Ahsaas Channa recently joined the tribe of actors who have spoken about their mental health issues, when she spoke at length about her anxiety. “It doesn’t go away easily; it just stays with you. You learn to deal with anxiety and manage it. I’m doing all the right things to manage mine, and I have friends and family who support me. I try to talk about it as much as possible on social media,” she says.

The Kota Factory star points out that it’s easy to get anxiety-stricken in a world driven by social media. “It is the biggest cause of anxiety, in my opinion. A lot of people are going through it and I’m fortunate that I have people who read my posts or want to see what I’m doing. I want to tell them it’s okay to have anxiety; it’s not the end of the world and we can deal with it,” Channa says.

How easy is it to go completely off social media as an actor? “I have to be on social media, around the time my shows release. But it’s okay to not be on it for a bit. We should all take a break from it. I delete the Instagram app from my phone so that it’s not accessible. I cannot take a long break, but this step really helps. It makes me feel better to not constantly know what the world or my peers are doing,” says Channa, adding that likes and comments constantly have one worrying about what other people think.

On the work front, she is excited about the third season of her web series, Girls Hostel. “My character, Richa, has grown a lot. In the first season, she was a new girl who was exploring a lot. She hadn’t found her voice and didn’t know what she wanted to fight for. By the third season, she finally knows what she wants,” says Channa, who feels that Richa being a lot like herself, she didn’t have to put in too much of effort to get back into the character.

She is often seen playing girl-next-door characters. Is it a conscious choice? “When a project is a hit, people [tend to] look at you as a girl-next-door and that is me. When I did the first season, I was 19. But I’m definitely trying to change the perspective and you’ll see me in a very different role in the next two seasons,” she shares.