Bengaluru: The pressures of corporate life are making India Inc employees lose sleep-literally. A growing number of stressed-out employees, struggling to cope with sleep deprivation, poor sleep quality, and insomnia, are now making a beeline for sleep experts to get some much-needed shut-eye.
Prolonged working hours, relent-less performance pressure, toxic workplaces, declining job security, return to office for most companies and increased use of digital devices are taking a toll on these executives, with sleep being one of the first casualties.
That in turn, is leaving them perpetually tired, sluggish, unable to focus and irritable, setting into motion a host of health issues including obesity, diabetes, cardio-vascular diseases, forgetfulness and confusion.
A startup founder got in touch with Dr Manvir Bhatia, director of the Neurology Sleep Centre, New Delhi, when he found himself losing control very easily at work and lashing out at employees. In his late 30s, the founder had consistently been functioning on 4-4.5 hours of sleep.
In another instance, a senior hotelier, constantly travelling found himself popping sleeping pills to grab some shut-eye, which spiral-led into an addiction. He reached out for help.
Dr Bhatia says she now sees three times the number of patients daily than she did pre-Covid. Working hours have increased considerably for corporate employees.
Many are working sedentary jobs; food, meal timings are all going haywire, she says.
"We see chronically sleep deprived people in their 30s and 40s whose health has gone for a toss. There's weight gain, leading to sleep apnea, which leads to diabetes, high BP, memory loss. It also impacts productivity and work performance and leads to increased absenteeism." Dr Viny Kantroo, sleep medicine consultant at Apollo Hospitals, Indraprastha, Delhi, says many times, senior corporate professionals have this problem because of a lot of travel, unhealthy food etc.
There’s also work which spills over into the weekend.
Dr Kantroo says, “There’s so much competition and mental stress, blurring boundaries between work and home.” Personal life is getting affected too, according to experts, causing what many call “sleep divorces” — couples sleeping in separate rooms for better sleep quality. Ironically, says Dr N Ramakrishnan, director, Nithra Sleep Clinic, while many tech-savvy professionals use sleep trackers to monitor their sleep, it’s causing more stress as they go overboard. “They are constantly looking at numbers."
For many in the corporate world, the entire sleep pattern is very messed up, he says. A large chunk of his patients is in the 35-45 age group. Many also have medical problems from stress and sleep deprivation — BP, diabetes, noncommunicable diseases.
“Some of them work in shifts at odd times or across time zones. There are a lot of hormonal imbalances; infertility is common.” Younger people, still at the entry-level, are also coming in, say experts. Their primary stressors are long hours, toxic workplaces, and a lot of time spent on travel.
EXTREME CASES
Sleep deprivation can even lead to extreme reactions, Ramakrishnan says, citing the case of a patient who threatened to kill himself if he didn’t get an immediate appointment. Having barely slept in weeks, he was happier back home in a Tier-2 city while his office still offered work from home post-Covid and returning to Chennai had exposed him to a toxic work environment and workplace bullying.
While it is mostly professionals in their individual capacity who approach such experts, corporates are also inviting them for sessions around the importance of healthy sleep, lifestyle, and counselling.
Nithra Sleep Clinic recently conducted such a session for TVS; it has also done similar sessions for TCS, Cognizant, LIC, Saint Gobain and Sterlite Power, says Ramakrishnan. Sachin Bhatia, CEO of Metro Infrasys, first went to the Neurology Sleep Centre after suffering from sleep apnea and now says that treatment and lifestyle changes have not only made him sleep better—but also made a huge difference to his quality of his life. “It’s made me calmer, more empathetic, sharper.”
Bhatia has since given high-end sleep trackers to 15 members in his core team, and they share sleep scores on a WhatsApp group daily. Anyone who is consistently facing an issue is taken to an expert, and necessary changes made accordingly. “I’ve been seeing the improvements in my team as well,” says Bhatia.
Prolonged working hours, relent-less performance pressure, toxic workplaces, declining job security, return to office for most companies and increased use of digital devices are taking a toll on these executives, with sleep being one of the first casualties.
That in turn, is leaving them perpetually tired, sluggish, unable to focus and irritable, setting into motion a host of health issues including obesity, diabetes, cardio-vascular diseases, forgetfulness and confusion.
A startup founder got in touch with Dr Manvir Bhatia, director of the Neurology Sleep Centre, New Delhi, when he found himself losing control very easily at work and lashing out at employees. In his late 30s, the founder had consistently been functioning on 4-4.5 hours of sleep.
In another instance, a senior hotelier, constantly travelling found himself popping sleeping pills to grab some shut-eye, which spiral-led into an addiction. He reached out for help.
Dr Bhatia says she now sees three times the number of patients daily than she did pre-Covid. Working hours have increased considerably for corporate employees.
Many are working sedentary jobs; food, meal timings are all going haywire, she says.
"We see chronically sleep deprived people in their 30s and 40s whose health has gone for a toss. There's weight gain, leading to sleep apnea, which leads to diabetes, high BP, memory loss. It also impacts productivity and work performance and leads to increased absenteeism." Dr Viny Kantroo, sleep medicine consultant at Apollo Hospitals, Indraprastha, Delhi, says many times, senior corporate professionals have this problem because of a lot of travel, unhealthy food etc.
There’s also work which spills over into the weekend.
Dr Kantroo says, “There’s so much competition and mental stress, blurring boundaries between work and home.” Personal life is getting affected too, according to experts, causing what many call “sleep divorces” — couples sleeping in separate rooms for better sleep quality. Ironically, says Dr N Ramakrishnan, director, Nithra Sleep Clinic, while many tech-savvy professionals use sleep trackers to monitor their sleep, it’s causing more stress as they go overboard. “They are constantly looking at numbers."
For many in the corporate world, the entire sleep pattern is very messed up, he says. A large chunk of his patients is in the 35-45 age group. Many also have medical problems from stress and sleep deprivation — BP, diabetes, noncommunicable diseases.
“Some of them work in shifts at odd times or across time zones. There are a lot of hormonal imbalances; infertility is common.” Younger people, still at the entry-level, are also coming in, say experts. Their primary stressors are long hours, toxic workplaces, and a lot of time spent on travel.
EXTREME CASES
Sleep deprivation can even lead to extreme reactions, Ramakrishnan says, citing the case of a patient who threatened to kill himself if he didn’t get an immediate appointment. Having barely slept in weeks, he was happier back home in a Tier-2 city while his office still offered work from home post-Covid and returning to Chennai had exposed him to a toxic work environment and workplace bullying.
While it is mostly professionals in their individual capacity who approach such experts, corporates are also inviting them for sessions around the importance of healthy sleep, lifestyle, and counselling.
Nithra Sleep Clinic recently conducted such a session for TVS; it has also done similar sessions for TCS, Cognizant, LIC, Saint Gobain and Sterlite Power, says Ramakrishnan. Sachin Bhatia, CEO of Metro Infrasys, first went to the Neurology Sleep Centre after suffering from sleep apnea and now says that treatment and lifestyle changes have not only made him sleep better—but also made a huge difference to his quality of his life. “It’s made me calmer, more empathetic, sharper.”
Bhatia has since given high-end sleep trackers to 15 members in his core team, and they share sleep scores on a WhatsApp group daily. Anyone who is consistently facing an issue is taken to an expert, and necessary changes made accordingly. “I’ve been seeing the improvements in my team as well,” says Bhatia.
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