To commemorate the World Mental Health Day, the mental wellness team at DBHS Matunga organised a session for the teachers on 10 Oct, 2025. The resource person for the day was Mrs. Purnima Pandit from the organisation Drishti which works in the field of mental health. Mrs. Pandit is the Head of School Counselling at Drishti and comes with an experience of over 12 years.

The session began with an activity, followed by interactive discussion around work-life balance. Teachers were able to look back into their life, and understand how a perfect work-life balance would look like.

Mrs. Pandit led the teachers to analyse their day and how they spend their time, still feeling unsatisfied. This dissatisfaction could be because we begin to do things as obligations. There are things that one would want to give up to be able to indulge in work that is more productive. Sometimes we do spend time in various daily chores but still do not feel satisfied and that is because we do not spend time with ourselves. She very rightly pointed out that ‘me time’ does not mean that we club it with chores that we need to complete. ‘Me time’ needs to be devoid of any task and just being there with oneself. Using the Johari Window she explained how sometimes the ‘Me time’ goes into the ‘not urgent and not important’ quadrant but in reality it is when we prioritise some time with ourselves that we are able to do other important and urgent things well too. Even when we have things on a deadline, we may try to finish it early so we can get more time with ourselves. She also focussed on sleep as an important self-care practice.

Mrs. Divya Immanuel thanked the resource person for her time and also for helping us understand what ‘me time’ truly means. As a take-away for the session, the teachers were given bookmarks that remind us to always be grateful.