Prerna Uppal, New Delhi: What is the first thing that you do after you reach work?

You will check your emails and respond to them. But how often do you check them?

Do you feel the need to answer all your mails as soon as you see them in your inbox?

If that leaves you increasingly tired and frustrated, you could be suffering from what is called email stress.

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Scientists from Glasgow and Paisley University have found that 34 per cent of workers feel 'stressed' by the sheer number of emails they receive every day, as they feel compelled to reply immediately, mostly driven by the need to meet expectations.

Says psychiatrist, Fortis Hospital, Dr Sameer Malhotra, “Most of the official mails are marked as urgent so the person is not really able to understand and prioritise as to which one is really urgent and needs to be responded to early.”

With around six trillion emails being sent and received in 2006, there is no denying the importance of email in our lives. However, doctors warn that it is fast becoming a leading cause of low productivity at work.

“In the light of stress you tend to lose your concentration and because of that your performance level goes down,” says Dr Malhotra.

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So what can you do to escape the email trap?

“There should be less pressure from the sender’s side for the recipient to respond to the mails. The recipients are already under tremendous pressure of their work anyways and this is an added burden,” says Dr Malhotra.

So the solution lies in not monitoring your mails constantly but instead setting aside a dedicated email reading times to catch up on messages, and giving yourself time to reply.

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