The rise of workplace wellness

The renowned Johns Hopkins University psychologist George Everly traces the rise of wellness—and with it workplace wellness—back to Jonas Salk’s 1973 book, “Survival of the Wisest,” in which Salk argues that it’s not sufficient to be illness free, and that people can experience higher levels of wellness.

Everly, whose work has fundamentally shaped the fields of psychological crisis intervention and human resilience, says that for him, that marked the beginning of a new era of wellness. “The problem was how you do it,” he says. As a graduate student at the University of Maryland in 1978, Everly co-authored the first textbook on stress management and wellness at the student level. Titled “Controlling Stress and tension,” it takes a multifaceted, holistic approach to stress management and in effect offered an early example of the approach favored by today’s organizations.