Physical and mental health benefits of financial planning

Financial wellbeing (or lack thereof) influences your mental and physical state, as well as your relationships with others immensely. By engaging in financial planning, defining your objectives, creating boundaries and sticking to your plan, you’re able to dissolve the negative impacts of financial stress and anxiety, and enjoy a Rich Life.

So, you know financial planning is the smart thing to do, and it’s good for your financial health. But how exactly does it benefit your physical health and state of mind? Let us break down some of the benefits of removing financial stress:

Reduce stress and anxiety responses

Financial planning provides certainty, helps you feel in control and thus helps you relax. By reducing the body’s stress response, physical symptoms like muscle tension, stomach-aches, and elevated blood pressure are absolved. Furthermore, you’ll likely sleep better which can improve mood, memory, focus and even plateau weight fluctuations.

Reduce pressure on your immune system

When you feel threatened, your body moves into survival mode and redirects energy expenditure to the most key functions and slows down others such as the immune system. Once your acute stress response is turned off, your body can return to its baseline state where those less-critical bodily functions can return to normal. That’s why when you’re less stressed, you don’t get sick as often and tend to look and feel healthier too.

Fund your healthcare

With lifetime cashflow mapping, you gain financial freedom and a financial structure that accommodates all your expenses. This can factor in healthcare and fund preventive care, therapy, gym memberships, massages, healthy groceries, and more… each of which have their own array of physical and mental health benefits.

Prevent burn-out
By committing to your cashflow mapping and learning not overextend yourself financially, you can also prevent yourself from overextending emotionally. Taking on too much can lead to burnout, which can drain your health just as much as your bank account. Saying “no” to plans and obligations can be hard to do, but it can also be liberating!

Improve relationships

Financial stress can put pressure on established relationships and be the root cause of conflict. It can also prevent you from forming new relationships or maintaining friendships by isolating you from social events. Removing financial conflict from the equation via cash flow mapping can therefore strengthen your relationships by ensuring you and your partner are on the same page. It also ensures that you have the disposable income to go and make new relationships or participate in activities that maintain friendships and introduce you to new networks.

What physical and mental health benefits have you experienced since engaging in financial planning?