About 20 years ago, Manoj Dias was trapped in what he calls “a wheel of suffering” working in the finance industry in Melbourne, Australia.
“I’d wake at 6am, be in the gym by 6.30am and in the office an hour later, ready for a 12-hour shift,” says Dias by video call from New York, where he is now based.
And forget about a regular diet: his meals were usually just a few very strong coffees. “My cortisol and adrenaline would have been going through the roof.”
Mental health was not discussed back then, he says. Australian men in particular dealt with stress by heading to the pub for a few post-work drinks, and “just soldiering on”.
“It started a pattern, or a wheel of suffering, as I call it. You don’t get much sleep, you feel stressed throughout the day, you get anxious, you go home, you don’t sleep because you’re stressed and anxious – and the cycle repeats.”