BOOK CRITIQUE

Book Critique
Managing Stress in the Workplace
How to Get Rid of Stress at Work and Live a Longer Life
Joe Martin
Prepared By: Morgan Bianco
Submitted: December 1, 2016
In partial completion of requirements for BUS420 Human Resource
Management
Bridgewater College

BOOK CRITIQUE

Overview of the Book

Managing Stress in the Workplace; How to Get Rid of Stress at Work
and Live a Longer Life is a form of self help book written by Joe Martin. The
book focuses on the causes of workplace stress and how to reduce and
eliminate them. Joe Martin also makes a point to emphasize the importance
of preventing workplace stress, as well as provides methods to do so.
The book opens up with a shocking statistic; 73% of American workers
said they had work related stress and in 2013, the number grew to 84%
(Martin, J. 2014, pg 13). Of the group of people who experienced workplace
stress, most of them fell between the ages of 18-29 (Martin, J. 2014, pg 14).
Work related stressors including; low salaries, heavy workloads, annoying coworkers, the fear of being terminated, low opportunity for promotions, and
the actual job lead workers to become less productive and affect their
physical and psychological health (Martin, J. 2014, pg 10 &14). The most
common symptoms, according to Joe Martin, were anxiety and nervousness,
lack of energy, irritability and anger, and the need to cry (2014, pg 15).
Joe Martin then proceeds to explain multiple methods to relieve stress
in varying situations. One of these methods is the 4 As solution. The four
As stand for the four steps in the process; avoid, alter, adapt, accept
(Martin, J. 2014, pg 24). This involves the employee trying to avoid the
stressor all together. If the stressor is unavoidable, the employee should try
to change the way they tackle the stressor. Once the employee has altered

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and adapted to their new method of working, they can then begin to accept
the situation and work through it less stressfully.
Another method for reducing or eliminating stress is time
management. Joe Martin breaks time management into four steps. Step one:
Prioritize the tasks. Step two: set clear objectives. Step three: define the
objectives. Step four: use a step-by-step action plan. The employee should
rank their tasks in order from most important to least important based on
due dates. Once this is completed, the employee needs to determine which
of those tasks needs to be completed today. After the list of tasks is
simplified and prioritized for that particular day, the employee must possess
the step-by-step method; that is simply taking things one task at a time.
An employee should only focus on one task at a time and not move on to the
next until the first task is completed.
When the work itself is the stressor to the employee, the employee
cannot simply avoid it or eliminate it, so they must adapt to it. To relieve
stress while at work the employee can perform one of these methods; yoga,
meditation, sleep, controlled breathing, visualize, or worry time (Martin, J.
2014, pg 46-52). To prevent or eliminate stress due to other employees or a
heavy workload, the employee should learn to avoid arguments with others
and learn to say no to excess work.
Remember, you cannot escape stress but you can deal with it in a
productive way.

BOOK CRITIQUE

1. Stress is a circumstance; you are the force.

2. Stress is not a decision, but to overcome it is.
Consider the 90:10 rule. Just 10% of our life is actually determined by
events and circumstances; the remaining 90% is shaped by how we
react to them. (Martin, J. 2014, pg 65).
Supporting Arguments
Like Joe Martin said, it is important to first identify the stressors in order to
relieve them. He defines workplace stress as a harmful reaction that people
have to endure the pressures and demands placed on them at work (Martin,
J. 2014, pg 18); it is essentially the negative reactions our bodies face due to
various stressors. Job stressors are the factors in a workplace that may lead
to strain reactions (Sonnentag, S., & Fritz, C. 2015). The immediate
physiological, physiological, and behavior responses our bodies undergo are
known as the strain reactions (Sonnentag, S., & Fritz, C. 2015). There are
three broad categories of stressors; physical, environmental, and
psychological.
Physical stressors are the tangible demands that lead to stress. Examples
of physical stressors in the workplace would be vibration, temperatures
below 66 degrees, impact stress, soft tissue compression, and glove irritation
(Overcoming Ergonomics Risks 2012). These are considered physical
stressors because they are factors that make the employee uncomfortable
which ultimately leads to the feeling of overwhelm and frustration.
Environmental stressors are those that are caused by the work
atmosphere itself. These would include eye strains due to lighting, fatigue

