Mental and financial well-being go hand in hand. It’s tough to have your finances in order if your mental health is not where you want it to be, and the same goes for the other way around.
If you want to improve your mental and financial well-being, you’re not alone! Here are some tactical steps you can take starting today to improve both your mental and financial health.
This post is all about 4 life changing tips you can implement today to improve your mental and financial well-being.
1. Get 7-9 Hours of Sleep Each Night
Are you getting 7-9 hours of sleep each night? If not, your mental and financial health may be suffering as a result.
Without an adequate amount of sleep each night, your memory will be impaired, and you’re more likely to be irritable and impulsive. A lack of sleep also “worsens mental illness and makes it more difficult to cope with symptoms” [1].
If you aren’t getting enough sleep, your body is also working overtime to produce the stress hormone cortisol. When too much cortisol is produced, your body is in a “constant state of stress, unable to relax” [1]. This constant state of stress then affects your ability to fall asleep at all. Essentially, the more you stress, the less you sleep, and vice versa.
On the other hand, there are many benefits to getting an adequate amount of sleep each night. Getting adequate sleep “improves our mood, problem-solving ability, and overall memory” [2].
Adequate sleep also improves your productivity, which has been linked to higher salaries. In fact, a 2016 study from Matthew Gibson of Williams College and Jeffrey Shrader of the University of California at San Diego showed that “people who increased their sleep by one hour a night saw their wages increase by 5% in the long-run” [3].
The better you sleep, the more productive you will be, and the more productive you are, the better compensated you will be.
The benefits of sleep are clear: if you want to better deal with the stresses of life, be more productive, and ultimately make more money, focus on getting an adequate amount of sleep each night.
Having trouble sleeping? Here are some quick tips:
- Turn down the temperature in your room. Rooms with temperatures in the range of 60 to 68 degrees stimulate the production of melatonin, a sleep-inducing hormone. [5]
- Implement a consistent exercise routine.
- Avoid caffeine in the later half of the day.
2. Read Personal Finance Books
What if I told you that reading personal finance books could benefit both your mental well-being and your financial well-being?
Reading, in general, has so many benefits. Reading offers an escape from our everyday lives, and studies show that “even six minutes of reading could reduce stress” [4].
Picking up a book is a great way to relax and learn something new. Whether you are reading for fun or for educational purposes (or both!), you are bound to stumble upon something you’ve never heard of or thought about, making reading a great way to stretch and expand your mind in ways it never has before.
But how can reading personal financial books also help your financial well-being? If you want to improve your financial well-being, start by asking yourself what you are currently struggling with financially.
Are you worried about paying off your student loan debt? Are you having trouble creating and sticking to a budget? Is your #1 pain point not knowing how to invest?
Whatever your biggest problem is when it comes to your finances, there is a book out there that can show you the way and help you through it.
When you read personal finance books, you get all of the mental health benefits that reading offers, but you also learn new financial concepts or ways of thinking that will inspire you to improve or change your relationship with money.
Not sure which book to read? Here are a few personal finance books I recommend:
- You Are a Badass At Making Money by Jen Sincero
- I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi
- Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
3. Be Mindful When Using Social Media
When you think about your social media feeds, what kind of content are they filled with?
Are you following people who encourage you to be your best self? Or are you consuming content that draws out negative feelings like insecurity, lack, and comparison?
The thing about social media is that any time you pull up your favorite app, you never know what content you’re going to get. That’s why it’s so important to be vigilant about who you follow and how much time you spend scrolling.
Let’s say, for example, that you’re trying to pay off your student loan debt and stick to a budget, but you follow various people who constantly post links to their new Amazon purchases. After seeing these new items over and over, you give in and buy a thing or two.
You know these are unplanned purchases, but you’re excited about them! Unfortunately, this feeling quickly wears off once you realize that these unplanned purchases have now derailed you from your financial goals for the month.
