Less Stress In Life

Change Your Relationship with Stress

May 17, 2021 Deb Timmerman and Barb Fletcher Season 1 Episode 10
Less Stress In Life
Change Your Relationship with Stress
Show Notes Transcript

Over the past 30 years, Dr. James Petersen, Ph.D. has become the leader in helping to reduce workplace stress through evidence-based stress risk assessments and corporate training programs. He is creator of the Stress Mastery Questionnaire™ (SMQ), a validated stress risk assessment, that has been administered to over 600,000 people in 15 countries.

In this episode, Dr. Petersen talks about how information from SMQ can help people make lifestyle changes, and change their relationship with stress.

If you would like to take the SMQ, click this link

Deb Timmerman  00:00:28    Our guest today is Dr. James Peterson. He's a stress psychologist, author and expert on individual and corporate stress mastery programs. He's the creator of the stress mastery questionnaire, a scientifically developed, validated, and reliable stress risk assessment tool that has been used by over 600,000 people in 15 countries. We're really happy to have Jim as our guest today because we use his SMQ tool in our practice and we are licensed Stress Master Associates under his program. Jim, welcome so happy to have you. 

Dr. Petersen   00:01:06    Well, it is great to be here and lovely to see both of you. I, haven't seen you for a while. Thank you for inviting me to share the story of the SMQ and,  answer any questions you might have about it. And thank you for being such great,  associates and using our tool. It has been a real joy. Thank you. 

Deb Timmerman    00:01:25    So what prompted you to create a stress assessment tool?
 
Dr. Petersen    00:01:29   Good question! Back in the day when I had,  my own, biofeedback and stress management clinic in Tucson, Arizona,  I was seeing individuals who had physical problems that  had a stress component to it. And I saw a lot of people come in through my office, who, when we started talking about stress,  really didn't have a good idea of what it really was all about.

So I decided at that time, by the way,  Friedman and Rosenman came out with "behavior in your heart", which was very big back in the day. And I said, we need to find a way to help people be objective. Let's face it. If you want to look at yourself, it's really hard. It's like  you have to almost step outside yourself to look at yourself. And it's difficult. 

It's really hard to say, well,  what should I change? How do I know when I'm under stress? So I created the tool. After awhile, we got a grant from the National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety.  They asked us if we would run a validation study to determine the if the scale was valid. Is it a reliable tool? Can people use it,  in the clinic, but also in a corporate America, where people are doing stress management programs.

So, that was a year long project. And at the end of the day, we wound up with what we call the  stress management questionnaire. But, when I coined the term stress mastery in 1982, I said, we really need to call this the Stress Mastery Questionnaire. And that's the beginning of where we are today. 

Deb Timmerman   00:03:03    Can you share in your perspective, the difference between stress management and stress mastery?
 
Dr. Petersen  00:03:11    Difference between stress management and mastery is really a matter of focus of attention on changing, not just managing our stress and coping with it, but bringing it to a different level of where we are actually making conscious efforts to change the way we think and how we perceive, the stressors in our world. Not that stress management doesn't do that. I think it's more important that the term mastery is,  a message to say, we can do better. We can make changes in how we are dealing with our stress. And that means we've got to change, not just do deep relaxation and meditation and mindfulness, which is wonderful, but also to be able to say, we needed to change our cognitive thinking about the world around us. That's the prime difference. It's really a matter of focus and, where the energy  goes.

Barb Fletcher  00:04:04    That's a perspective that,  both Deb and I really appreciate. We were having a conversation with somebody earlier today on another topic about perspective and how we interpret stress. And you're absolutely right. You know, what may be stressful for some may not be for someone else. And so, knowing that it is possible to master that shift in perspective, change the wiring, so to speak, and the messages that are going to the brain is a, for many, it's a concept that they find hard to even believe.

Dr. Petersen   00:04:46    Well, absolutely.  One of the, the benefits of, of any kind of stress assessment is that it makes a person aware, creates an awareness of perhaps the behaviors that they don't think of.  Some once said a sign and outward expression of inner stress.
Well, so our behaviors like anger when people get angry and hostile and frustrated with,  the people in their lives or the events in their lives,  that's an outward expression of an inner feeling.