BOOK CRITIQUE

due to warm temperatures, tense postures due to the cold temperatures,

and noise (Overcoming Ergonomics Risks 2012). Environmental stressors
are the external demands around you that lead to strain reactions. The last
broad category of stressors is psychological stressors. These are made up of
the overwhelming job demands and how the job is actually performed.
Psychological stressors are divided into three subgroups; task related,
role related, and social related. Task related psychological stressors are those
caused by the actual job demand. Job demands are those physical, social, or
organizational aspects of the job that require employees to exert effort
continuously and thus lead to psychological costs (Wu, T., Hu, C., & Yang, C.
2013); including time pressures, work overloads, work complexity, work
interruptions, and other situations that interfere with the work performance
of the employee (Sonnentag, S., & Fritz, C. 2015).
Role related stressors on the other hand, are those caused by the
confusion and uncertainty of ones duties. Such would include; role overload,
role conflict, and role ambiguity (Sonnentag, S., & Fritz, C. 2015). Role
overload would occur when an employee tries to take on more tasks than
their job requires them to. Role conflict would be problems the employee
faces with their job title and lastly, the role ambiguity is when the employee
isnt quite clear as to what they are supposed to do. The final section of
psychological stressors is the social related aspect. These are made up of the
stressors that are caused by negative interactions with other people. One of

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the biggest social psychological stressor is abusive supervision (Sonnentag,

S., & Fritz, C. 2015).
Abusive supervision occurs when the supervisor demonstrates hostile
behavior toward the employee (Wu, T., Hu, C. et al.. 2013). Such hostile
behavior could include bullying, verbal or physical abuse, undesired sexual
attention, constant intimidation, threats, any attempts of sabotaging work
opportunities, and emotional harassment (Martin, J. 2014, pg 37 & 119).
Sometimes, task related psychological stressors could fall under this
category as well. When a supervisor demands a high workload from an
employee, the employee will experience the strain reactions from both the
work demand and from the supervisor.
The most common workplace stressors are excessive work hours,
unreasonable performance demands, health and safety risks, lack of
autonomy, poor communication, role ambiguity, job insecurity, workplace
conflict, and bullying and harassment (Buys, N., Matthews, L.R., & Randall, C.
2010). According to Joe Martin, 14% of people who experience work related
stress had stress due to the low paying salary and 4% of the people feared
being fired from their job (Martin, J. 2014, pg 14). While some work related
stressors cannot be reduced, such as pay and fear of being fired, others can
be. Most of the common workplace stressors, like high work demand and
abusive supervisors can be reduced or even eliminated.
Mediation, yoga, and approaching the abusive supervisor can help reduce
the amount of stress one faces at work. Mediation helps you focus on the

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present moment (Martin, J. 2014, pg 50). This is turn helps alleviate worries
of the past and future. This allows you to identify what is causing the stress
and allows the mind to focus on the present rather than the stressor. There
are two main meditation techniques; mindfulness and concentrative.
Mindfulness techniques focus on staying in the present (Sedlmeier, P.,
Eberth, J., Schwarz, M., Zimmermann, D., Haarig, F., Jaeger, S., & Kunze, S.
2012). By staying in the present state of mind, the employee will be able to
learn to be aware of their thoughts but not react to them. This ultimately
allows the employee to accept the situation they are in and calms them
down (Sedlmeier, P. et al 2012). The employee will get the calming
sensation because mindfulness meditation allows for them to sort through
their thoughts and focus only on the important ones while disregarding the
others (Martin, J. 2014, pg 50).
A concentrative technique however, has the employee focusing on an
object (Sedlmeier, P. et al 2012). By focusing on a specific object, all other
thoughts and mental processes are disengaged producing a calming effect
(Sedlmeier, P. et al 2012). An example of a concentrative technique is the
Mantra Chart. This is a form of meditation where a simple word is repeated
silently to prevent distractions (Martin, J. 2014, pg 50). The focus is put on an
object other than thoughts; in this case it is a word. Qi Gong is a form of
meditation that mixes both concentrative and mindfulness techniques. It
involves physical movement, breathing, meditation, and relaxation (Martin, J.
2014, pg 51). An important rule for meditating in general is to visualize

