Is Money Making You Sick?
Research reveals a strong link between financial well-being and physical and mental health — and what you can do to keep all three in top shape.
Editor's Note: This article is the second in a five-part special report exploring the connection between your money and your health. Other stories in the series look at 15 ways to lower your healthcare costs, the challenges of long-term care, managing the costs of mental health treatment and what's new in Medicare this year.
From the economic effects of the Iran war to the stock market's sharp drops to the ongoing pain of higher consumer prices since the pandemic, there's a lot to worry about lately when it comes to your money.
Nearly half of Americans report feeling more financial stress in 2026 than they felt in 2025, according to a survey from the Allianz Center for the Future of Retirement, and almost one in three have less confidence about meeting their retirement goals.
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At any given time, about 40% of adults in the U.S. report feeling stressed about their finances, according to an ongoing survey by the Financial Health Network, a Chicago nonprofit. It's a feeling that's detrimental with regard not only to your financial health but also, as a growing number of scientific studies show, to your physical and mental health.
Research demonstrates, for example, that ongoing stress about money is strongly linked to a wide range of physical ailments, including high blood pressure, headaches, heart disease, joint and back pain, ulcers, arthritis, asthma and insomnia.
The more often you experience financial anxiety, the likelier you are to experience one or more of these conditions. Financial worries are also linked to a greater risk of disability and early death, as well as to mental health challenges such as anxiety and depression.
"What's happening in someone's wallet is reflected in their physical and mental well-being — and vice versa," says Lisa Berdie, director of policy and research for the Financial Health Network.
In fact, one 2024 study found that of all the big challenges that a person may face in life — including divorce, the death of a loved one, and disability or illness — financial strain is potentially the most damaging to physical health.
Analyzing the blood of nearly 5,000 participants in a longitudinal study of aging, a team of British researchers found the highest concentration of proteins and hormones linked to poor health among the people experiencing financial strain, putting them at a 60% greater risk of developing serious health problems. That was more than any of the other stressors examined.
"Financial stress was most detrimental to biological health, maybe because this form of stress can invade so many aspects of our lives," says Odessa Hamilton, a statistical epidemiologist at the University of Oxford and the lead author of the study.
Research also shows that the connection between financial stress and health problems holds even after accounting for differences in income and previous health status, and cuts across all socioeconomic lines.
Says Berdie, "Some groups, such as lower-income households, women and younger people, experience financial stress more frequently than others, but it's an issue that is pervasive across the spectrum of income and asset levels."
How financial stress affects your body
In a qualitative study examining the health-wealth connection, Berdie and fellow researchers at the Financial Health Network asked people experiencing financial stress to describe the impact on their health.
The participants ranged in age from 18 to over 65, with incomes from less than $15,000 a year to more than $100,000, but they all had one thing in common: financial anxiety was taking a heavy toll, physically as well as emotionally.
"I worry on a daily basis. I don't sleep at night. My appetite is poor," a woman, age 67, said. "I have sometimes had sleepless nights, back pain and even stomach problems, all due to being stressed over finances," a 48-year-old man told the researchers.
Science confirms that what they're feeling is real, rooted in the body's physiological reaction to stress. It's the infamous fight-or-flight response, which triggers the release of the hormones cortisol and adrenaline into the bloodstream, causing muscles to tense up, your heart to beat faster and other physical reactions that can be helpful in dealing with an immediate, short-term threat.
Over time, though, it can lead to inflammation, a weakened immune system, high blood pressure and other long-term risks to health.
"When your stress response is always turned on, your ability to fight the kind of chronic inflammation that's at the center of many health problems is limited or goes away," says Bryan Jepson, a former emergency room physician who is now a certified financial planner with Targeted Wealth Solutions in Colorado Springs. "That can lead to heart issues, gastrointestinal issues, joint pain and other health problems."
A 2024 review of nearly 200 studies exploring the connection between health and wealth consistently found the same physiological underpinning, with one group of researchers quantifying it: they found that 95% of health problems related to financial strain were the result of biological factors, with only about 5% linked to unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking or drinking too much.
The mega-study also underscored that financial stress can be more damaging to your mind and body than other life stressors, that the connections persist even after adjusting for different income levels and health profiles, and that the impact can be especially harmful to older adults, in some cases literally accelerating the physical aging process.
Consider one of the newest pieces of research published late last year in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings. The study analyzed data from more than 280,000 adults who had completed detailed surveys about social and economic factors in their lives and underwent clinical evaluations of their cardiovascular health.
The researchers then determined each participant’s "cardiovascular age" — that is, how old their heart and blood vessels looked biologically compared with what one would expect for a person their age.
Not only did the people under greater financial stress tend to have more-advanced cardiovascular aging, but the degree of aging was also similar to or even exceeded what doctors would expect to see as a result of many known medical risks to heart health, such as high blood pressure, diabetes or smoking.
The clear takeaway? Says Michelle Perry Higgins, a certified financial therapist and wealth adviser with California Financial Advisors in San Ramon, California, "Money doesn't just sit in your bank or brokerage account; it lives in your body as well."