We'll call it stress, but it could be anxiety. So, the reason behind the SMQ was really to design a tool that would reveal the unique way in which people respond to life stressors and in their behaviors and also in their body. So I created this tool with seven primary areas. We call them stress warning signs, two areas that focus on stressors and two areas of focus on the effects of stress, most physical and emotional. And that's really the embodiment of the 11 scales that comprise the SMQ. And when someone takes it, we provide with feedback on that. 

Deb Timmerman 00:05:59    Jim, could you give an example of how you use one of those scales to help people understand how to make that shift in perspective? 

Dr. Petersen    00:06:09    Well, let's say we have a person who's coming to  get some help on coaching. They  want to reduce their stress. They want to do something about their stress. They know they are stressed. They may even have physical problems related to stress. So, when I give them the SMQ and they get the feedback, we use that information to help them pinpoint a specific behaviors in areas that are important to focus on for change. So for example, one of the skills is perfectionism. Many people find that they get wrapped up into perfectionistic thinking and literally create stress for themselves because of their fear of failure, or maybe fear of rejection. And they want to do the job perfectly, but, you know, they're just not able to let go of that. 

Dr. Petersen    00:06:58    So when they get the information from each of the scales, as well as the specific questions on which they scored high, then we have some real good material to say, okay, well, what does this mean to you? What does it mean that you overwork a task to make it perfect?  Does that have an impact on your life? Does it affect others in your life? Does it affect you physically? Do you like it? Do you want to continue doing that? So by asking questions around even just very specific points within the SMQ helps an individual to say, well, yeah, it does. I mean, I wish I didn't, I don't want to do that. I really want to change that because it's dysfunctional.  I would be happy to find ways to do that. How can I do that? So we use that information to motivate and inform, so that they have something that they can grasp onto. 

Dr. Petersen    00:07:49    And then from there, take it to the point of, well, what, what are you going to do for the next 30 days? Or how about the next two days or three days? What can we do differently? What can you do differently? And then with that, help them shift from a behaviors and attitudes and the way they normally respond to, "Hey, I'm going to let go today".  I'm not going to work that test so much. I don't need to, there's a pattern. One set, a good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow. Okay. I let it go. So that's kind of how we use the tool and, and my associates like yourself, I'm sure you, you do the same thing.   

Deb TImmerman    00:08:25    I always think of how we get lab work every year for annual checkups and we're checking our blood chemistry and all of those things and using that data to make changes in our diet and watch our cholesterol, yet stress, is such a part of how or how we process and how we deal with it. It makes such a huge impact on mental, physical, emotional wellness, but there's no measures. So when I describe it to my clients, I say,  this is your stress lab work. It's kind of to see where you are. So you can have a picture because sometimes people can't sort out what, where the stress is coming from. And it just helps us to have really good in-depth conversations about where they've come from and where they want to go. And those little habits that have become they, that have permeated their lives and sometimes overtaken and overruled their day. 

Dr. Petersen    00:09:23    The psychologist know that one of the guiding principles in human behavior is what's called adaptation people. Uh, when we're just a good example, when I was in college, you know, I didn't make any money. I mean, I got a grant and we basically live hand to mouth because going into graduate school. So what we lived with it, you know, it was fine. And then when we got, when I got my first job, it was a big mess step forward. And now I had more money than I had before, but guess what? I adapted to a higher level of income. And it was just the same as before we were just as happy. Uh, we had our issues and things like that that people deal with, but we find that in stress, we start at one level and the stress is there and we adapt to it. 

Dr. Petersen    00:10:08    When you adapt to stress, at some point, you literally go up to another level and create a new normal. So unknowingly. We're not even focusing on the why we may say I'm stressed out and I've had a lousy day. My I'm a basket case. You know, I'm having a lot of trouble, but you really don't have. You're, you're sort of accepting that people accept it and move on to another level. So the adaptation principle is really important to have patients know that they have adapted and learn a new normal that is much greater than perhaps someone else. And by knowing that again, we're back to motivating and informing and helping people make decisions about what to change. And I think that's important. So I think keeping our mind on what, what we can do to help people move small steps towards where they need to be and want to be. Then that's the goal of all counseling and coaching. 

