New Delhi, Jan. 13 -- On most mornings, 29-year-old Saloni Dahake, who works with an OTT network in Mumbai, wakes up to the sound of Slack. A faint buzz at 7.12am, followed by another at 7.16am. By the time she finishes brushing her teeth, her phone has about 12 notifications-half work, half personal-but her body cannot distinguish between the two. "It feels like death by a thousand cuts," she says. "On a case-by-case basis it's nothing, but by 6pm I'm exhausted, not because of work but due to the constant switching." This exhaustion which is quiet and cumulative is now one of the most widespread mental health crises of our time.

This is not stress in the traditional sense, but ambient stress: an invisible hum of micro-demands, notificat...