How Mental Health, Physical Health and Financial Health Are Interlinked for Overall Well-being?

In the world of well-being, mental, physical and financial health are the holy trinity on which this entire mankind is gambling, trying hard to cope up with the causes and consequences related to them. Experts believe mental, physical and financial wellbeing go hand-in-hand. People all over the globe are mostly not realizing the impacts of disturbed equilibrium of these three health, and the condition has specifically got more worsen during this pandemic. Over the past months, when life has got more derailed for many people, losing their jobs, businesses, increased debt, having health issues, this is the high time for all of us to understand how we can improve our over well-being by balancing our mental and physical health as well financial health and how they are interlinked.

Before taking a deep dive, let’s first talk about what is mental, physical and financial health and what crucial role they have in our lives. 

Mental Health

Usually, when we talk about health or seeing a doctor for regular checks-ups, how many of us even think about our mental health. To be honest, none. “Lately, when I visited my parents place, my parents did mention about my deteriorated health, post my Covid-19 recovery. I lost weight, was weak for days with increased heart beats and had puffy eyes and more to that I was quite stressed, exhausted and scared to cope up with life as my spouse was diagnosed with Covid-19 too with serious lungs infection and he was on no-pay leave for 2 months. And having a 2- years old toddler by side makes it more tough to keep things in balance. Our financial condition got much worse. My parents never knew what was going on in my mind and how devastated I was feeling from inside.” So mental health has been ignored from a very long time by people because it doesn’t manifest the seriousness of the condition and it doesn’t kill you unless you at some point you lose control over your mind to do something worse. 

My friend mental health is as important as physical because all your activities you perform be it personal tasks or professional, first it originates from your mind. When you wake up even to think about your day’s to-do list or even at the end of the day when you pay your bills, you actually think whish is your mind’s job. Your mental health manifests all your emotions and behaviors related to them such as if you’re happy, you stay excited, active focused, determined and positive in your life taking all the right decisions but if you’re sad or scared or even worried you tend to manifest anger, confusion, rash behavior, lack of focus, baffle, restlessness, doubts and many more. And most importantly if your mental health starts deteriorating once, you might experience sickness, dizziness, racing of heart or palpitations, shaking of hands or body, loss of appetite, tired, exhausted, fatigued where your physical health starts getting involved. You acquire bad food habits, get sleep deprived which leads you straight to obesity, heart diseases, diabetes and so on.  And when you continue to live with that, your every-day life gets affected which means if you’re sick, stressed and depressed along with physical health conditions, you’re most likely to get financial issues somehow at that point.

Physical health

As I said before, this whole trinity of mental, physical and financial heath goes hand-in-hand, even if your mental health is good and you somehow end up having some health conditions, and over time it gets worse your mental health starts getting affected. There will be a direct impact on your mental health making you feel stressed, scared, helpless and out of sorts. Physical health has also a straight impact on financial health which is obvious, when you’re sick, you cannot work.  Your key asset is the ability to earn money which means your overall health is something which should be your first concern because without physical or mental health there is no financial health. 

 How to improve mental and physical health?

• Get yourself sufficient sleep. Sleep deprivation is the top-notch reason for stress and poor mental health. When you sleep right your mind stays charged and focused to help you get a track of your life issues.
• Start meditating because in long term, meditation is going to help you find peace and destress yourself. Meditation not only improves your mental health but also changes your way of reacting to situations and your perception towards life.
• Practice yoga if you can, yoga helps keeping your mind and body rejuvenated and   connected to the real you. You will feel determined and accomplished once you perform yoga on daily basis.
• Regular physical activity can improve physical health. You lose weight, you keep diseases at bay and earn self-respect for yourself. When you look good, you restore your lost positivity, focus, determination and capabilities of making decisions.
• Eating well is the key to every problem. When you eat you get energy even to run your mind. But eating healthy food is what we meant here, not bad eating habits. Filling your diet with right food (veggies, fruits, whole grains, eggs) is important to keep your mind and body full of energy and enthusiasm.
• Drinking loads of water is important for better mental health. You keep yourself hydrated and your body starts to connect with your mental health. You feel refreshed and hydrated as well.
• Follow your passion even if it feels childish. Do it! You love painting, take your canvas and bag of color tubes just paint whatever you want. Play guitar, compose your own song whatever you always dreamt to be a part of your life. Just follow it. It will help you start feeling good about yourself.
• Do what you love in your everyday life such as helping others in the street, in the elevator or even feed that orphan kid selling gummy bears outside your office. This will enhance your self-respect, you will feel accomplished and much more than that you will be happy deep down.

