In this panel discussion, the speakers explore the mental health challenges that arise when individuals are confined with family or flatmates during the COVID‑19 pandemic. Dr. Preeti shares practical strategies she uses with her own family, emphasizing the importance of setting clear personal and work boundaries, designating separate physical spaces, and scheduling brief, daily shared activities (20‑40 minutes) that involve active interaction rather than passive screen time. The conversation also touches on the broader emotional burden many feel—guilt over being safe while others suffer from crises such as the migrant situation in India or racial injustice in the US—and how to balance civic awareness with personal well‑being. Overall, the dialogue offers concrete, empathetic guidance for maintaining equilibrium, fostering healthy family dynamics, and staying socially engaged without compromising mental health.
So now, uh, we, we discuss about loneliness and we discuss about hostel. I, I think when we talk about the other spectrum, which is stuck with the family— so, so there are a lot of individuals who are now stuck with their families, and, uh, this is the, uh, has been a long enough time to bond and gel, and now everybody has had enough of everyone. And, uh, so how do— how to find the equilibrium there, Dr. Preeti? What do you suggest?
Yeah, what I suggest to my patients, and because my two sons are home, right, and I think I never met my husband for this long in 25, 26 years of being married, right? So what I suggest is this is also an opportunity for us to decide our limits. For example, what we have done is, and what I tell everybody is We try to meet once in the evening and play carrom together. So 4 of us are together, we play 1 game or 2 games, 20 minutes to 40 minutes. And that's something I've told, you know, my sons that you need to respect it. Right? Other than that, we have— luckily, fortunately, we have 4 laptops and we have 4 rooms. We do not disturb each other during work because like Ruha said, Sometimes it gets very difficult. For example, I'm doing a webinar here and now somebody keeps coming and asking me things. I will get stressed. So we said that, uh, properly in the beginning. In the morning, me and my husband, you know, we spend some time together. So what I'm trying to say is, whatever you plan, one, you should have a 20 to 40 minute activity every day which you do together as a family. It could be cooking, it could be, you know, it could be playing, it could be laughing, whatever. It should not be watching TV or Netflix. That is not human interaction, right? And second is you should know where are your limits. And if you can define that, if you can have that conversation which Ruha suggested in the beginning, I think You are good to go. We can be home for another few months without eating each other's head away.
Yeah, I think to summarize, maybe like at the end of the day, having a space, a boundary, is very important if everybody is living as a family or flatmates. I think eventually spending that longer time with a few as individuals, it becomes important that we segregate. Everybody has a space and everybody has a time and schedule to hang out together also. So Dr. Rohit, if I ask you, like, you know, this time when there's an inflow of information and you talked about as individuals we should engage, this is probably a right time to engage as individuals to to look into what is happening in the society per se. And this is a time when we look at the migrants crisis here in India, we see other, a lot of other things happening, like for example the, the whole movement against racism in US. And then so all these social factors have also suddenly come into play along with the pandemic. And as individuals who are sitting at home and who are enjoying the pandemic, let's say, you know, who are being creative and who are— the sleep has gotten better and we've suddenly become productive or more peaceful. So somewhere that, that, uh, there's a sense of guilt that comes, like, you know, that there are people who are struggling or suffering in there. So how to mitigate that? Like, how— what is the ideal way to go about it? How can we citizens engage but at the same time, like, you know, maintain this sense of self?
