HYDERABAD: New Delhi citizens displayed outstanding Mental Wellbeing Index (MWBI) and Hyderabadis weren’t bad either, standing at third with 82% MWBI displaying ‘excellent’ position while Ahmedabad was at lowest, according to a whitepaper by TRA, a consumer insights and brand intelligence company. Incidentally, Hyderabad is the only other city where MWBI has shown a rise of 18%, rising from good to excellent mental wellbeing.
All other cities either did not show any change in the MWBI or showed a decrease in mental wellbeing. The City Mental Wellbeing heatmap shows the data in a different format, clearly showing the deterioration of Mental Wellbeing in a majority of the cities with significant exceptions as stated in the above paragraph (Green indicates better MWBI, and colour changes progressively toward red showing worse MWBI).
Mental Wellbeing is measured as a person’s ability to cope with various worries they may encounter. It is the sum of the cognitive, behavioural, emotional and spiritual wellbeing of a person. Worries may be real or imagined, but the easiest way to explain worry is as ‘advancement of anxiety’. Coping counterbalances worry, and it is a person’s ability to deal with responsibilities, problems, or difficulties successfully or in an adequate manner.
During a serious and continued crisis like the current lockdown, the coping ability may increase or decrease against worries depending on several personal and environmental factors. The first edition of TRA’s whitepaper Coronavirus Consumer Insights – 1 was published on April 24.
This whitepaper compares the change Mental Wellbeing of citizens from Lockdown 1.0 to Lockdown 3.0. N. Chandramouli, CEO, added, “Nagpur (36%), Kochi (37%) and Coimbatore (39%) also display ‘Very Poor’ Mental Wellbeing, Chandramouli. Dr. Jalpa Bhuta, Consultant Psychiatrist, practicing at Global Hospital and Hinduja Khar, observed, “The study shows that cities like Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai are not coping too well as compared to most others and combined health and economic anxieties are prominent in these cities. It is important for authorities to invest in more detailed studies of citizens’ mental wellbeing to address these issues. Mental health is as important as physical and economic wellbeing, but being a silent problem, it often gets overlooked. The need of the hour for everyone is to keep a positive attitude, high resilience and a strong spiritual faith which contribute to mental wellbeing.”