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happy thoughts. Focusing on happy moments and places while meditating

will allow the body to rid itself of the negative energy and replace it with
positive (Martin, J. 2014, pg 51).
Yoga is an activity that consists of breathing techniques, postures,
strengthening exercises, and meditation (Li, A., & Goldsmith, C. 2012). In
2002, it was estimated that over 12.5 million Americans practiced yoga for
health purposes (Li, A., & Goldsmith, C. 2012), including reducing stress.
Yoga has been proven to have positive effects on the nervous system, the
brain, and immune systems (Martin, J. 2014, pg 46). It also relaxes the mind;
relaxation is when the body and mind are in a balanced state (Martin, J.
2014, pg 46).
Different yoga positions and postures help alleviate stress by targeting
different parts of the body. Standing yoga poses improve the blood
circulation to the lower areas of the body, while inverse positions increase
the blood flow to the heart, lungs, and brain (Martin, J. 2014, pg 47). Forward
bends have been known to lower blood pressure levels and back bends have
calming effects on the nervous system (Martin, J. 2014, pg 47). While the
positions and postures are one part of the yoga experience, another
important aspect is the controlled breathing.
Controlled breathing boosts the amount of oxygen to the brain and
revitalizes your mind and reduces hypertension (Martin, J. 2014, pg 47).
When an employee is stressed, their breathing will become shallow and
irregular with the heart pounding hard; the controlled breathing counteracts

BOOK CRITIQUE

these physiological effects of stress. Both meditation and yoga are activities
that can help reduce stress by focusing on calming the body to gain that
relaxation state.
Unfortunately, dealing with an abusive boss requires more than gaining
a state of relaxation. Sixty percent of offices have reported at least one
instance of workplace bullying by 2014 (Martin, J. 2014, pg 123). That being
said, abusive supervision is obviously a problem that occurs frequently in the
workplace. Employees need to learn how to reduce or, ideally, eliminate this
stressor from the workplace.
The first step to facing this stressor is determining if you are
comfortable standing up for yourself (Martin, J. 2014, pg 123). Standing up
for oneself can consist of a lot of different methods. One method is not
reacting to the situation. When the supervisor does the abusive behavior, the
employee can simply choose not to react in a negative way. This will
decrease the supervisors satisfaction most likely resulting in them moving
on.
Another method an employee might choose is to talk to the supervisor.
The employee can simply confront them and explain to them that their
behavior is abusive and needs to be changed. If the employee is
uncomfortable standing up for themselves, they can go to the Human
Resources department (Martin, J. 2014, pg 123). Contacting the HR
department will put the situation in other peoples hands, relieving some of
your stress while at the same time, solving the problem.

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10

In Managing Stress in the Workplace: How to Get Rid of Stress at Work and
Live a Longer Life, a three step process is highlighted. The first step is to
identify the stressor and the second step is to reduce the amount of stress;
both of these steps were already discussed. The third step to managing
stress in the workplace is to prevent future stress from occurring. The
number one way to prevent stress from the workplace is to learn to say no.
An employee must know their limits in order to determine whether to say yes
or no to taking on more work. If tasks are left undone, the employee has less
free time, they become irritable and upset easily, and/or they think about
calling in sick or quitting to avoid work, chances are the employee has
reached their limit (McGregor, K. 2010).
Once the employee realizes they have reached their limit, they need to
gain the acceptance that their work capacity is not unlimited and therefore
they should not have any remorse for saying no (McGregor, K. 2010). The
next step is to face your supervisor. The employee needs to be assertive
when telling their employer that they have reached their limit and cannot
take on any other tasks at the time. State the position calmly and rationally,
listen to what the supervisor has to say, and find a consensus (McGregor, K.
2010).
Another way to prevent employee stress can be handled by the employer
themselves. Employers should focus on reducing the high workloads,
reducing the unrealistic performance expectations, reducing workplace
conflict, and by reducing job insecurity (Buys, N., Matthews, L.R., & Randall,

