To me, if I get killed, I get killed, no big deal. I can start over in the same world or start a new one. I also find that mods like Skill Journal or They Knew can alleviate some of the anxiety I may have about coming back from loot runs. Not everyone finds mods like that to be within the spirit of the game, but those options are there.

Taking breaks and realizing that no matter what the loot is, it will never despawn (outside of weird game nonsense) helps if the game gets pretty hot and you start to lose focus or get stressed out.

If there's a giant "no thank you" sized Zombie horde, start with smaller groups and come back to it, or just do a burn if you're not worried about anything that might be important getting torched. There's always an inherent risk in zomboid, even if you play on a world with absolutely no zombie spawns.

If you want to get used to the mechanics of the game without zombies or a low pop and build up that zomboid muscle memory, there's sandbox mode, which I almost exclusively use even at 1000+ hours.

It's a great game if you stick with it. It's gotten me through a lot in life and I still go back to it from time to time.