's kind of really similar that does that for me, like this is mostly with sleep and I think it's called a body scan. And I'm not sure if this falls under meditation or breath work or whatever, but it's kind of like you, you lay there. I think you could probably do it sitting up and you start either like at one extremity. So like the top of your head, the bottom of your feet, like your fingers, and you just sort of like go down and you like, you relax it. Like you relax the top of your head until

Like you can move on to your temples and you move down. No, no, it's it's almost like you're you're you're like you're just completely still and just mentally like like mentally just relaxing like the tension and how often you know, especially in your temples or kind of in your head, you hold a lot of tension or could be in your feet and just sort of like once you start doing it, once you like unlocks the tension, like you kind of realize it and then you can like kind of move on.

Travis White (22:22)
Are you like tapping or?

It's

okay.

Jim Schreiber (22:48)
Sometimes, I mean, for me, sometimes it could be like a half an hour because one of the, uh, one of the challenges with it, this is, this was one of the, the, the coaching things was. So like, you're trying to like, kind of like, let's say you start on the top of your head. You're like, you're relaxing your temples, you're relaxing your cheek. And like, I hold, I, um, clench my teeth a lot. So I grind my teeth. So like relaxing all of that and moving down. One of the things is it's like, it's almost like a, like a sport where like, if you find yourself then tensing up again, let's say I get down to like my shoulders, my jaw tenses up.

Travis White (23:06)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Schreiber (23:18)
you have to go back and you have to then continue relaxing. it's a no. I don't want to it's annoying because it can sometimes take so long. We're kind of feeling really anxious. But one thing that I found is that when I can't sleep and if I do that, I actually get through the whole body better than melatonin or any other any prescription or anything, like even chamomile tea, that if I can focus enough to do it will actually get me to relax, especially with sleeping.

Travis White (23:20)
Okay, yeah.

Jim Schreiber (23:48)
then I'll like fall asleep.

Travis White (23:51)
And it's amazing to me that like just learning how to do some of these techniques, like just how much of the the boulder off your shoulders it can take off. Like it just releases so much like tension and it's just insane to me.

Jim Schreiber (24:06)
When how much is in your head and how much you can control, like, once you recognize it, recognize that, like, it's, I'm not supposed to be, grinding my teeth kind of thing. I'm supposed to be able to, like, like, loosen my jaw and relax.

Travis White (24:09)
Yeah.

Yeah,

you just reminded me of a quote. I was actually in a therapy session today and my therapist said the awareness is 50 % of the of the battle. If you can be aware of like what's going on, you can start doing the other stuff.

Jim Schreiber (24:37)
I'd say at least 50%. I remember I was talking with therapists or other professionals. I feel like sometimes also, if you do, when I was going weekly, near the end I was sort of trying to think of stuff. What else could we talk about? What else is causing me anxiety? And talked with some great professionals who they knew what questions to ask. There was always more that I wasn't even aware of. There was always something else.

Travis White (24:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, once you learn what causes anxiety and all the different things behind it, there's always something. It's just never ending. I think I could pull out a big, huge long list of stuff that caused me anxiety, but I think I'm getting better at recognizing it finally.

Jim Schreiber (25:13)
yeah.

Yeah, so it's, I'm the youngest of six kids. So I've got a pretty big family. And this was probably like two or three years ago, what type of year is it? It's 2025. I'm lucky that my mom is still with us and she's that boomer generation. They're not, I wouldn't say she's not against mental health, but like she's not quite there. And I'm not a therapist, I'm not gonna diagnose her, but.

Travis White (25:42)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jim Schreiber (25:52)
You know, and it's hard to get all six of us all around. at some point during kind of the especially during COVID, but at some point, all six of us have talked to a therapist. And we were around and it had nothing to do with my mom. And this probably says volumes. You could tell she was getting upset. She's like, fine, it's all my fault. We're like, no, but you need to dive into that.

Travis White (26:03)
Hey.

Yeah, and she's the one that like hasn't come around to it, but that's yeah Yeah, yeah

Jim Schreiber (26:22)
Yeah, she was like, ⁓ it's all my fault. You're all in therapy if there's something wrong with us.

And we all had to like check her and be like, no, this is healthy. We're being healthy. You are the one who's being the stick in the mud.

Travis White (26:32)
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that I'm the only one in my family that's talk to the therapist.

