Why disconnecting from work is important for mental well being

It used to be a point of pride: working round the clock, at all hours and being known in the family as the workaholic. It’s a mental health issue, frankly, as well, for people to be able to disconnect from their work and connect with their family and their life.” But how seriously is work impacting mental health taken in India, where CEOs/founders of companies have extolled the virtues of working long hours and eschewing weekends, where around 90% of the workforce is in the unorganised sector, where a gig economy thrives, often putting its workers at risk physically and mentally, and where a State government had considered extending daily work days to 14 hours? Long hours of work, combined with other factors can impact a person’s mental health, says Paulomi Sudhir, professor of clinical psychology, NIMHANS. “Breaks play an important restorative function for positive mental health outcomes.” Long, unsocial or inflexible hours is listed as one of the risk factors to mental health, by the World Health Organization. As much as disconnecting from work is healthy and vital, cultural constraints in India, where workers are trained to work long hours, pose a barrier, said Sona Mitra, principal economist at IWWAGE, a Delhi-based organisation that aims at facilitating the agenda of women’s economic empowerment “While the hybrid work model is great for flexibility, the expectation to respond immediately in order to show accountability that developed during the pandemic, has persisted even now.