site.btaBusiness With a Cause Against Stress

Bulgarian do not talk about mental health, we are material people, says psychophysiologist Silvia Koumanova, founder of Simenso - a multidisciplinary research company focused on preventive mental health programs.

In an interview with BTA, she also said that the future of healthcare is in prevention - focusing on the causes before the symptoms appear.

For its stress solution, the Practical Stress platform, the company won the Innovative Product Award at the 19th Investor of the Year Awards. The recognition is for its contribution to the economy through development of the platform - a technology solution with a patented algorithm for early detection and management of stress and burnout, and for prevention of chronic diseases.

Simenso brings together years of scientific experience and state-of-the-art technology. The platform was developed by the company's experts under the supervisions of Prof. Dr. Yuliana Yordanova from the Institute of Neurobiology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. A comprehensive stress assessment is made through psychological and physiological tests performed by the user, which are then analyzed by the team behind the project.

Silvia Koumanova can speak from personal experience about these conditions. She says that for a long time she was in high managerial positions, experiencing stress and burnout in a corporate environment. Her decision to change what she was doing, and to be helpful to others, was met with incomprehension among her friends and family, but she did not give up and changed direction abruptly in 2017.

The beginning is difficult. "Innovation Norway decided to get behind us and believed in the team that was assembled. Sofia Tech Park supported us as a guarantor in taking out a loan. We managed to do a complex project," says Koumanova.

More than 100 volunteers are involved in the project, going through serious stages of screening so that specialists can select the relevant biomarkers and the relationship between them. The majority of those willing also undergo laboratory tests. They are selected with invitations to different companies and after the end of the research they receive results with an assessment by experts of their condition.

"This is a sample of graduates with a degree above bachelor's and 75-78% showed some traces of depression - it is not about the clinical expression but a depressive attitude," the psychophysiologist clarified. According to her, there is a withdrawal of these people from public life which is not helpful for anyone. 

Silvia Koumanova graduated in physics at Sofia University, business economics, has a master's degree in psychology, and is currently doing a doctorate in psychophysiology.

"Part of the dissertation I'm preparing is whether depression and burnout are different things or manifestations of the same thing. The workplace is a cause, but if I can put a percentage on developing a burnout, personal attitudes are 70% and 30% is what happens in the workplace. If we are psychologically well, we will be able to cope with the challenges," she believes.

According to her, there are all sorts of ready-made recipes and the techniques for dealing with stress are elementary. "But when it comes to serious stress, the biochemistry of the brain changes. If a person feels that he has been in a bad state for a long time, he constantly feels like crying and feels like he doesn't feel like living, it is good to pay attention," she advises.

"The main problem of modern society is that people have lost social life and communication skills. We see the so-called social anxiety, i.e. the fear of social contact, which is now taking huge proportions in all countries, not only in Bulgaria," said Silvia Kumanova. She also stressed the need for financial security as the basis of human life.

"When we don't feel secure about our household needs, then the stress is very serious. We cannot develop as a society because this need is not met - we survive and think how to make ends meet," the specialist said.

The Practical Stress platform has been fully operational since February this year. We have decided to restructure it into a public limited company so that we can open up and attract strategic investors. The individual value of the company is estimated at around BGN 2 million, she said.

Silvia Koumanova added that they are looking for investors to develop and work more closely with doctors to use this data in their practice. The goal is that when a person goes to the doctor because of psychological problems, the results of the tests performed will help the doctor in making a diagnosis. Stress is multifaceted, manifests in many ways and sometimes mental stress cannot be caught, she said.

The company is currently conducting a survey to see what the most stressful professions are, to see what the perception in Bulgarian society is on the subject. Globally, there are three professions that are the most stressful - that of doctors, firefighters, and professions related to serving people.

Working with people is considered one of the most stressful, especially as in the ER, said Kumanova. Anxiety of very high proportions is also noted in the IT sector due to difficulties in establishing relationships and families.

Asked if it was difficult to convince investors, she said it was not easy also because of the expectation of quick profits. "With us, there will be returns, but after a period of time. We want to open up the platform more and more to individual clients because we haven't had the resources to do that. We are being sought out by companies who believe that employees are their asset and they need to maintain a certain level of efficiency. We already have our first angel investor, who is helping us with marketing in addition to financial resources," she revealed.

The team at Simenso is planning volunteer campaigns to get the word out more about mental health in our country and overcome the stigma in our society about these issues.