– find yourselfIf you lead a team in India, your employees are more burnt out than almost anywhere else in the world.
By Angira Chakravorty Dasgupta · Founder, SVã flo
14 June 2026 · 1 min read
The data on this is no longer random.
59% of Indian employees report burnout symptoms. The global average is 20%. India sits at number one.
South Asia also has the longest average working hours in the world, at 49 hours per week, with over a third of the workforce regularly exceeding 48.
What makes India’s situation specific is that the burnout is running alongside high performance, not replacing it. The most burnt-out professionals are often the most productive. They are the ones who do not complain, do not take sick days, do not flag that something is wrong. They push through. And the system rewards them for it, right up until the point where the body stops cooperating.
The physical signs are consistent:
- chronic fatigue that sleep does not resolve
- tension headaches
- muscle stiffness in the neck and shoulders
- jaw clenching
- disrupted sleep
- a weakened immune system
Most corporate wellness programmes address this through the mind: time management training, resilience workshops, mindfulness apps. Counselling usage is rising sharply – the BFSI sector alone saw a 408% increase in counselling sessions between 2023 and 2026, and healthcare and pharma saw 122%.
The demand is obviously there. What is often missing is any intervention that addresses the body.
Stress does not live in thoughts. It lives in the nervous system. And the nervous system responds to physical signals – movement, breath, sound, physical regulation.
For leaders and HR professionals: if your highest performers are also your most fatigued, that is not a success metric. That is a warning sign.
About the author
Angira Chakravorty Dasgupta
Founder, SVã flo
Angira is the creator of SVã flo – a Somatic Soul Integrated System that works through the body rather than around it. She is a faculty member at Kolkata Sanved, the TISS-affiliated institution where Dance Movement Therapy is taught in India.
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