Mind Over Money: Mental Wellness and Financial Wellbeing

Thank you for joining us in this blog article, where we highlight the essential importance of not just focusing on your financial health but also nurturing your mental health. We’ll explore powerful strategies that will help you place a strong emphasis on your mental wellness. By doing so, you’ll be better equipped to achieve financial stability and thrive in all areas of your life.

The Importance of Mental Health

Profits are euphoric but losses are sorrowful. Money is a bloody mood changer — PlanB

It’s obvious! these days, investing is a pretty noisy and nosy activity.

There is a never-ending barrage of unwelcome counsel, abusive math, product promotion, and gigabytes of loudmouthed menace on the internet and TV. In this world, where confusion reigns supreme, it is almost impossible to tell what is good and what is terrible.

The apparent blubber and burble constantly belittle the hard work and efforts made by sincere investors. This usually affects the mood with feelings of insignificance, anxiety, sadness, and depression.

The fact that a persistent and severe economic downturn gave rise to the term “depression” is not a coincidence.

In this article, we’ll explore a seldom-addressed topic that the majority of our investing community tends to steer clear of. This could be attributed to the limited opportunities for financial gain in this field unless you happen to be a mental health expert.

Taming Your Emotions for Investment Success

Investing and our moods are interconnected. The stock market affects how investors feel, and in turn, their feelings get reflected in the market behavior.

It’s crucial to realize, though, that money cannot fix issues with mental health. Investment analysis is a solitary endeavor where many people compete in silence to get numerous opinions. To safeguard themselves against an unforeseeable financial future, this is done every day.

A normal investor’s morning begins with a few erratically focused glances at market news, tickers, and remarks from financial experts. Finally, the day comes to a conclusion with some notes on an Excel spreadsheet or some doodles in a personal journal.

This continues like clockwork for years and years, causing mental fatigue that subtly affects emotional well-being. The upshot is frequent stress, harsh decisions, and horrible choices brought on by a sense of desertion and emptiness.

You’re not the only one feeling this way

You might be astonished to learn that the majority of investors are in the same boat! They are unwilling to talk about these problems since nobody pays attention.

Where everyone is busy boasting about their personal experiences, the graphs, financial figures, and quarterly balance sheets bury human sensations and emotions. People who believe they can buy happiness and find answers to all of their problems through money frequently end up buying prescription medicines from doctors as a result.

As we openly discussed this subject with some seasoned and new investors, we noticed some strong reactions.

It’s concerning to see how numerous individuals view this beautiful academic discipline as having a bad influence. Our primary idea emphasizes that investing is a healthy hobby and that every sound mind can achieve great success in this field!

After all, it’s not a sprint but a marathon!

Here are some suggestions for finding a positive self-concept in a chaotic world to help you develop the correct mindset for investing.

Profit is not the only measure of success

As absurd as it may sound if your strategy is inconsistent, your earnings are useless.

If you’re easily bothered by strangers who boast about their portfolios and profits, you’re in for a wild ride. Given the potential for extended self-promotion made possible by social media, many investors succumb to the impulse to perform extravagant self-promotion of their achievements.

Psychologists from Harvard University started exploring the subject of why talking about one’s personal experiences is so important to certain people. These people just can’t seem to stop doing it after pointing out the millions of well-managed postings on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. They further wished to investigate just how rewarding it was.

The psychologists set up a study comprised of five brain imaging experiments.

They found, using Functional MRI, that when subjects shared information about themselves, the brain regions that were stimulated are those that light up when we eat or engage in sexual activity! Investing is a private affair so keep it private, getting intimidated by an illusion will only hurt your feelings with no substantial results. You are undoubtedly the main character in your story if you are devoting yourself to good intentions, the money will come your way eventually.

Investing is a personal journey

The concept of competition is parasuicide in the world of investing. Many investors tend to venture beyond the unknown and thus forget to focus on themselves and their mental health.

Factors such as your circumstances, capital, risk appetite, and conditioning are unique to your personality. They can’t be compared with someone else. Most investors dabble to outsmart others and this is what pulls them into a never-ending and pointless pursuit referred to as the Rat Race.

The only goal of investing is to escape the rat race and avoid being caught up in one. According to stock depository data on the number of investment accounts (and assuming one account per person), of India’s 1.36 billion people, only about 3.7% are invested in “equities”.

You already belong to the elite 4 percent of the population if you are an Indian citizen and routinely participate in the stock market. It would be useless to be highly critical of yourself now.

Unrealistic targets may indicate a problem

As there is no place for complete contentment, there is no such thing as enough money. It’s all about simply having the capacity to notice the truly joyful things along the investing journey.