Barb Fletcher   00:11:08    I think you've hit the nail on the head with the adaptation piece because people lump everything together as stressed, and they may not necessarily have language that's going to help them peel it back a bit to find out what's really getting in the way of them living a life with less stress. You know, whether it's anger or perfectionism,  just two examples. And people have adapted to that level of stress, many people over a lifetime because it was just deemed acceptable. And so, I think we've now reached a point where people are looking for, they want to feel better.

Dr. Petersen:    00:11:56    Well, we know that  stress is  universal today. It seems to be greater, and I've been around for 30 years doing this. And in my lifetime, I have not seen as much. And as many people expressing their dissatisfaction with their lives, even the political structure of the people around them, the inability to go to work and work in an office, that is becoming much more prevalent. So we're seeing this issue greater than ever. And I think people are beginning to realize that they need to do something about it. And that's why there's so much emphasis on yoga, meditation and mindfulness, which are really wonderful ways to bring stress levels down. And as I said before, we not only need to bring the stress levels down. We need to change the way we perceive and think and respond internally to the events that happened in our lives. 

Dr. Petersen   00:12:48    And sometimes, you know, we learn, we just simply learn to respond. Somebody walks in there, the officer calls you up and says something, and you can get an, a knee jerk reaction, which it might be, maybe sadness, or it might be just anger. So learning when we learn behaviors, really finding an alternative ways to change those behaviors is really that the task.

Another portion of the SMQ is really focusing on stressors. Well, what's a stressor and we'd define it in two ways, one,  major life events. And the second I really want to call hassles a major life events or death of a loved one loss of financial wealth, or maybe a lawsuit. There are many events in our lives that have a big impact on us. And it's been shown that the more major life events birth of a child can be a major life event.    Marriage can be a major life event and it creates stress. The second part of that are what I call hassles. And that's the everyday, you know, I've got to repair my car, the mow, the grass needs mowing. I got to fix this. I got to do that. And these little things kind of become big and massive right now, for example, I'm in the middle of a project that I started to renovate a back patio. Well, I like to do things with my hands when I kind of my stress relief and all of a sudden things are all over the place it's disorganized and I'm, I've got this test to do, and I got to go to home Depot and I got to do this. And so I'm driving myself. I've said, well, this is, this is not, this is nuts.

Dr. Petersen  00:14:25    I made a decision that this is going to be done in a timely way when it's ready to be done. And I'm not going to stress myself out by insisting that I get up at six in the morning when it's cool and get out there every morning. And I don't. So I think these are things that are mental changes that I make. And I'm sure you make, uh, to make sure that we don't stress ourselves out more than we need to. Not that we didn't shouldn't have some stress we do, but, uh, we don't want it to be overwhelming. And when it becomes overwhelming, that's the time to step in and say, what do I change? 

Barb Fletcher 3    00:14:58    I'm always excited. Excited may be the wrong word, but when I see a client profile come in, they have more hassles than they have a life events. I'm always much more comfortable with that because in fact, we have more control over those hassles. They are far easier to shift. You can actually create a plan, whereas the life events, some of them are much more difficult to, , walk through that space. So, you know, if people arrive and they've got, you know, a bucket of hassles, it's just a matter of picking those apart a little bit and figuring out some strategies with them. 

Deb Timmerman  00:15:42    So, Jim, you've been at this a long time, you said 30 years. What changes have you seen? You talked earlier about the trends of seeing more stress, but what changes have you seen in the way we treat stress or the way we work with stress over time? 

Dr. Petersen 00:16:01    Well, I think the big change in, especially in corporations and companies is the level of awareness of the importance of wellness. We're seeing much more,  being done in that arena. And stress is part of that. So I'm seeing the integration of the programs like stress management and stress mastery programs with holistic  wellness programs. Many of my associates have a corporate executive development programs that are multi-day long two or three days, sometimes a week. And they integrate the SMQ and the stress mastery program into a broader program. And that that's a really effective way to,  help executives and management with the stress, which is within a corporation or an organization. So we're seeing the changes of that. I think we've seen a change in attitude amongst people. I think people are much more willing to talk about it. 