Jim Schreiber (26:39)
Even it's, I talked to friends about it and it was that point, I think it was because I was talking about it. And then it came out that all of my siblings, we had never discussed this at least once or twice. Everybody had talked to a therapist or some kind of mental health thing, which was wild as one of my older brothers like had never, he won't get his cholesterol checked. Like he won't do anything, but his wife had convinced him I think at some point during COVID to talk to somebody.

Travis White (26:42)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and speaking of it, it's important to like get your levels checked. because I speaking of that, because I think your body and your mental health are so like interrelated and you don't even know it.

Jim Schreiber (27:13)
Okay.

Oh, 100%. I mean, there's the food links, but like, you know, the anxiety could cause, I mean, I think anxiety could cause like elevated liver enzymes, you know, I had no, no science to back that up.

Travis White (27:36)
⁓ I totally agree.

No. But like when I was going through all my stuff, my last seizure episodes, I went and got all my levels checked and they put me on some supplements. And I think it helped me kind of even out my anxiety and depression.

Jim Schreiber (27:58)
Yeah. Well, I wonder if that might be a decent segue into what I've been doing lately with with Vitalspring. Yeah. So so I've worked in consumer goods for a while, and that was actually part of why I was so anxious, anxious in 2020. I was working at like a kitchenware company. It was a kitchen startup, which was at that point when everybody was buying waffle makers, air fryers. And so my job was like on top of the illness. Like my job was more stressful than it ever had been.

Travis White (28:03)
Yeah, yeah, go for it. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jim Schreiber (28:28)
in my life. I've worked in consumer goods for a while and about two years ago, I stumbled into a bottle of water that was at the grocery store here in New York that I'd never seen before from Slovenia and I'm ethnically Slovenian on my mom's side. And it was like six bucks for one bottle of water and was like float. had so many minerals in it. It was kind of floating, you know, like a snow globe. So bought it, drank it and like

Travis White (28:45)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Schreiber (28:57)
felt a little bit better, but I had no idea what it was. That's just really started this journey of like learning that, you know, supplements and things like that can really help, especially minerals can really help with just overall feeling better. So it turns out that water is from the most magnesium rich source of water, really like supplementation that you could get naturally in the world, to the best of my knowledge that that's the spring. So

took, it's got a lot of magnesium, there's calcium, other electrolytes, a little potassium. Basically, like went back to the grocery store, bought all six bottles that were left. And I haven't seen it in the US again since. And it was kind of like rationing it out because it just would have a sip of it at night and like felt a little bit better. I know now it's the magnesium, know, magnesium and calcium, it's used in like, thousands of biochemical processes with like nerves and

nerves and muscle function.

Travis White (29:57)
Yeah, I'm on a special like, I think it's magnesium. I know I'm on magnesium, but it's like specifically for the brain. And to help me like, because I had a really bad like brain fog with all my stuff that went on. So, but my wife swears by magnesium.

Jim Schreiber (30:06)
Yeah.

Yeah.

We so many people do and it I was probably magnesium deficient because everything we've been talking about like drinking coffee, a lot of the stuff that you do to help treat anxiety depletes your body of magnesium either it's a diuretic. So all of those minerals and electrolytes your body uses throughout the day. So you need a constant supply of them. And, you know, from people that I've talked to in the research that I've done, if you're not basically vegan and eating, you know, pumpkin seeds every day, you're probably at any point of the day deficient.

Travis White (30:30)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Schreiber (30:49)
So because it's hard to get that consistent supply, that's why I think that water did so, you know, work so well for me. So, and that's where Vital Spring came in. it turned, it started as a sort of like a passion project of I want to, I want to feel good. Like I felt after having this water, I don't want to spend six bucks for a bottle of it every time. And I can't find it. Like it was almost impossible to get. So luckily,

Travis White (30:55)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Schreiber (31:18)
because I work at consumer goods, had asked a couple people around like, can I just make this? between with AI, I asked my brother's organic chemist, so I had I had him help to found like where to buy basically like one pound of a time of like different magnesium supplements and powders. And I bought a jewelry scale and we were just I was literally just tweaking it and making the formula on my own and started to drink it like just as

I could make the powder, mix it with water and it emulated kind of what that water was. And eventually I started to like tell people about it. They wanted to try it. I realized, hey, this is what I'm doing every day, selling goods, you maybe things that I'm not passionate about. I think it took about a year. I'm like, I have a product. Like people like this, you know, that, you know, they've tried it. And then to the source. I had to use some kind of I still have cousins.

cousins in Slovenia, so had to use a little help but found a place that would manufacture it in Europe. So they helped me tweak the flavor a little bit so that natural source of water, doesn't have like, it doesn't have any lemon flavoring. I added a little bit of like a natural lemon flavor, you know, to make it more palatable. The water tastes bad. The benefits are totally worth it. The water is expensive and it tastes bad. So yeah, yeah.

