February can feel like no man’s land. The holidays are over and the weather is crummy. The gentlest iPhone chime sounds like a bugle call in the morning and you need two Americanos to have a civil conversation. Over the past week or so, you’ve been holed up in your cramped apartment and your inbox is overflowing with alerts about the spread of a deadly virus. Like 84% of the population, you’re probably stressed, according to a recent study by Cigna and Asia Care Group.
The cost of burnout is no longer just emotional. The global economy loses $1 trillion a year in productivity as a result of depression and anxiety, the World Health Organization found. While the U.S. puts $133.2 billion, or 4% of its annual health expenditure, toward treatment, that proportion reaches 19% in Australia, 18% in Singapore and 17.6% in Hong Kong, Cigna says.
