Congress MP Manish Tewari asks what's wrong with a 70-hour work week. Psychologists answer

When NR Narayana Murthy, the CEO of Infosys, a 100-billion-dollar company, spoke about how the youth should invest a minimum of 70 hours of their week working to increase productivity, he never would have thought that it would spark this huge a debate in the country. From CEOs to artists, everyone started speaking about how one should or shouldn't be working these many hours.

Now, the latest one to talk in favour of working 70+ hours in a week is Congress MP Manish Tewari, who took to X to ask, "I do not understand the brouhaha around @Infosys_nmurthy statement on a 70-hour work week. What is wrong with it?" 

This sparked the same debate all over again, around the 70-hour work issue and we asked experts to say what is actually wrong with the whole notion. 

But ICYMI, Here's a quick recap of what happened: 

• On October 26, the Indian billionaire and tech founder, Narayana Murthy, suggested that young Indians should aim to work 70 hours per week.
• He said it during a podcast, where he talked about the importance of improving work productivity in India, which he considers to be quite low compared to other countries.
• Murthy also highlighted the importance of the younger generation taking responsibility for the country's development, emphasising the need for increased productivity and decreased corruption in the government.
• Since then, it has sparked quite a debate on social media, and even politicians have raised concerns or taken Narayana Murthy's side, and the latest one is Congress MP Manish Tewari. 

'Everything is wrong with 70+ hours a week'

Akash Garg, a counselling psychologist told DailyO, "70 hours a week sounds absolutely ridiculous and now is a great time for us to really question all the systems that make such bogus claims while sitting in their comfortable chair and their comfortable room, having all possible luxuries of the world and expecting us to put in so much labour." 

"The first question is, 'Is the human body made to withstand so many hours of stress?' Because work is stress, even though you love your job."

He goes on to explain, "When we clock in 70 hours of work a week, that turns out 12 hours to 14 hours a day, which leaves no time for ourselves." 

He then asks a very important question that you should also ask yourself, "If you spend 60% of your life working, what other role do you play in life?" 

What about productivity?

The other thing that created a lot of noise is productivity levels. Now, Narayana Murthy says that India has very low productivity and that's why the younger population should put in more work hours; but here's what psychologist Sherya Kaul has to say: 

"Productivity is optimised when people are in the best states of mind. They are able to pay attention, their environment is safe and they feel respected and taken care of."

She said, "As a therapist, I've met so many people who are in different stages of burnout. Their attention, focus, will to work, ability to work, and mental health are all over the place. No matter how much work they do, they're not able to get the results they'd like- and how can they." 

Even data says that countries like Luxembourg, Singapore, and Ireland which have high productivity in terms of GDP, have better work-life balance hours, and people do not work for 70+ hours a week. 

READ MORE: As Narayana Murthy advises Indians to work 70 hours a week, the history of the 40-hour work week