Financial Health

The amount of debt of your credit cards you’re muddling through can affect your physical and mental health. Our wallets and waists are directly proportional to each other and can alter through thick and thin. According to a wealth adviser, Evan Lavoie from California believes wealth care is as essential as health care. When you’re free from all your debts, your car, house and your life have insurance and you have a stable job or business with right income with right expenses, your financial health shines through stabilizing both mental and physical health. 

Poor financial health can lead to stress- stress leads to unhealthy eating habits. Long term financial stress includes money anxiety which triggers stress hormones evoking someone to overindulge in food, alcohol and many bad habits leading to obesity, diabetes, liver damage, lungs damage and so on. 

Moreover, in this era of digital and social world, every person is somehow connected to social media and their lives are so affected by it. Everything you see on social media is not necessarily true. If a person posts a beautiful picture of his vacation in Maldives, the moment you discover it, you instantly feel envy and you curse your financial status and feel dejected. From that moment your mental health starts getting affected. Your keep rolling your financial status reel inside your brain and repeatedly you derive the conclusion that your financial status is poor and feel stressed, dejected. This inaccurate cycle hence goes on hampering your mental health. 

How to improve financial health?

Financial experts believe to overcome unhealthy money habits, one has to understand the kind of relationship they have with money, what role your financial status plays in life. According to a financial therapist and psychologist, Dr. Mary Gresham, to improve your financial health, the aim is not necessarily comfortable with money. He says, “people don’t really need to have “no anxiety” about money.” The right amount of anxiety and worries about your financial status can actually be your friend, because a right and helpful of amount of anxiety or stress can actually make you pay your bills on time, pay-off your debts, files your taxes every year.

• Make your own finance management routine to invest your few minutes of your personal time to check your income figures, yearly or monthly expenses, due payments, pending debts, savings and all so that you will have the complete record of all your financial figures. Managing your financial figures can be little stressful initially but once you get used to it and the routine you would experience less stress and anxiety in long term.
• Check unnecessary expenses as it makes you full of regrets later. You stress out and start eating unhealthy, ordering pizzas and your favorite ice cream buckets which is not bad once in a while. But stress can be very expensive and you might have no idea. In India, 57% percent of people order food and shop online to beat their stress and anxiety, leading to eating disorders, obesity and poor financial health.
• Use money management apps to check all accounts at one place financial traffic. Apps such as “mTrakr”,”moneycontrol” can be your real financial management friend to keep all the records of all your accounts at one place to avoid unnecessary stress and traffic.
• Get interested in investments. Saving your money in your savings account or investing in the stock market, means you’re hoping and trying your money to grow. But, people need to invest wisely after doing ample research carefully and the rate of risks associated with it. There are many schemes in market that promise you to make you rich quickly but unfortunately they don’t work, rather give you stress, anxiety even making you more worse in financial health. Talk to financial experts or your financial advisor to invest wisely and have a stress-free life.
• Plan a budget to keep records of your income, investments, expenses and savings. Those sneaky treats and alluring discount shopping can add up to a load of expenditure annually that have potential capacity to affect your financial health adversely. 
• Switch off auto pilot mode which means if you have “Paypal”, credit cards, “Google pay”, then my friend you’re most likely overspending. When you’re bored or exhausted, or past bed time you browse through unnecessary discount shopping, order food online your expenditures could me more than your savings making your financial health poor and unmanageable.
• Avoid bad debts such as personal loans, credit card loans because they come with higher interests, hidden fees, application fess and many more. They are most likely to cost you more than you bargained for.
• Saving more can be really helpful when you’re financially broke or weak. It not only gives you small rates of income but can also help you in financial emergency.
• Get everything into the safety net. Getting your car, house insured is quite common but getting an insurance for yourself is much more important these days. Because life has no certainty. What happens if you’re sick or meet with accident?, who will pay your bills, who will make your family financially secured when you’re on bed or unable to get income? Hence insurance can be your savior battling financial issues.

Hence, mental, physical and financial health are interlinked and have serious impact on our lives not only us but also it involves our family and near ones. To get a balance of each you must invest some time on mind, body and finance.

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