Pay attention to the wrong things, and life starts to feel empty. Many people set themselves with impossible ambitions when it comes to investing. Even after earning 50–60% returns during the current bull run on the Indian stock markets, we have observed many people complaining.

These are the people who are currently consumed with greed-fueled anxiety about earning more returns in the near future. Provided that it is exposed to yearly compounding over the long term, a 12 percent annual return on equity is a respectable reward in India given the nature of the risks involved. Investing ₹10,000 today hence will simply be worth ₹31,000 in ten years, according to this simple calculation.

In just over ten years, that amounts to nearly a threefold increase.

A 60 percent annual return referenced above simply means 5 years’ worth of return in one single year. Call it an oddity, a stroke of luck, or time travel – This rather calls for a celebration, what’s there to whine about?

Set sensible goals to achieve your objectives and enjoy the delights life has to offer along the way.

Trading temptations are a slippery slope

Frequent stock trading and long-term stock investment are two very distinct approaches.

Trading simply experiences either booms or busts.

Trading is frequently romanticized as a means to become rich quickly, but the truth is quite the reverse. As per Rolf (tradesociety.com), the most commonly used trading statistic around the internet that states “95% of all traders fail” is not entirely true.

No scholarly investigation backs up this figure. Furthermore, his research indicates that the genuine number is substantially higher. He further reveals 24 disturbing trading statistics – Click here to read!

In the realm of finance, trading is just another academic discipline. Although the risks and stress involved in trading are just too great to be offset by the rewards. It affects a lot of young people since it is a perpetual condition of exhausting stimuli.

Each person has a different capacity for handling stress. It is detrimental to your mental health to maintain a constant state of stimulation for several days, weeks, or months. It is preferable to put equivalent effort into your current work if you are a fairly skilled person with a regular day job.

As a result, you will be able to up-skill and increase the price you may charge for your professional services. This consideration has relatively little potential for harm. Furthermore, even if you are an expert trader, you still need a lot of money to generate significant profits.

This also entails being ready to suffer equally severe setbacks. Aside from that, you’ll always worry that one stupid error will cause you to lose everything in the market. If you are not a full-time, professional trader, it is best to avoid short-term temptations for the sake of your mental health.

Aim to maintain life’s organic order.

Sabbaticals offer a much-needed break

Financial market investing is engaging, thrilling, and immersive. But much like with real casino gambling or taking illicit drugs, addiction is a possibility. Chronic investing activities might wear you out physically and mentally.

Pause if you find yourself in a situation when everything is working against you. Investing is a solitary endeavor where you are in charge. Give yourself a well-earned break.

You can decide to quit cold turkey for a week or a month.

Avoid monitoring your portfolio, morning tickers, news, reading material, or anything else related to investing. Instead, concentrate on nature, food, and relationships with your family, parents, children, friends, and other people who need your attention.

The markets will still be there when you return from your sabbatical as they have been for the past 400 years.

Are you paying attention to the signs?

Investment requires sound cognitive abilities. Only a healthy body can support a smart intellect, so it’s high time you start taking better care of yourself. Chemistry is not just for labs and beakers. The more we understand chemistry, the more we will understand how our bodies and minds function. Chemistry is all around us.

The primary components of our brain and how they function are directly impacted by our bodily chemistry. This covers cognition, emotion, and behavior. The majority of investors prefer to ignore internal signals because they are too busy gathering information about the outer world.

Here is some sage advice to help you maintain your mental health as you pursue financial success.

☑ Eat And Drink Well

☑ Exercise Regularly

☑ Avoid Nicotine

☑ Practice Meditation

☑ Monitor Your Vitamin-D Levels

☑ Invest In Annual Medical Checkups

☑ Talk About Your Feelings

☑ Join Communities of Investors Who Share Your Philosophy

☑ Access Professional Support Groups

☑ Eliminate Triggers (Trading; Intimidation)

Conclusion

Our capacity to carry out several important tasks and activities is a sign of good mental health. This encompasses the capacity for learning, and the capacity for experiencing, expressing, and managing a variety of pleasant and negative emotions.

This also includes the capacity for building and upholding strong interpersonal connections. By taking care of our mental health, we can stave off or even avoid the mental health issues that can occasionally accompany certain chronic physical conditions. In rare instances, it can stop a medical or mental condition from developing or relapsing.

For instance, good stress management can reduce the risk of heart disease.

By addressing the issue of mental stress brought on by investment activities, we dedicate this article to all common investors who work hard to achieve their financial goals Retail investing can be compared to having a second full-time job that requires a lot of our time, intense concentration, and complete sanity.

Thus, it is crucial to discuss the current status of this subject in more extensive forums and communities.

You may share your thoughts or stress-reduction advice in the comments section below for others to read.

🔔 Investing is expensive, but leaving comments on this blog is free!

Invest wisely!