Financial health, like its most notorious manifestation, financial stress, are today a focus of attention for people, companies, financial institutions and health professionals. The management of the financial health It is understood from an interrelation between the mental and the physical, and the environment in which people live.

Decisions related to money management are influenced, among other things, by: new dynamic lifestyles, the increase in market offerings, access to credit and ease of transactions and Shopping in the digital age.

Constant concern about money sometimes leads to high-risk behavior, such as alcohol and drug abuse, poor diet, sedentary or even criminal behavior, suicide, over-indebtedness and decreased work performance.

Sara Díaz, Financial Health Psychologist at SURA, explains that “constantly thinking that you have a lot of debt, or that you do not have enough income to cover basic personal and family needs, generates a lot of emotions: worry, stress, anxiety, frustration and sadness, to name a few.”

 "If all these emotions - warns Díaz - are not externalized and managed, it is possible to start somatizing them in physical symptoms, such as headaches, insomnia, decreased defenses, dermatological problems, gastrointestinal problems, among others." In this way, warns the specialist, "the financial health It really impacts our overall health and well-being, which is why it is important to start working on this sphere of life.”

The causes of stress

Juliana Gaviria, Director of Health Capacity at SURA, points out that stress can cause metabolic disorders, such as hypertension and obesity, as well as sleep disorders, depression, anxiety, among others.

“From a medical perspective, stress is defined as a specific stimulus perceived as threatening to the balance of an organism, to which the organism reacts with a number of adaptive responses involving the nervous system,” explains Gaviria. 

Repeated stress subjects the body to an elevated release of cortisol, commonly known as the stress hormone, “which increases the production of sugars in the body and heart rate, in addition to limiting body actions that are considered 'non-essential', altering the functions of the immune system, digestive system, reproductive system and growth,” she adds.

“Financial problems are a direct cause of stress,” says Gaviria before listing the three main sources of stress that exist for human beings:

1. Personal Finances
2. Workload 
3. Personal health

Origins of financial stress

Sara Díaz stresses that there are several factors that conspire against a person's financial health. “One of them, and the main one, is our environment,” says the Financial Health psychologist at SURA. “If I don't have the ability to set limits in my environment and if I'm not able to say no, this will have a considerable impact on our economic reality,” she says. 

On the other hand -complementary- is the ability to be forward-looking and manage personal risks. "Generally, when some event, novelty or unforeseen event occurs, we do not have a emergency fund to help us manage it. Therefore, it is common that we end up using the credit card in several installments, paying high interest rates and impacting our level of indebtedness,” emphasizes Díaz.

Additionally, there are certain behaviors that significantly influence our financial reality, he warns:

• Self-regulation or self-control. It is the ability to delay immediate gratifications that are sometimes unnecessary. That is, how much can we say no to certain pleasures or expenses that possibly, due to the current financial reality, should not occur. 
• Managing our emotions. Many times, our emotions are reflected in our spending; when we are sad, bored or even happy, we make impulsive decisions based on that emotion, impacting our economy. 
• Need for recognition. Sometimes we access products, goods and services only to feel the approval or recognition of an environment, significantly impacting the level of indebtedness. 
• The trust that we have within ourselves to cope with our own financial situation, as financial knowledge increases, self-confidence in these matters increases and helps us make much more assertive decisions. 
• Taking charge. Being active actors in our reality, knowing that I myself am the one who builds my own financial scenario. If I am aware that I am not doing well in this aspect, then I can look for alternatives, solutions and different paths.  
• Planning in the short, medium and long termIt is essential to be clear about our goals and know that we must prioritize them in order to finally configure them. Sometimes we are overcome by immediacy, we want to achieve several goals at the same time (house, car, study, travel, new cell phone) and we end up generating such a high level of debt that there comes a time when we cannot manage it.   

However, Díaz maintains that "there is no specific profile or magic formula for having or not having financial health," since it is a "multi-causal" phenomenon.

“What is clear is that there are certain behaviors, traits or attributes that, when managed and enhanced, become protective factors for our economic scenario. In order to manage our finances, we must not only focus on knowledge and know-how, on technical knowledge; it is essential to start working on the 'being', on ourselves. This means enhancing the managing our behaviors and emotions”, he expands.

SURA has created a service, SURA Financial Health, which aims to respond comprehensively to the Development of strategies for the transformation of financial behaviors of people, through an analysis that integrates variables of physical and mental health with the family, work and social environment of people.

“On this platform,” Díaz describes, “you will be able to identify the current state of your financial habits and behaviors and also see how your economic reality is (balance or imbalance between your income and expenses). You will find recommendations aimed at improving your reality and educational content to continue enhancing your knowledge in this area.”

If with this self-diagnosis you identify that you need personalized support from experts, SURA invites you to contact the following number: WhatsApp: 315 2757888 option 6, option 4. (SURA Colombia); where they will tell you how you can access them.

“SURA Financial Health is a space for you to discuss and discover how financial decisions go beyond the analysis of numbers and influence human behavior and your physical and mental health,” concludes Juliana Gaviria.