Stress

The survey asked respondents to rate their stress in the week before they answered, from one to ten. This page calls seven or above high stress, the same cut the 2025 edition used. Of the 7,346 responses that answered it, 40.4% were in that band, and the average rating was 5.56. WHI 2025’s published headline put 33.9% of 3,437 responses in that band, with an average rating of 5.01.

The published headline share rose 6.5 percentage points between editions, on a sample that roughly doubled. This is a rating of recent stress, not a diagnosis. Most respondents were salaried; the sample also included self-employed people and people not currently employed. Both editions used a ten-point scale and a seven-and-above band. The 2026 question asked about the week before each response; the published 2025 report does not state its recall period.

High stress is 6.5 points above the WHI 2025 headline#

The comparison uses WHI 2025's stress headline and sex table. Conflicting breakdowns change the size, but not the direction, of the difference; its recall period is unstated. See What Changed.

The rise appears in both women and men: 6.2 points and 6.8 points respectively. The average rating also rose, from 5.01 to 5.56. The increase is visible both in the share at seven or above and in the average across all ratings.

The sample roughly doubled between editions. Neither year's sample is weighted to any population, so this is a comparison of two survey samples a year apart, not a measurement of urban India.

The 2025 report called its one-in-three figure the new normal. Using the same high-stress band, the figure is now 40.4%.

The 20s report the most high stress; the 50s report the least#

These four bands cover 7,292 of the 7,346 stress answers. The other 54 are excluded from the age comparison because their recorded age is missing, outside 20–59 or not a valid whole number.

High stress is most common in the 20s and less common in each older band, a spread of 12 points from the 20s to the 50s. That inverts the usual assumption, that responsibility (mortgages, children, ageing parents, seniority) accumulates with age and stress accumulates with it. Here the gradient runs the other way, and it ran the other way in 2025, when the edition found the same inversion on its own generational cohorts.

One thing a self-rating cannot separate: whether a 52-year-old who answers 6 is under less load than a 25-year-old who answers 8, or has simply spent longer learning what a 6 feels like. The rating is the measure, and the rating falls with age.

Women report high stress more often than men in every age band#

These two groups hold 7,320 of the 7,346 stress answers; 26 responses sit outside them. The overall difference is 10.1 points.

The women in this sample are younger: 47.7% are under 30, compared with 37.6% of men. But the difference in reported stress remains within every age band.

The within-band gap runs from 5.4 points in the 50s to 11.0 points in the 40s. Women in their 40s (45.2%) report high stress more often than men in their 20s (39.1%), and the youngest women are the most stressed cohort in this table, at 49.1%. The overall gap was 10.7 points in 2025 and is 10.1 now, and the 2025 report also described higher stress among women across age groups.

The largest differences in named sources of stress concern relationships, family and health. Respondents could select more than one source, so these rows overlap.

Work and money are reported at broadly similar rates by both, with women 4.6 points higher on work and men 2.9 points higher on money. The two rows that separate are domestic and personal. Relationship or family issues are selected by 42.4% of women against 27.0% of men, a gap of 15.4 points and the widest among the sources shown, and health concerns split 38.9% to 24.8%, a gap of 14.1.

These are named categories, not hours. The question records which sources a respondent picked out of six; it does not measure how much care work anyone does, or what support anyone has. Across everyone answering, 53.1% of 7,367 selected work-related stress and 49.9% selected financial concerns, the two most-selected of the six. The Work Model page reads the same measure by where people work.

Among the most stressed, women select exercise to cope at about half the men's rate#

The survey asks how people manage stress, again allowing more than one answer.

Nearly one in five of everyone who answered has found nothing that works, and more than a quarter say they push it down. The list contains no therapy, counselling or professional-support option, so the top answer ranks friends and family against the five others on the list, not against a clinician.

Among those reporting high stress, exercise has the largest gender gap of the four coping methods below.