Aside from people you follow who are constantly pushing products for you to purchase, apps are becoming more and more sophisticated with their targeted ads. It almost feels as though Instagram, for example, can read our minds and listen to our conversations.
How many times now have you had a conversation with a close friend about a thing that you want to buy, only to see an ad for it pop up on your Instagram feed days later?
These days, social media and temptation to spend money go hand in hand.
When we give in to the temptation, we may feel good for a short period of time, but ultimately we end up right back where we started; longing for something because social media told us that we need the newest thing right now.
Being mindful about your social media habits is a great way to improve your financial and mental well-being. Be sure to follow accounts that are aligned with your values and goals so you aren’t easily distracted or derailed, and lessen your overall time on social media to limit the amount of ads you see over time.
Social media quick tips [6]:
- Follow people and things that bring you joy.
- If social media is causing you any stress, consider deleting apps such as Facebook and Instagram from your phone for a short period of time, or entirely.
- Take a break and support others in doing so.
4. Use Chipper Round-ups
Another great way to improve your mental and financial well-being is to use tools that can help you reach your money goals more quickly, all while taking some of the financial stress off of you.
For example, if you have student loan debt, Chipper is a FREE app that can help you pay it off more quickly. Used by over 80,000 people, Chipper was created by a former student debt holder to support borrowers through every step of their student loan journey.
Connected directly to loan servicers, Chipper determines users’ repayment and forgiveness options, and offers Round-Ups and Rewards features that empower users to chip away at debt faster.
The Round-Ups feature is my personal favorite because it makes it so easy to put more money toward your student loan debt.
With the Round-Ups feature, any time you spend using your linked credit/debit cards, your purchase will be rounded up to the nearest dollar and the spare change will be contributed directly to your student loans.
For example, if you spend $3.25 on your next cup of coffee, the Chipper app will round it up to $4.00, and $0.75 will be deposited towards your student loan.
Every week, Chipper adds up the round-ups from your purchases and makes an extra payment to your student loan with the highest interest rate. All without you having to lift a finger!
Want to try Chipper? Sign-up here today!
What I also love about Chipper is that if your bank account balance is lower than $100, Chipper won’t take anything out of your account that week. You can also pause or resume the Round-Ups feature at any time.
Paying off student loan debt can be really stressful, but Chipper’s Round-Ups feature offers a way for you to pay off your debt more quickly without having to think about it much at all. Simply spend as you normally would, and watch your student loan debt decrease.
Want to see how much you can save with Chipper Round-ups? Check out this calculator:
Chipper fun facts:
- A single Round-Ups payment of $35/month can avoid over $1000 in student loan interest on average in just one year..
- On average, Chipper has saved users ~$6,200 in interest and almost 6 years in paying down their student loans.
- With Round-Ups, you can track your payments and feel good watching your debt be paid down without even feeling the payments.
Want to try Chipper? Sign-up here.
This post was all about 4 life changing tips you can implement today to improve your mental and financial well-being.
Other posts you might like:
- 7 Insane Student Loan Debt Statistics That Will Blow Your Mind
- How I Paid Off $60k of Student Loan Debt in 4.5 Years: A Timeline
- 5 Life-Changing Lessons I Learned From My Student Loans
Sources:
[1] PCPCC.org – https://www.pcpcc.org/resource/sleep-and-mental-health-why-our-brains-need-sleep
[2] Sleep.org – https://www.sleep.org/how-sleep-works/how-losing-sleep-affects-your-body-mind/
[3]: Forbes – https://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2017/05/30/how-to-earn-more-money-get-more-sleep/?sh=5705ad26f2e3
[4]: Power of Positivity – https://www.powerofpositivity.com/reading-6-helps-reduce-increase-happiness/
[5]: Sleep Advisor – https://www.sleepadvisor.org/sleeping-in-a-cold-room/
[6]: MIT – https://news.mit.edu/2020/mindhandheart-nine-tips-healthy-social-media-use-0123