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C. 2010). By doing so, the employers are creating a positive work

environment with a limited amount of psychological stressors.
Employers can also help reduce employee stress by helping relieve their
home life stressors. Sometimes home life stressors can cause people to feel
stressed; this stress is then taken from their home into the workplace
causing the employee to perform negatively at work. Employers can help
reduce this type of work-family conflict by offering family-friendly work
practices (DeNisi, A.S., & Griffin, R.W. 2015. Pg239). Employers can offer
daycare services, retirement care, or flexible work schedules in order to
reduce their employees home life stressors.
What happens when workplace stress is not reduced or prevented? When
employees get so stressed out due to work related causes, they tend to
avoid work. Workplace absence can cause mental health to continue to
suffer. Often times when one misses work, their stress levels increase due to
the fact that they have tasks being piled up at work and other factors that
come along with missing work. A study was conducted and the results
showed that when an employees workload increased at work, their workhome interference also increased. An increase in work-home interference led
to an increase in psycho-physic strains. These strains then caused medically
certified sickness absences from work (Falco, A., Girardi, D., Dal Corso, L., Di
Sipio, A., & De Carlo, N. A. 2013). Again, once a work absence occurs it is
more likely that the employees stress will increase as well. It is a never
ending cycle of work causing stress which leads to work avoidance; once

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12

work is missed anxiety increases. This just goes to show how important
stress management is in the workplace.
Weaknesses/Biases
While Joe Martin did a great job explaining the three step process to
stress management; he failed to explain how stress affects the body. Further
research suggests that stress affects the body physically and psychologically.
Seventy-seven percent of people who experienced stress said they regularly
have physical symptoms due to stress and 73% of the people said they
regularly experience psychological symptoms of stress (Martin, J. 2014, pg
14).
Psychological stress is linked to harmful results on the immune system.
Anxiety linked to coronary heart disease, decreased value of quality of life,
and suicidal behavior (Li, A., & Goldsmith, C. 2012). Anxiety affects about
18% of Americans every year and there is no pharmacological treatment for
stress (Li, A., & Goldsmith, C. 2012); this is where the reduction techniques
that were discussed earlier come into play. How do stressors stimulate our
bodies to feel a sense of panic? Physiologically, when an employee is
exposed to stressors their adrenaline and cortisol levels increase as well as
their heart rate and blood pressure (Sonnentag, S., & Fritz, C. 2015). When in
contact with stressors for an extended period of time, an employee may start
to have psychological affects. Their overall attitude and outlook turns
negative and they often times feel fatigue (Sonnentag, S., & Fritz, C. 2015).

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This negative attitude tends to lead to behavioral affects from stress.

Employees who are stressed tend to become more irritable and frustrated
leading to an increase in arguments with other coworkers or even family
(Sonnentag, S., & Fritz, C. 2015).
It is important for employees to not let their psychological and behavioral
affects from stress be carried into the home after work. Psychological
detachment is used to prevent this from occurring. Lack of psychological
detachment, from the employee, results in repetitive thought, worry, and
rumination (Sonnentag, S., & Fritz, C. 2015). Repetitive thought is a process
of thinking about the same situation over and over again. Worry is a chain of
thoughts that are usually uncontrollable and are revolved around the future
state (Sonnentag, S., & Fritz, C. 2015). Rumination is defined as the class of
conscious thoughts that revolve around common theme and recur in the
absences of immediate environment demands requiring the thought
(Sonnentag, S., & Fritz, C. 2015).
When this detachment does not occur and the workplace stress in taken
into the home, work-family conflict forms. Work-family conflict is when the
demands from the workplace conflict with the family roles at home (Tayfair,
O. & Arsian, M. 2013). This leads the employees to become dissatisfied with
their job which tends to lead to increase absentees and turnover intentions
(Tayfair, O. & Arisan, M. 2013). People strive to be successful in both their
careers and their personal lives. When work demands reduce the time and