Dr. Petersen    00:16:58    Uh, there it's, and it's, it's good because in the past,  even if you brought up stress, it was not considered, it was kind of taboo, especially in a company. Uh, and especially if you had to go to an EAP program and a lot of people who are employed, they have an option to go to EAP, but that's a stigma that people get labeled, uh, that they're going to see a shrink. A lot of people don't like that, or didn't like that. I'm not saying that they've given that up totally. But we're seeing that there's much more of a willingness to accept the fact that we are stressed out and it's okay. We can, we're okay to do, you know, if you're stressed out fine, what are you going to do about it? And to take steps, to make those changes you need to make. 
Deb Timmerman  00:17:42    When you talk about EAP, it's always nice to have those programs, but in our area, like the mental health services are very taxed by the number of people accessing services. So if there's nothing that you're doing yourself and you're sitting around waiting for that entry,  you could be taking an active role. And we all know that we have to have these tools and take an active role in managing these things. We can't, there is no magic pill for this is there. You have to do the work. 

Dr. Petersen   00:18:17   Well, that's true. That's true. There's no question about it. If you take the attitude that it's, this is easy, you're going to get nowhere. It's hard work to make the change in human behavior. Years ago, a very well known psychologist came to the University of Arizona, where I was in graduate school and, and he got up there. And, uh, he says "after 40 years of working with people, to help them with their mental health issues, I've, uh, come to one conclusion. He said, human behavior is very complex and it's not easy to get people to change." As somebody once said, well, how many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? And the answer is one, but the light bulb has to want to change. Give me a person, give me a person who wants to change. And we're one step ahead. 

Dr. Petersen    00:19:06    Half of what you do and I do in our coaching is to help people get motivated, to make that change, um, and say, I want to, uh, I can, and, and then to make the effort to put the program together to make that happen, we're also seeing a big influence, uh, in the wellness community and people who are life coaches, health coaches, wellness coaches, are all beginning to do more, to help people with stress. So,  I think it's a good thing. We need to talk about it. Sanjay Gupta to did a whole program on it,  an hour long program on PBS, on just on stress and the importance of what's happening in the world today, due to the stress that we're all experiencing, look at the number of people that are being killed today. Stress is playing a big role in these people's lives. 

Dr. Petersen    00:19:56    They may be mentally ill, but they still those triggers. And, um, being able to say, okay, if we can identify somebody that's got stress and has a mentally ill mental problem, that person should be seen by a professional psychologist or a psychiatrist, but we don't know that until we start talking to the person. And once you start talking to them and you realize that the person might be on the edge and that person can be moved into a triaged into a broader program with words where they really get some good help. So I see stress management and stress mastery as, as a helping the normal individual, uh, not being a psychical therapist or a psychologist working with mental health issues like deep, deep depression or anxiety or other issues. So we want to make that differentiation we're, this is not a psychological treatment. It is really a lifestyle behavioral change, and helping people really feel better about their lives. And they're not mentally ill. Most of them, 

Deb Timmerman   00:20:59    I think that's a good point. Well, we have certainly appreciated using the SMQ in our work are so happy you could come on today and talk a little bit more about the tool and about the goals for the tool. If people want to get in touch with you, where do they find you? 

Dr. Petersen    00:21:18    Well, they go to my website, which is stressmaster.com. You can also email me at Jim@stressmaster.com either way would be fine, and I'll be happy to respond,  to any inquiries.  

Deb Timmerman    00:21:33    Thank you so much for being our guests today.  

Dr. Petersen   00:21:36    Thank you. It's a pleasure working with you and have a wonderful day. Stress-free same to you.  

Deb Timmerman   00:21:49    Less stress in life is possible. If you're new to this kind of thinking and would like to explore what's possible for you. We'd love to connect. You can reach us through our website@lessstressinlife.com. That's less stress in life.com.