Stress-agile: playful stress prevention in the workplace

"We all experience stress. It's fine. But every now and then, it's okay to put on the brakes." Laura Smidt, trainer and coach at the School for Workplace Happiness and Vitality consultant at Human Resources, talks about balance, resilience, and well-being.

Laura has made stress prevention her specialty. With a background in graphic design, she retrained as a vitality consultant and coach, specializing in stress and burnout counseling. Stress prevention revolves around identifying symptoms as early as possible, making stress a topic of conversation, and working together to find a healthy balance. But how do you approach this conversation with your employee in an accessible way?

The combination of graphic design and stress and burnout counseling has resulted in something surprising: the game Stress-resistantLaura proudly explains how the game she developed serves as a practical conversation starter. Step by step, it invites Stress-resistant to pause for a moment, reflect and put your finger on the sore spot. Especially for the FHI HRM current affairs seminar She designed a light version. A compact version that you can start using right away.

Stress is often a difficult subject. And everyone experiences it differently. Unfortunately, there's no standardized toolkit for making an organization stress-free. If only it were that simple. "Stress signals are different for everyone. For some, they manifest as long-term physical complaints like headaches, a sore back, or poor sleep. For others, they manifest as emotional reactions like frustration, an outburst of anger, or a sudden burst of crying. The most important thing is that you recognize these signals in yourself and take them seriously. Then you can adjust in time."

According to Laura, we always experience some level of stress—and that's even valuable. Healthy stress is the engine that pushes you through that daunting presentation or gives you that extra boost for that exciting race. "Stress puts you in the necessary action mode, making you jump out of a burning house immediately. Action, no time for lengthy deliberation of pros and cons. You're 'on.' But if you stay 'on' for too long and don't recover in time, stress becomes unhealthy and can lead to health problems. Therefore, it's not only important to recognize stress signals, but also to know how to relax and recover. That recovery phase is just as important."

Laura translates this to the workplace. "You can occasionally push yourself to meet that important deadline, but then you have to hit the brakes to recover. Finding the right balance isn't easy, because work, personal life, health, and environment all play a role. It requires self-knowledge and resilience: knowing what energizes you and what drains you. By discussing this, people gain insight into their own balance." Stress-resistant helps to get that conversation going.”

Sign up for the FHI HRM current affairs seminar and experience a day full of current insights, practical solutions and valuable meetings with colleagues.

FHI HRM current affairs seminar

November 20, 2025

FHI, Leusderend 12 in Leusden