The table covers 1,088 high-stress responses from women and 1,862 from men who also answered the coping question. High-stress men select exercise at nearly double the rate of high-stress women, 31.3% against 16.1%, a gap of 15.2 points; the other three rows differ by 4.6, 2.1 and 1.0 points.

Fewer high-stress women report using exercise to cope. The survey does not tell us why, or whether exercise changed anyone's stress. It measures reported behaviour, not the effect of a treatment.

What the survey does show is that stress and inactivity keep company. Among the 7,342 responses that answered both questions, 38.8% of the high-stress group report no days at all with 30 minutes of exercise, against 25.4% of everyone else. Which way that runs for any individual is not something a single cross-section can say.

Lower earners report more stress, not less#

The shape matters more than any single row. High stress falls 5.7 points across the bottom three bands, from 45.3% under ₹3 lakh to 39.6% at ₹6–10 lakh. Above ₹10 lakh it stops falling: the four highest bands sit between 37.2% and 38.7%, and they are not even in order.

Financial concerns are the second most-selected source overall, at 49.9% of 7,367 answers. These figures do not establish whether financial concerns explain the higher stress reported in the lowest income bands.

Short sleep rises with reported stress#

Stress and sleep move together in this survey, and they do it by degrees rather than in one jump.

Short sleep here means reporting under 5 hours or 5–6 hours. These are survey answer bands, so the data do not separate exactly six hours from the rest of the 5–6-hour group. Every row uses responses that answered both questions: 7,343 in all, of whom 2,249, or 30.6%, gave one of those two answers.

Against the low-stress band, the high-stress band's short-sleep rate is 2.33 times as high: 41.0% of 2,967 against 17.6% of 2,386.

What this table cannot do is fix a direction for any individual. Both answers come from the same questionnaire on the same day, so nobody here was followed from one to the other. What it does establish is that short sleep is more common among responses reporting high stress. The Sleep page reads sleep duration directly, on its own base.

A larger share is considering therapy. The share in it stayed near 3%#

The 2026 column is the 7,391 responses that answered this question. It is a single-choice question, so the four answers are exclusive and sum to 100%. Two of the four are No answers, and they say different things: 79.4% answered "No, never", and adding those considering it gives 6,625 of the 7,391, or 89.6%, with no history of therapy at all, because the people considering it have not had it either. The 2025 column is that edition's figures for the same question across its whole sample.

The share considering therapy rose 2.2 points between editions, while the share currently in therapy moved 0.2 points. As with the headline, these are two samples a year apart rather than the same people twice.

Counted rather than rounded, 760 responses report considering therapy and 766 report having had it, in the past or now: 10.3% against 10.4% of the same 7,391 answers, a difference of six responses. About as many answers report considering therapy as report ever using it.

Among the 2,968 responses that gave a stress rating of 7 or above and answered this question, the distribution sits differently: 69.2% answered "No, never" against 79.4% across everyone, 16.4% are considering it against 10.3%, 10.1% used it in the past against 7.4%, and 4.3% are currently in therapy against 2.9%. Both past and current therapy use are more common in the high-stress group, as is considering therapy. Consideration does not mean contact with a service. These are two separately answered questions, not one group followed from a stress rating into treatment, and "No, never" is one option on the therapy question rather than a statement about professional help of any kind.

This survey asks nobody why they did not use therapy.

What this page measures, and what it does not#

Stress is a self-rating for the week before each response, not a clinical diagnosis; 7–10 is this report's high-stress band. Sources and coping allow multiple answers. Figures count responses, including repeats, and use question-specific bases from an IT-heavy, mostly salaried sample. Age comparisons cover 20–59. Methodology.

Reported high stress is most common in the 20s, at the bottom of the income range, and among women, who also select relationship, family and health concerns as sources far more often than men do. Against the published WHI 2025 headline, the overall rate is 6.5 points higher; both sex-table rates are higher by similar amounts. Short sleep is more common in the high-stress group. And about as many answers report considering therapy as report ever having used it.