Travis White (32:27)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jim Schreiber (32:41)
of a passion project and stumbled into it, double checked it with the formula with doctors and chemists to make sure that we weren't going to like, it was as gentle as it could be. It doesn't interfere with medication. And it's funny, you mentioned that you have the form of magnesium for your brain. Part of it is because so many magnesium supplements are so rich in magnesium and they're hard to digest or absorb that they end up being laxatives. So it's like almost anything, as long as you're getting magnesium that you don't just like

Travis White (32:51)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jim Schreiber (33:09)
poop out, you know, would help. So that was kind of the big thing is I wanted to make this formula to make it adaptable fit into any lifestyle as, you know, allergen, like deficient, you know, like as, just as basically as like, simple as it could possibly be, and just focus on getting just the minerals. So it's not about like, getting a bunch of artificial salts or artificial flavors, or there's not a lot of sugar.

Travis White (33:10)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jim Schreiber (33:37)
Everything in it is supposed to be, every ingredient is supposed to have a purpose. It's not just like a bunch of stuff thrown together. So it's inspired by nature and meant to be able to kind of like adapt to your lifestyle because as we both have been talking about, everybody, like magnesium just helps you feel a little bit better. know, having calcium and having electrolytes and drinking enough water just helps just almost everything.

Travis White (33:55)
Yeah.

That's really cool that you just stumbled upon it that way and you're like, well, I have a product. I might as well do something with it.

Jim Schreiber (34:11)
yeah, was like, was, yeah,

it's something I'm like, I think I feel better. And then I'm like, let's go with it. Let's figure it out from there. Then check with doctors, check with chemists. Yeah, they were all kind of like, yeah, this makes you feel better.

Travis White (34:23)
me

And so you said you've been running this for what, two years? Did I hear two years in there somewhere?

Jim Schreiber (34:32)
It took just under two years to develop it. So I originally, you know, originally had the idea and started to kind of just make it at home. But kind of behind me, there's actually a cabinet that's got like the jugs of the different magnesium salts and things like that that I was just playing around with and testing. Yeah, yeah. It's not like it's not that the secret format. could tell you what it is. It's kind of hard to make. And I spent actually one of the hardest things was

Travis White (34:35)
Okay.

Yeah, that's where all the secrets lie.

Jim Schreiber (35:02)
finding the right partner that I really trusted to manufacture it because I'm not going to build a factory to make this. And I wanted to find that's where I ended up kind of being lucky to find somebody in Slovenia. So it it's made to EU standards. So a lot of that is like, you know, things like packaging with BPAs and different stuff. There's so many more regulations in Europe. I don't even have to worry about that. You when I was trying to source it in the US.

Travis White (35:06)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jim Schreiber (35:31)
I don't want to name names of factories, like they were like nickel and diming me on things like, do you want to do it? Do you want to have a test to make sure that there aren't heavy metals put into the product? was like, well, is that is that is that a risk that if I manufacture with you, there could be heavy metals and you don't just test for that. All of that's just done in Europe. Like they it was all included kind of layer.

Travis White (35:33)
Yeah.

So you don't have to take any

steps there. Like, yeah, they just...

Jim Schreiber (35:56)
Yeah,

it's just all the safety stuff is regulated. It's not like based on, you know, just if you're willing to spend the money on it, which that experience of trying to source this sort of product also terrified me of like anything that I that I buy now. I'm like really double checking to make sure I'm like I trust the company because it was the like, oh, do you want to have a do you want to test to make sure that it's not like bacterially contained back? You know, there's no bacteria contamination. It's like that's a

Travis White (36:05)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Schreiber (36:25)
That's an option? These are things that shouldn't be options.

Travis White (36:27)
Yeah,

these this is part of the quality assurance in my brain.

Jim Schreiber (36:33)
Yeah, so that's what it was. It took, you know, probably almost a year, six months. I've lost track of when I get to that point of talking with factories and then they would give me their kind of QC like plan. A lot of them was just sort of it was like QC for pay. I'm like, whoa, that scares me like a lot.

