Young professionals in the global workforce (20-34 yrs) are most eager to prove themselves resulting in high levels of loneliness, anxiety, depression due to burnout. The symptoms exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic and are set to continue in the post pandemic world. The stigma of mental health causes huge gaps in the prevention and treatment of such diseases. In fact, there is the prevalent toxic view that "burnout is an inevitable psrt of success" despite chronic burnout causing 26-35% higher risk of early mortality. One of the consequences on our society ist the global GDP loss of 1T$ due to productivity loss from anxiety and depression.
Icebreakers addresses the above described issues impacting the situation as follows. In the short term, peer-support through buddy system tackles 25% rise in anxiety and depression (pandemic-induced) while addressing 40% prevalence of loneliness in young professionals.
In the long term, celebrating self-care change stories via community meetings demystifies the toxic beliefs about mental health, mitigates stigmatisation, and reduces threshold for seeking care in young professionals.