DR reported on September 8 that September and October are the months when the most Danes seek help for stress. The figures come from the pension companies Danica and PFA.
The public broadcaster DR writes that autumn is high season for stress in Denmark. According to figures from Danica and PFA, September and October are when most Danes activate their health insurance or otherwise reach out for help handling stress.
The same pattern appears at the trade union Djøf, DR reports. Jakob Sloth Petersen, who coordinates Djøf’s stress line, says the union receives the most member inquiries about stress in the months after the summer holiday.
Per Petersen, some people push themselves toward the summer break and grit their teeth until it arrives. After a few weeks of calm, the symptoms they had before the holiday return once work starts again.
He tells DR that the underlying cause of the stress has often not been dealt with. He describes the holiday as a developing fluid that makes existing stress visible.
A rising problem
DR lists poor sleep, heart palpitations, tension and difficulty concentrating among the possible symptoms of stress. According to the Danish Health Authority, cited by DR, the share of Danes with stress has risen in recent years.
Stress researcher Pernille Steen Pedersen from Copenhagen Business School points to several causes. As she explains to DR, the workplace is not only somewhere that pays a salary, but often a large part of a person’s identity.
When people cannot perform at their usual level for a period, for example after a holiday, their wellbeing can suffer, she says. According to Pedersen, that can produce a feeling of inadequacy, which may develop into outright stress when tasks never feel finished.
She adds that large expectations of oneself play a role. As stated by Pedersen, the idea of what a person ought to deliver can return faster after a holiday than the person’s actual capacity does. That gap between expectation and capacity is central to the autumn pattern, according to her account in DR’s report.
The figures behind the story come from insurance and pension activity rather than from health authority registers. Danica and PFA measure when customers use their health coverage, while Djøf counts contacts to its own stress line. DR presents the two data sources side by side as showing the same seasonal peak.
DR’s report focuses on the timing of when Danes seek help, and does not put a number on how many people contacted Djøf or the pension companies this autumn. Working conditions in Denmark have drawn attention in recent years, including debate over whether flexible work arrangements affect employee health. DR’s article was published on the morning of September 8, 2026.