Travis White (36:48)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's... So can you, could we, is this like a product that's in stores or do, like how would the listeners get it?

Jim Schreiber (37:09)
So it's just online for right now. It's only been, and so, they're working on it for two years. actually just launched around Thanksgiving. So I finally got the product from Slovenia. It's only been a couple of weeks. So it's, it's available at vital V I T A L dash spring, S P R I N G.com. So vital spring.com, or I think my SEO is good enough that if you just Google vital spring, it should lead you to me. At least it did yesterday that I checked.

Travis White (37:11)
Okay.

cool.

Yeah, I'm gonna go check it out. I'm gonna order some.

Jim Schreiber (37:43)
So yeah, yeah.

Travis White (37:44)
Cause one thing I found with like some of this stuff too. So I drink a, it's full of, I know it has electrolytes in it and a lot of other stuff, but I suffer from migraines too. And this is the best thing I've ever found for migraines. It's just like a hydration drink. It's called relight or something like that. And it's, there's, there's different ones that you can, but this is one that my doctor recommended and I was

Jim Schreiber (37:59)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Travis White (38:13)
Like all these years I've had like migraines and they've everybody's doctors like, take this, you know, take this pill, take this medicine. And all it takes is a drink.

Jim Schreiber (38:25)
Yeah. Well,

and you have to be careful with a lot of those. Like some are great. And my own kind of over the last two years been trying to develop this. The thing is, it's not a hydration drink. There's no sugar in it. So it's not like meant to be a liquid IV. But fortunately, it's packaged the same way. So part of it is just explaining to people like, you know, my aunt was taking it before a workout. I was like, no, it's actually for after a workout of anything like it's replenishing the minerals. You know, it's not there's no sugar in it.

Travis White (38:31)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

work out.

Jim Schreiber (38:54)
But a lot of those, sounds like you found a good one, especially if a doctor recommended it. A lot of them, the hydration drinks are insanely flavored salt. Like there's one out there, I don't want to like name names where I'm like, it has more salt in it and just straight up table salt than a Big Mac. And it's loaded with artificial sweeteners and flavoring. it's like watermelon lemonade flavored salt. And it's like, who is that for?

Travis White (39:06)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jim Schreiber (39:25)
If anything, I'll like cause more of my grains and then you know, like there's there's, you know, really, I think, Ultima is another one that's like really good, like true, like hydration products.

Travis White (39:25)
Yeah.

Yeah, these ones are flavored, they try to stay away from like, I know they'd have some a couple like iffy ingredients in there. Some of them, but it's like, like I can't explain it. It's like the one thing that like, it's like, bam, like it's just gone. But

Jim Schreiber (39:45)
Tweet. Yeah.

Yeah, I think the flavors themselves aren't bad. mean, I had lemon juice to my stuff. It's the like, you know, if it's if it's like blue pineapple, pineapples aren't blue. That's not natural. But like an orange flavor or citrus or yeah.

Travis White (40:05)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why are you adding all these all these dyes

to? Yeah, that's that's a whole different conversation. Those like the foods, the food industry.

Jim Schreiber (40:16)
yeah, yeah. mean, orange Gatorade, there's nothing natural about that.

Travis White (40:20)
Nope, nope, nope. It's like one of the worst drinks for you. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think I have anybody from Gatorade listening to my podcast. no. ⁓ so like, let's go back on the mental health side of things a little bit. I just thought of something, ⁓

Jim Schreiber (40:24)
yeah, yeah.

Hopefully, I'll get a letter.

Travis White (40:49)
And I'm just wondering, like somebody that's struggling, like what are, do you think are like the most important things that they should know that maybe they're just realizing it or maybe they're just getting help? what, I guess what advice would you give somebody that is struggling?

Jim Schreiber (41:09)
I this is very much on the surface, but if you're struggling with anything, I think the biggest thing is find somebody to talk to. And it might not be a therapist. you might not be able to, know, a therapy could be 80 bucks, 120 bucks, 50 bucks or whatever. I know that could be expensive, but just find somebody, maybe even online. There could be a friendly voice on Reddit, like, or on a different online forum. But if you're struggling, like don't...

ever feel alone, like make sure you find somebody that you could talk to, even if it's your cat, even if it's your dog, just like, let it out. I think even just the act of saying something out loud, even if it's to the wall, or, you know, or to anybody that could, I think that that is helpful. What I found for myself, and even for when I, you know, when I've talked about mental health, it's like this spiral of like, you feel alone, then you don't talk about it. And then you kind of bubble it up, or you

Travis White (41:50)
Mm-hmm.

