Anubha Agarwal

Senior Research & Learning Manager at The Wellbeing Project

Hyderabad,
India

Anubha has lived her life coloring outside the lines and is always willing to reinvent herself. Her curiosity and adherence to a growth mindset led to some rewarding work collaborations with The World Bank, J-PAL, Kantar Group, McCann World Group in the past. She joined The Wellbeing Project in October of 2022 as a Research and Learning Manager, inspired by the Project’s mission.

Anubha has had the privilege of interviewing hundreds of individuals across urban, peri- urban, and rural India in her former roles as a feature writer, market researcher, and field researcher. At The Wellbeing Project, she supports different project arms with their research needs.

For Anubha, a restful, good night’s sleep and daily moments of mental quiet are essential for mental health. Short nature walks, starting and ending the day with a book, limiting screen time, and journaling are some solutions that she employs to achieve her mental well-being. Anubha identifies as an ambivert, so while she delights in interacting with people from diverse global cultures as part of her work, she needs quiet moments to restore her energy levels.

Always at home in the company of books, Anubha takes equal pleasure in long mountain hikes, slow travels, and exploring global cuisines and art. She dabbles in candid portrait photography and hopes to put up an exhibition of her work soon. These days she is clumsily teaching herself to be a better motorcycle rider with the help of online lessons.

– What does inner wellbeing mean to you?

I equate inner well-being with mental peace that helps foster a sense of contentment with one’s current state of being.

– How would you define wellbeing in one word?

Contentment

– Are there any rituals or practices you use to enhance your wellbeing?

I regard restorative sleep as one of the most underrated tools available to humankind to support our mental well-being. As someone who struggles with nocturnal awakenings, good quality sleep is essential for my overall well-being. Most of my daily rituals and practices are structured around supporting restorative sleep.

Ensuring adequate hydration during the day, ending the day with a book, limiting late-night screen time, and walking meditation are a few daily activities I undertake to support my sleep.

– Why is it important that we prioritise individual and collective wellbeing?

As experienced personally, low individual well-being can make it difficult for individuals to be respectful, compassionate, patient, and empathetic towards other individuals around them. Impatience, irritability, unkindness, or bullying behaviour towards self and others are a few ways I’ve observed low individual well-being manifesting in my world. Our lack of individual well-being can turn us into difficult people to be around and engender behaviour that hampers attempts to cultivate a safe, thriving living environment.

Humans rely on cooperation to survive, thrive, and progress effectively towards a shared vision. A lack of focus on collective well-being can make it difficult for us to identify with and work towards a shared vision. Advocating for collective well-being could help us sustain our inner well-being journeys while supporting the well-being efforts of others in our social milieu.

– Do you have any favourite books, podcasts, or articles that you believe support, promote, or educate on wellbeing and related themes? 

Few resources that have helped further my knowledge on the topic of well-being, in no particular order, are-

Thoughts and perspectives of psychologists such as Adam Grant and Nick Wignall, Articles from Greater Good Science Center

Books such as Japonisme, Susegad, The Little Book of Hygge reflecting on regional philosophies of contentment and happiness

Few select episodes from The Slow Home, The Knowledge Project, The Reboot Podcast Illustrations by cartoonists such as Gemma Correll and Sarah Andersen for their light­ hearted take on relatable life challenges