To be most productive, we need our downtime to recover or so Bollywood star and mental health advocate - Deepika Padukone - asserted in a recent interview with Arianna Huffington, Founder of the Huffington Post and Thrive Global. Deepika founded The Live Laugh Love Foundation to raise awareness about mental health issues, after seeking professional help to deal with depression and what better day than World Mental Health Day for the diva to convince us that “sometimes the things that go wrong, open doors for things that go spectacularly right”.

We can't help but ponder deeply on some of the key takeaways from Deepika's recent interview for TLLLF with Arianna -

1. Downtime is a feature, not a bug.

Given that some of us are wired to think that downtime is unproductive, Arianna shared that human operating system downtime is a feature and not a bug hence, it is critical to support both your mental and physical health. Drawing on her experience as a national-level badminton player (until she gave it up at 16 to pursue acting), Deepika opined, “Things have started to change but there’s still this notion that if someone needs downtime or time for themselves, they’re not motivated or not driven. Instead, we look for someone who’s willing to burn the midnight oil, and that person is praised for being hardworking, committed, and dedicated. From being an athlete, I know you need your rest and recovery –– you need that to perform better and work more effectively.”

2. Coping with burnout

New mommy Deepika revealed that sleep deprivation often causes her stress, leading to burnout, which in turn affects her decision-making skills. She shared, “When you are sleep-deprived or burnt out, the decisions that you make and I think sometimes I can actually feel it. I know on particular days when I am feeling stressed or burnt out because I haven’t slept enough or practice my self-care rituals…I can tell that my decision-making is getting affected to some extent.”

Reflecting on her personal journey, Arianna recalled that while building The Huffington Post, she collapsed from exhaustion one day and thought she had to sacrifice health to be successful. She said, “We’ve spent so long prioritising our external accomplishments and pushing ourselves to the limit that we’ve forgotten the essential role of taking care of ourselves. The truth is, when we prioritise our well-being, everything else falls into place.”

3. Important to let go of grudges

Talking about receiving feedback from critics, Arianna highlighted that holding grudges is one of the most draining things you can do while Deepika recalled a bad review after her debut movie Om Shanti Om was released, that pushed her to work on herself. She said, “The larger picture is, what do you do with negativity? How do you use it positively?”

4. Start small

Talking about the value of starting small, Arianna suggested taking microsteps in creating healthier habits to support your mental health and recommended three of her favourite microsteps that are too small to fail -

• Pick a time at night when you turn off your devices — and gently escort them out of your bedroom! Our phones are repositories of everything we need to put away to allow us to sleep — our to-do lists, our inboxes, multiple projects, and problems. So charging our phones in another room allows us to wake-up as recharged as our phones.
• India, of course, is the birthplace of breathwork. One easy way to take advantage of the power of breath is “box breathing.” All you have to do is inhale for a count of four, hold for a count of four and exhale for a count of four.
• One way to create a new healthy habit is through “habit stacking,” or attaching a new habit to an existing one. So every time I brush my teeth, I think of three things I'm grateful for. Gratitude is one of our most powerful emotions, and lowers stress and anxiety.

Deepika also advised, “I think whether it's nutrition or exercise, we often take on something that’s not sustainable and then slip back into old habits. So it’s important to make small changes that eventually become a part of your life.”

5. The value of unconditional love

Crediting her mother’s sense of unconditional love as the foundation of her life, Arianna shared one of her mother's sayings that still guide her today - “failure is not the opposite of success but a stepping stone to success.” She recommended “have someone in your life who lets you know that you can aim for the stars –– and that if you don’t succeed (and none of us do all the time), you won’t be loved any less” since so much of the time, our culture of achievement can fuel mental health struggles.

She further shared about falling in love in her 20s with London Times columnist Bernard Levin who was twice her age “and half my size” but when Arianna reached her 30s, she desperately wanted to have children while he wanted to have cats so, she left the man she deeply loved. “I didn’t know at the time how many of the most important things in my life (like my two daughters) would lead from that moment,” Arianna shared.

Deepika said, “I feel like you really need to be patient about all the good things that come out of some of the bad things that happen in life. When you look back at your journey and reflect, you realise, ‘wow, that actually pushed me towards doing something that I never thought of or imagined’.”

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