Mental health problems and stress is a taboo almost everywhere. The social stigma which is associated with discrimination isolates individuals with mental health issues and prevents them from seeking professional help. Societies blame patients most of the time for their condition and mental health issues are neglected, undetected and left untreated.

Stress has major impact on health, economy, and quality of life. If people are constantly stressed due to pressure of workload or due to issues related to money and work-life balance, it may raise health-related concerns. Burden of stress is often underestimated because most widely used tools such as perceived stress scale and other questionnaires to detect stress subjects to emotional and memory bias. However, undetected, and untreated stress may possibly lead to multiple chronic conditions such as depression, anxiety, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases. Nowadays, stress is the major concern in most of the countries due to current pandemic situation which thereby raises potential burden on the healthcare systems.

Building sustainable and responsible economy is a big challenge in the world of finite resources. However, taking small steps such as quick access to stress relieving therapies can help to create responsible economies. Smart solutions including stress detection, prevention and reduction technology can improve urban livelihood. Cities can be made more sustainable by channelizing energies of people by digitalizing certain healthcare services, by reducing frequent visits to general practitioners (GPs) and psychologists, by allowing digital access to stress-relieving therapies and by reducing long-waiting times associated with consultant-led mental healthcare services. Moreover, people will feel motivated and engaged if transportation visits to GPs or psychologists are less frequent. They can manage work-life balance by prioritizing their work or family related tasks and responsibilities.

Sumondo helps to create positive work environment and help to reduce frequent transportation visits to GP and psychologists by providing self-stress detecting and management tool. This tool is a just-in-time intervention which provides quick access to mindfulness exercises. Mindfulness exercises provided through our app can help to relieve stress and to be more productive. The device is also beneficial in reducing logistic burden of the healthcare system, thus potential saving of GP’s and psychologist’s time can be maneuvered productively. This leads to efficient use of available resources and helps in creation of responsible and sustainable economies.

Written by Sneha Tambe, June 22nd, 2021.