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energy that would have been used to spend time with their family or friends,
the employee tends to feel a loss; this leads to an increase in burnout
(Tayfair, O. & Arisan, M. 2013). When employees have a high workload, their
energy is drained which leads to a decrease in family time. This decrease in
the amount of time for the family leads to a high work-family conflict and
results in exhaustion (Tayfair, O. & Arisan, M. 2013).
This emotional exhaustion is described as a feeling of lack of energy and a
sense of drainage; this is the core to job burnout (Wu, T., Hu, C., & Yang, C.
2013). Some ways to overcome this work-place conflict is to have dinner with
family, share your workplace experience, attend important family occasions,
and to keep your work outside of the home (Martin, J. 2014, pg 43). By doing
these things, there will be a decrease in the work-family conflict because the
employee will feel like they are succeeding in the home life, as well as their
career and in sense have a grasp on workplace stress management.
Another aspect of workplace stress management that was not covered
by Joe Martin is how employers can help their employees. Employers should
focus on ways to support their employees in order to cut back their stress.
Supervisors should provide emotional support to their subordinates because
it has been shown to reduce stress, emotional exhaustion, and alleviate work
stressor efforts in the employees (Tayfur, O., & Arslan, M. 2013).
Along with the support, supervisors should only expect realistic workloads
from their employees (Realistic workloads are key 2016). Eliminating the

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perception of wanting unrealistic amounts of work done by the employees

will overall reduce their perceived stress because they will not feel as
pressured. Also, when an employee has done a job well done, the employer
or supervisor should acknowledge their work. If people feel they contribute
more to a relationship it leads to increase and burnout (Tayfur, O., & Arslan,
M. 2013). So when an employee is not rewarded or acknowledged for their
success at work, they feel as if they contribute more to the boss-employee
relationship than the supervisor does. By providing both support and
acknowledgement to the employees, the supervisors can help prevent long
term absences and assist an early return to work (Buys, N., Matthews, L. R.,
& Randall, C. 2010).
An important part of the stress management process, like any process, is
the recovery stage. Joe Martin does not include this phase in his book.
Recovery from work is defined as the process of reducing or eliminating
physical and psychological strain symptoms that have been caused by job
demands and stressful events at work (Sonnentag, S., & Fritz, C. 2015). One
of the most effective ways to obtain this recovery is to psychologically
detach oneself from work during non-work hours. Psychological detachment
is when one refrains from doing any job related activities or thinking about
work during their time off (Sonnentag, S., & Fritz, C. 2015). It is important for
an employee to utilize the stressor/ psychological detachment model
because it will reduce their stress levels. If an employee stays stressed, even

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when not at work, it could lead to an increase in work absences and an

increase in overall job dissatisfaction.
It is also important for employers to understand how their employees
personalities relate to stress. The textbook talks about how Type A and Type
B personalities handle stressors differently. People who possess the Type A
personality are characterized as being highly competitive, highly focused on
their work, and having few interests outside of the workplace (DeNisi, A.S.,
& Griffin, R.W. 2015. Pg 274). These employees are often the ones who feel
the most pressure from stressors causing them to feel stressed more
frequently.
On the contrast, people with a Type B personalities are described as less
aggressive, more patient, and more easygoing (DeNisi, A.S., & Griffin, R.W.
2015. Pg 274). Stressors and work pressures are less likely to feel affect the
Type B personalities because they are more relaxed and comfortable dealing
with changes and conflicts that arise. Employers need to recognize how
specific personalities react to stressful situations so they can accommodate
their employees work schedules and task accordingly to avoid burnout or
exhaustion.
Practical Applications
Joe Martins target audience for the book, Managing Stress in the
Workplace: How to Get Rid of Stress at Work and Live a Longer Life, was
most likely employees who work in an office-type setting who are exposed to

