"It's a Sunday morning. A daughter gets up, well rested, she sits down with a cup of tea, opens her laptop, and begins planning the day she has been postponing for weeks. However, as she is sitting down to work, her father calls her in his room. He isn't in pain; he is simply lonely today and wants someone to sit with him for a while. The entire day gets lost in catering to his needs and before she knew it, it was already night time and all the pending work remains pending".

For countless families, this is not an unusual Sunday - it is everyday life. This is the reality of innumerable people around us; caring for people who cannot take care of themselves. Whether its mothers taking care of their neurodivergent children, some family member caring for a cancer patient or a person with longstanding physical illness, a person looking after a psychologically compromised family member or, as the story suggested, the everyday care of an ageing parent, the common thread is caregiving responsibilities.

Caregiving responsibilities, when they continue for prolonged periods without adequate support, can insidiously lead to a phenomenon that psychologists refer to as caregiving burden – a term used to describe physical, emotional, social and/or financial strain that slowly accumulates in caregivers. Being gradual in nature, it becomes difficult to recognise the signs before the impact on the caregiver is substantial. A very important point to remember here is that experiencing caregiving burden is not a reflection of the caregiver's feelings or connection with their loved ones. It is rather a natural response to continued demands of........

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