Across boardrooms and living rooms, between deadlines and daily rituals, a quiet question lingers. It surfaces in conversations, in passing thoughts, and in rare moments of stillness. How do we hold everything together, and more meaningfully? How do we move through the busyness of life with purpose?
Stress has quietly become the most common undercurrent of modern life. It is no longer occasional or isolated. Today, it is continuous, and it shows up in our health. In India, more than half of urban adults report experiencing high levels of stress, with over 26 per cent citing work pressure and 17 per cent pointing to financial strain as major contributors. Among young adults, nearly one in two mental health consultations are now related to stress or anxiety. While it may begin as restlessness or fatigue, stress often evolves into something more complex. Behind many non-communicable diseases—diabetes, hypertension, cardiac disease, there is often an invisible thread of chronic stress. The body keeps the score, even when the mind is preoccupied.
The traditional advice has been to separate work and life and to find perfect equilibrium. But life does not move in clean compartments. It moves like music. There is tempo and transition. There are intense passages, gentle pauses, and subtle shifts. Leadership, caregiving, ambition, reflection—these are not phases that follow each other. They often coexist, and they form the rhythm of modern life.
However, it isn’t about poor time management, it is the honest effort to stay present while juggling roles. Most people aren’t chasing perfection—they’re searching for clarity and that rarely comes from tighter schedules. It comes from returning to purpose. When we remember why we began, our choices become more intentional. That quiet shift can change everything.
As a country, we are living longer. But the question remains—are we living well? Vitality is not the same as longevity. The latter is biological and the former is deeply human. It is shaped by our capacity to rest, to reflect, to nourish ourselves in ways that go beyond nutrition. Preventive health care begins with awareness, not just diagnostics. It begins when we notice the signals early, when we treat sleep as seriously as we treat sugar levels, when we value mental calm as much as physical fitness.
At Apollo, this belief guides our approach. Through ProHealth, our work in preventive care has always aimed to shift the conversation from illness to wellness and from cure to care. Health is not something we rush to recover. It is something we must continuously preserve, especially today, when the cost of ignoring stress is far greater than we may realise.
Yet, it would be amiss if I do not reiterate that there is no universal formula for work-life harmony. For some, it is a steady rhythm, and, for most, it changes by the day. What steadies us all, I believe, is presence. When we are truly present, we begin to sense when to pause and when to move forward. We learn to lean in with intention, and to step back with grace. In that quiet awareness, we discover the space between action and reflection, and in that space, life shifts—from something to balance, to something that simply flows.
This is what I believe health should mean—not only the absence of disease, but the presence of energy, resilience, and grace. A life lived fully, with purpose as its quiet anchor.
Dr Preetha Reddy is Executive Vice Chairperson of Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited.