'I got all my off days at once': Bengaluru entrepreneur says road accident changed his view of rest

A Bengaluru-based entrepreneur has shared how a four-month ICU stay following a road accident made him rethink his approach to rest and productivity. Sivaram Briyas, co-founder of MillD Protein Atta and founder of Briyas Tofu, said that for most of his career, he treated Sundays as another workday.

“For most of my career, Sunday was just a slower Monday,” he wrote in a LinkedIn post, describing how he routinely took work calls, visited his factory and stayed for hours even after promising his family he would be back soon.

“I answered calls. I visited the factory ‘for ten minutes’ that became three hours. I told my family I was present while my mind ran inventory numbers,” he wrote, describing how even when physically at home, his mind remained occupied with work.

Briyas said he once took pride in being constantly available, believing entrepreneurs were not meant to take proper days off. His perspective changed after a road accident resulted in a four-month ICU stay.

“Then I spent four months in an ICU, and I got all my off days at once,” he said.

Briyas has clarified to Business Today that his four-month ICU stay followed a road accident and was not caused by overwork.

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ICU stay becomes a turning point

During his recovery, doctors explained that healing does not happen under strain but in the rest that follows. “The surgery is the damage. The healing happens in between, in the sleeping, the eating, the waiting,” Briyas wrote, recalling the medical advice that changed his outlook.

He realised he had never applied the same principle to business, despite decades in the food industry. Now, he believes some of the best ideas emerge from meeting rooms—during a walk after a meeting or while observing family at Sunday lunch.

“The thinking that changes a company rarely happens in the meeting. It happens on the walk after the meeting. The customer insight doesn't arrive while staring at a dashboard. It arrives at a Sunday lunch, watching how your own family actually eats. "The greatest leaps need spaces,” Briyas wrote on LinkedIn.

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Protecting Sundays, not quitting work

Briyas clarified that his new stance on rest does not mean he is less committed to work. “There are still days where something urgent might come up, but that is not part of the work schedule any more, but I try to protect my Sundays now. Not because I've earned rest. Because rest is where the work completes itself,” he said.