- 58% of Indian professionals reported anxiety constantly checking their work emails repeatedly since working remotely.
- An IT employee shared how remote working adversely affected her mental health during the pandemic.
According to a study conducted by AMX India, nearly 58% of Indian professionals reported that they get anxious to constantly check their work emails every few hours since remote working started.
Shikha Girgla, a 35-year-old Delhi-based brand consultant and a happy-go-lucky person for her friends and colleagues, never thought that remote working could affect her mental health to this extent. She had no idea that shifting her work emails to her smartphone could be the worst decision ever, and it would reach a stage where she needed medical attention, as mentioned in the Business Standard.
After a few months of working remotely, she noticed that she had developed a new habit of checking work emails every 10 minutes. The anxiety to check every notification caused her sleeplessness, worry, and lack of concentration in family matters. Finally, she went to consult with a psychologist and seek therapy. Her therapist advised her to mute office email notifications immediately after reaching home every day. With proper counseling and medication, she started feeling much better and in control of her life.
In the last two years, the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on everyone’s mental health, be it a school kid who has experienced isolation due to school closure or an elderly man who couldn’t meet his daughter or son for more than one year.
The unprecedented times have caused a broad range of mental health challenges across different age groups, including depression, anxiety, loneliness, and more. Additionally, remote working has become a significant factor leading to stress anxiety among young Indian professionals as 50% of Indians feels that the new norm of work-from-home has adversely affected their mental health in the past two years
“Covid-19 has brought the discussion of mental health to the forefront. However, society has been progressive with time but we can still see stigma and inhibitions attached while discussing mental well-being,” said Nishant Arora, Co-founder of AMX India. He further added that they conducted a study to better understand how open people are today when discussing mental health problems and if they are aware and educated about the importance of psychological well-being or not, as mentioned in The Economic Times.
However, the AMX study showed that spending time with family and friends helped 32% of people deal with the mental health consequences of this pandemic. The findings stated that yoga and meditation have also benefited 20% and 16% of people respectively, to overcome psychological distress during remote working days.