Radhika Merchant’s mother Shaila Merchant remembers having a nervous breakdown in her 30s. What helped her

Shaila Merchant opened up about her life and the challenges she has faced in business during a recent podcast appearance. The managing director of Encore Healthcare, who began her career in the male-dominated field of construction, said that she learnt about business on the go. However, juggling the professional with the personal was not always easy — Shaila Merchant revealed that she battled a nervous breakdown in her 30s. Shaila Merchant during her appearance on the ‘Her Side of the Story’ podcast. (YouTube/@ekwomenglobal) Who is Shaila Merchant?Shaila Merchant is one of the managing directors of Encore Healthcare — a company she built from the ground up with her husband, Viren Merchant. The couple has two daughters, Anjali and Radhika. Radhika Merchant is married to Anant Ambani, the younger son of Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani. While today she is better known as the mother-in-law of Reliance scion Anant Ambani, Shaila Merchant has carved a place in India’s business landscape in her own right – she serves on the boards of several companies and has experience in the industries of construction and pharma. But when the host of ‘Her Side of the Story’ podcast asked her whether she ever felt lost along the way, Merchant answered in the affirmative and sparked an important discussion on mental health. A nervous breakdown“Yeah. So very young, I remember in my 30s, I got a nervous breakdown,” Shaila Merchant revealed. It was an aunt’s advice that helped her overcome the challenge. “In that nervous breakdown, I had gone to Oman. And one of my kaakis sat next to me and asked me, ‘Are you okay?’” she recalled. “I said ‘I don’t think so’,” Merchant remembered. Her aunt advised her to start yoga, and that helped her immensely. Today, Radhika Merchant’s mother is a strong advocate for yoga, or, indeed, any form of exercise. “You won’t believe it, but that is a game-changer. So I was doing yoga three times a day — and I promise you, it just centres you again. “It could be any form of exercise, at any age we have to do. That is the answer,” said Shaila Merchant.