I recently got asked by a news agency to comment on whether debt had a major effect on wellbeing, whether it was common for people to worry about debt and if so, what those in debt can do about it.
Debt or money worries are the biggest reason for couples to consult Relate. Debt or money worries usually rank third or higher in any list of reasons for people seeking treatment for depression or anxiety. Given that
millions of days are lost each year to illness, depression is a major illness and money worries a major cause of general distress, which contributes to depression, it’s probably a very common thing. Especially since only a proportion of people who worry actually consult anybody about depression, marital problems or whatever, most just suffer in silence. Physical health problems (and accident rates) seem to increase among those who are stressed, depressed etc. as well.
millions of days are lost each year to illness, depression is a major illness and money worries a major cause of general distress, which contributes to depression, it’s probably a very common thing. Especially since only a proportion of people who worry actually consult anybody about depression, marital problems or whatever, most just suffer in silence. Physical health problems (and accident rates) seem to increase among those who are stressed, depressed etc. as well.
So yes, it effects wellbeing and yes, it is frighteningly common.
There are loads of things people can do about it, I’d suggest starting by looking at the finding help page, which gives resources and a guide to where to get the appropriate help (counselling, financial, coaching, debt
advice) and how to tell if an advisor is worth dealing with.
advice) and how to tell if an advisor is worth dealing with.
A big problem, both with people coping better and even trying to cope better is the UK attitude to money, to wellbeing and in fact to everything. In the UK, the whole system is reactive, it is treatment, not prevention. So the Happiness Index and similar elements of positive psychology could be used to help people not to become depressed over money worries or debt in the first place. But the Government sees happiness as a way to introduce a separate measure that might make them look better than the dismal economic figures, and doesn’t connect the two.
Similarly, the NHS has prescribed anti-depressants 40% more than last year. It also proudly claims that it has increased “talking therapies”, (because an economist told them that this was cheaper than pills, which it is, but it’s still more expensive than people not getting depressed in the first place).
The problem is the lack of connected thinking, and the obsession with money and not what the money does.
It doesn’t seem to occur to anybody that if we changed the way people generally thought about money and happiness we could actually waste a lot less on pills, therapy and pointless political point scoring. We’d also have more money to do what we really want (we could buy helpful stuff instead of pay the NHS to buy pills) and we wouldn’t all have become so depressed in the first place, so we’d be able to enjoy the things we got instead of lying prostrate, popping pills and complaining that we don’t have
any money!
any money!