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a lot of stressors. His book would be very helpful for the target audience
because it shows them different techniques to relieve stress as well as how
to accept the fact that stress cannot be eliminated. Along with helping the
employees manage their stress in the workplace, there is also a section in
the book that focuses on how to avoid and prevent negative relationships
from occurring with coworkers or even supervisors. This is most helpful in an
office job setting because those are the types of jobs that involve a lot of
communicating with coworkers about non work related topics. Keeping
positive or neutral relationships with coworkers can reduce stress for the
employee because it would eliminate the conflict stressor. Managers might
get some important information from this book, such as what causes
workplace stress in employees and how they can reduce these stressors in
their workplace environment; but the book is mainly a self help book for the
stressed employee themselves.
Conclusion
I feel that this book was favorable in the aspect of helping manage
stress at the workplace. I found the information on how to reduce stress
while at work very helpful because I tend to suffer from high stress. I know
that these breathing techniques and forms of relaxation will be useful to me
once I enter the workforce in May. This book was rated favorable instead of
very favorable because it omitted a lot of information that would have been
useful to the stressed reader. Information such as how the body reacts to

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stress would have been valuable in helping the reader understand how stress
really affects their bodies and how they can counteract these effects. The
book also left out information on how managers can reduce the amount of
stressors at the workplace as well, which is important in trying to run a
business with a high employee satisfaction rate.

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Sources
Buys, N., Matthews, L. R., & Randall, C. (2010). Employees' Perceptions of the
Management of Workplace Stress. International Journal Of Disability
Management, 5(2), 25-31. doi:10.1375/jdmr.5.2.25

DeNisi, A.S., & Griffin, R.W. (2015). HR(3rd Student Ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage
Learning.
Falco, A., Girardi, D., Dal Corso, L., Di Sipio, A., & De Carlo, N. A. (2013). Fear of
workload, job autonomy, and work-related stress: The mediating role of workhome interference. TPM: Testing, Psychometrics, Methodology In Applied
Psychology, 20(3), 1. doi:10.4473/TPM20.3.2
Li, A., & Goldsmith, C. (2012, March 1). The Effects of Yoga on Anxiety and Stress.
Altnerative Medicine Review. Retrieved October 6, 2016.
Martin, J. (2014). Managing workplace stress: How to get rid of stress at work and
live a longer life (2nd ed.). CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
McGregor, K. (2010). Just say no!. Community Care, (1837), 28-29.
Overcoming Ergonomics Risks Improves Workplace Safety. (2012). Professional
Safety, 57(9), 16.
Realistic workloads are key to reducing stress in the workplace. (2016).
Occupational Health, 1.
Sedlmeier, P., Eberth, J., Schwarz, M., Zimmermann, D., Haarig, F., Jaeger, S., &
Kunze, S. (2012). The psychological effects of meditation: A meta-analysis.
Psychological Bulletin, 138(6), 1139-1171. doi:10.1037/a0028168
Sonnentag, S., & Fritz, C. (2015, April 11). Recovery from job stress: The stressordetachment model as an integrative framework. Retrieved October 06, 2016.
Tayfur, O., & Arslan, M. (2013). The role of lack of reciprocity, supervisory support,
workload and workfamily conflict on exhaustion: Evidence from physicians.
Psychology, Health & Medicine, 18(5), 564-575.
Wu, T., Hu, C., & Yang, C. (2013). Abusive Supervision and Workload Demands from
Supervisors: Exploring Two Types of Supervisor-related Stressors and their
Association with Strain. Stress & Health: Journal Of The International Society
For The Investigation Of Stress, 29(3), 190-198. doi:10.1002/smi.2440

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