Jim Schreiber (42:05)
you bottle it in and then it gets worse and worse and worse. So if you can identify that spiral and just like find some sort of release to talk to, to communicate, it's terrifying, especially if you've never talked about your mental health issues in the past, but like just be brave and talk to somebody about it. You're not crazy. And that's the first, for me, I think that's like probably the first step for most people.

Travis White (42:21)
Mm-hmm.

Oh yeah, I agree. I can't hit on that enough. Like I think I said that in my very first episode is you need to find somebody that's in your corner. Like you need to, if it's one people, if it's two people, um, I have a good friend that has struggled with mental health issues. So every time I'm feeling down, like a big dude, like, how did you go get over this? Like I have this going on and I don't know what to do. And he'll.

He'll listen when I need him to listen and he'll give me tips when I need tips.

Jim Schreiber (43:08)
Yeah, it's that it was also when you're talking to somebody about it, there's the, I forgot what the question is, but it's like, do you want comfort or do you want solutions? And even checking with that, like some people just need someone to talk to, sometimes they need advice and both are valid.

Travis White (43:16)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, exactly. it's, and I will say in the very beginning, you touch base on this a little bit too. It is hard to be vulnerable. It's hard to like put yourself out there to the world. but the more, the more you do it, the easier it gets. And it's like, it's, it's almost like, I think of, so this is like my, I think fifth episode that I'm recording right now, we're on right now. And each, each time.

Jim Schreiber (43:34)
yeah.

Travis White (43:52)
it gets easier for me and it's just very motivating to me to hear like other people's stories and kind of feel that connection and thinking like, you know what, I'm not alone. Like other people are struggling with this too.

Jim Schreiber (44:05)
And what you're doing is so important, creating a space for people to talk about this. Who knows who will find your podcast? Because it's permanently out there on the platforms.

Travis White (44:19)
Yeah.

Yeah. And it's, it's like one way, like, I feel like I can connect with people that it doesn't matter who we are. Like we have a connection. it doesn't, this is where nothing matters. It's just you're suffering. I'm suffering. And I think it needs to be talked about.

Jim Schreiber (44:40)
Yeah, we both have brains that just swimming in chemicals and just like screwing us up all the time.

Travis White (44:42)
Uh-huh.

Every single day, man. Every single day.

Jim Schreiber (44:47)
Yeah. Yeah.

Travis White (44:50)
Let's see, do I have any other questions? I always write it down on my phone, so let me just make sure that we touch base on everything.

Any last minute thoughts that you want to?

Jim Schreiber (45:12)
You know, I think, yeah, you know, it's funny we're reporting this today. I forgot what day of the year exactly is, but it's right around January 20th, 25th is like the darkest day of the year. We're right about that point in terms of like the holidays are the past. It's winter for far too long still. It's still cold. So I think maybe the last point would just be like, we're all dealing with this. Just enjoy, enjoy life and try what you can.

Travis White (45:13)
tell the listeners that

Mm-hmm.

Jim Schreiber (45:42)
Might be kind of a poopy day as it is in a lot of the weather's bad or gray or cold or windy and all that. But I guess the reminder of this is probably a good metaphor. Like there's always another day. It could always be better tomorrow. The sun will come out tomorrow.

Travis White (45:49)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, there's, there definitely is light at the end of the tunnel. Like, and then I think sometimes we focus too much. when we get into these, ⁓ moments of depression or anxiety, we focus too much on the negative. But once you learn and I always say to my therapist, I had to subconsciously learn to like recognize this stuff. And once I did, I started seeing the light.

Jim Schreiber (46:03)
Definitely.

You can climb out, yeah.

Travis White (46:29)
Mm-hmm. ⁓ and where you mentioned vital, vital spring.com vital is a vital dash spring.com anywhere else? Makes sense. ⁓ anywhere else that people can find you.

Jim Schreiber (46:37)
Yep, vital-spring.com. Yeah, I couldn't afford vitalspring.com. I needed that dash.

Just there for now, probably later this year I'll end up on Amazon and start pitching to retailers, but right now it's just online.

Travis White (46:56)
Perfect. Awesome. Well, thank you all for listening. I hope you enjoyed this one. I have really enjoyed talking with Jim today. Please follow us on Instagram at overcome pod and share and follow and do all that fun stuff.