Work pressure pushing techies to the brink

Work pressure pushing techies to the brink Ananya Banerjee TNN  Hyderabad: High flying jobs with fat paychecks notwithstanding, many young techies in m a n acity are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain a work-life balance which is pushing them to suicide, depression, crime and substance abuse.     On Sunday, a group of techies in their mid-twenties got arrested for getting into a drunken brawl with people within the airport premises.      In June this year, a 29-year-old software engineer was arrested for the murder of his wife in Anand Nagar colony. Although, police said there were other reasons, investigations did reveal that he was “highly stressed” at work and told interrogators that his wife used to allegedly harass him at home also.     July alone saw two techies committing suicide with 26-year-old software engineer Pallavi K, who returned from the United States, ending her life by hanging herself at Lakdi-ka-pul, software engineer Ashwini Nairy, 22, jumped to her death from a 7thfloor building at Madhapur.     Counsellors at centres and citybased psychiatrists said the number of people seeking help from tech-related fields were much more than those coming from other professional streams.      Officials from Makro Foundation, a city based organization, working on prevention of deaths due to avoidable mishaps, said that over the past four years, there has been an 8-10% rise in the number of techies seeking counseling.     “Young techies, though well paid, are not able to catch up with their demanding deadlines leading to dissatisfaction and low self esteem. Many of them lose out on relationships because they have no time to spend with their partners,” said Aparna Adhikari, manager of Makro, which has been conducting counselling sessions with corporate companies.     There are over 1,000 big and small software companies employing scores of people, who often have to work for marathon hours, with little break in the middle. Adhikari said work pressures coupled with strained relationships are pushing many to depression.     “We have observed that men are more willing to seek counseling compared to women who tend to clamp up,” Adhikari added.     Experts said many youngsters coming to look for opportunities in the tech hub get depressed after a point due to long hours of work and staying away from family. The converse is also true for Hyderabadi techies who have to work overseas and don’t see their families for months or even years. Most of them are in the 22 to 35 age group.  TECH BLUES  Many young techies in city are finding it difficult to maintain a work-life balance which is pushing them to suicide and depression Number of people seeking psychiatric help from tech-related fields much more than those from other professional streams There has been an 8-10% rise in the number of techies seeking counselling in the last four years Most of those seeking psychiatric help are in the 22-35 age group Insomnia dogs techies  Hyderabad: Shift Work Disorders (SWD) like insomnia is common among techies who have erratic working hours. Irritability, edginess and sleep disorders affect behavioral patterns which in turn break down the social system around them.     “Many take their work back home and are unable to switch off even after office hours are over. These traits are observed much more in techrelated professionals than those from other fields,” said Dr Ashok Alimchandani, senior consultant psychiatrist at Apollo Hospital.     Stress management, spending enough family time and learning to maintain an optimum work life balance is the mantra to dodge work-related stress. Depression is a sociological-biological-psychological condition which must be tackled at all three levels, counselors said.      “Young working professionals should avoid revolving their lives around work. Most importantly, they must come out and vent their frustrations instead of bottling them up,” said Dr Sucharita N, who has worked with Life-Line Australia and currently a psychologist at Roshni NGO, a suicide intervention centre.