A week without work stress. Should we even want that?

The Week without Work Stress has begun. And the latest figures are concerning. More than one in five Dutch employees now regularly experience psychological fatigue from work. The increase is especially significant among young people.

The sickness absence figures show a rise too. At the employers Colbe studied, the number of mental health absence reports per employee rose by 51 percent between 2018 and 2025.

That calls for serious attention. Because prolonged stress and insufficient recovery can have major consequences for our health, how we function and our sustainable employability.

But at the same time I want to ask a different question.

Have we, in our attention for work stress, perhaps also become a little afraid of stress itself?

Stress is part of life. And of performing.

We live in a society that asks a lot of people. The pressure to perform, to make ends meet financially, to build a career and at the same time lead a social and healthy life can add up considerably.

Pressure at work is increasing too. Organisations change constantly, expectations are high and uncertainty demands a lot of adaptability.

It is therefore too easy to claim that younger generations are less resilient than before. That ignores the social context in which people function.

But stress is not by definition something negative.

Stress is a natural reaction of our body that helps us to be alert, to concentrate and to take action. A certain amount of tension can support our performance.

Think of an important presentation, a difficult conversation or a challenging assignment. That very tension can help us stay sharp and get the best out of ourselves.

Not every form of tension means that something is going wrong. Sometimes it simply means that something matters to us.

When does healthy tension become unhealthy stress?

There is an essential difference between temporary tension and prolonged overload.

When stress persists for a long time and recovery is insufficient, it can take its toll. Concentration problems, fatigue, sleep problems and eventually absence can be the result.

And more stress does not automatically mean better performance. When tension runs too high, our functioning can actually deteriorate.

So it is not about experiencing as much stress as possible, but about a healthy balance between load and recovery.

Our basic psychological needs also play an important role here. Autonomy, connection and competence help us to take on challenges and to develop confidence in our own abilities.

A challenging assignment can give energy when someone experiences enough influence, feels capable and is supported. The same assignment can become exhausting when the workload is structurally too high and support is lacking.

Shouldn't we normalise stress a bit more?

We talk a lot about mental resilience. But resilience is not developed by avoiding every form of tension.

It is precisely by taking on manageable challenges, gaining experience and discovering that we can handle difficult situations that we can strengthen our adaptability.

That does not mean that we should downplay stress complaints. On the contrary. It means that we must keep distinguishing between normal tension and signals of unhealthy overload.

Because if we regard every stress reaction as a problem, we risk unintentionally problematising normal human experiences.

So perhaps we do not need to go into alarm mode at every signal of tension. Sometimes it is enough to start the conversation, to explore what someone needs and to offer room to learn to deal with challenges.

Not preventing all stress, but limiting unhealthy stress

Perhaps we should therefore formulate our ambition slightly differently.

Not striving for a working environment in which no one ever experiences stress, but for a working environment in which people can deal with the challenges that come with work in a healthy way.

That requires employees who learn to recognise their limits, managers who offer support and organisations that ensure realistic expectations and sufficient opportunities for recovery.

Because sustainable employability is not created by protecting people from every challenge. But neither by expecting them to adapt endlessly to circumstances that structurally ask too much of them.

Let's not problematise stress unnecessarily, but let's never normalise prolonged overload either.

The goal is not a life without stress. The goal is that stress does not come to dominate our lives. And perhaps that is the most important message of this Week without Work Stress.