What hurts the most
The connection between health and wealth is a two-way street, as financial experts and researchers are quick to point out.
"Health problems can cause financial stress, which in turn can lead to more health problems," says Berdie of the Financial Health Network. "The relationship is bidirectional and can become a vicious cycle."
Tracking the financial health of nearly 3,000 people over a five-year period, FHN found that participants who reported their physical health was only fair or poor were more likely to be chronically financially unhealthy — to consistently struggle to spend, save, borrow and plan in a way that allowed them to thrive — than people in better health.
Tellingly, experiencing a health shock, such as a serious illness or injury over the study period, increased the odds that someone would move from financially healthy to financially unhealthy by 69%.
"Poor health can affect your ability to work and your income, and medical treatment can be expensive," Berdie says. "So people may be dipping into short-term savings and potentially long-term savings to cover the cost, and they might be incurring debt as well."
Having medical debt is, in fact, highly correlated with poorer physical and mental health. People with medical debt, for instance, are three times more likely than others to grapple with anxiety and depression. Many of them, studies show, forgo future medical care to avoid racking up more bills and debt, which can exacerbate the health problems they’re experiencing.
Debt in general is especially bad for your health. It’s linked to ulcers, digestive problems, impaired sleep, heart problems and a host of other physical ailments, in addition to the negative impact on your state of mind.
Compared with people who have little or no debt, for example, borrowers with chronic or high debt are more likely to suffer from inflammation and joint pain by age 50, and for that pain to interfere with work and other activities.
In some cases, debt can even be lethal. A 2016 study by the Atlanta Federal Reserve, fittingly titled "Killer Debt," found that the bigger a person's outstanding loan balance was, the higher their risk of dying early. It also found that a 100-point improvement in a person's credit score was associated with a 4% decline in their risk of death.
In an article exploring the link between health and financial well-being on the Columbia University Irving Medical Center website, Oscar Jiménez-Solomon, a research scientist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute who has studied how financial wellness impacts mental health, suggests two reasons why debt can be especially detrimental.
"One is a sense of uninterrupted hopelessness, feeling like there's no way out and feeling trapped," Jiménez-Solomon says. "The other is shame, which is very isolating."
Not everyone who is in debt, even mountains of debt, however, will end up chronically anxious, depressed or in poor physical health. The same is true of people experiencing other serious financial challenges, such as, say, a prolonged period of joblessness or a sharp drop in income following a divorce or the death of a spouse.
An emerging line of research is differentiating between financial strain (the objective situation) and financial stress (how people feel about their circumstances) and finding that some people report lower stress levels than others, as well as fewer or less severe health problems, even if they're experiencing similar economic strain.
That suggests there may be behaviors or strategies you can pursue to mitigate any possible impact on your health if you hit a financial rough patch.
"Sometimes bad stuff happens, even to people who try to plan well. That's just life," says CFP Jepson, the former ER doctor. "The biggest difference in determining the possible impact on your health isn’t the situation itself; it's whether you feel like you have any control over the outcome. If you feel like you have some agency, it leads to action where you can hopefully get yourself out of the situation or lessen the impact on your long-term financial security."
An action plan for wealth and health
In fact, just as chronic financial stress can have a negative effect on your physical and mental well-being, so the inverse is also true: The better you feel about your money and your ability to manage it, whatever life throws at you, the healthier you're likely to feel as well.
A survey last year by MassMutual, for example, found that Americans who rate their financial health above average are nearly four times more likely to grade their physical health as above average too, compared with people who are less healthy financially. They are more than three times as likely to say the same about their mental health.
How can you make sure you're on the right side of that equation? Because the relationship between health and wealth cuts both ways — that is, better health is linked to better financial outcomes, and being in good financial shape is linked to physical and mental well-being — experts say you need strategies both to reduce financial stress and to increase physical and mental well-being.
Here's what they suggest:
Treat your health like an investment.
Nearly one in three Americans say that financial challenges have prevented them from prioritizing their health and wellness over the past year, the MassMutual survey found. Some skipped health appointments, some stopped taking certain medications or vitamins, and others gave up going to the gym or planning healthy meals.
Big mistake, experts say. "My first piece of advice is to stabilize your health, because if your health is deteriorating, it becomes almost impossible to fix the financial side," Jepson says.
"That requires some investment, just like the financial side requires some investment — go to the doctor, get the preventative stuff done, maybe start exercising, clean up your lifestyle, see a therapist, if that would help."
He adds, "When you start feeling better physically and emotionally, you also have more motivation to work on improving your finances." In fact, the MassMutual survey found that 80% of respondents said that they make better financial decisions when they are actively investing in their health and wellness.
Make paying off debt a top financial priority.
Of all the financial stresses that can negatively affect your health, debt is among the strongest, and the ill effects become particularly pronounced as you age. Yet credit card balances are currently at an all-time high — $1.28 trillion collectively in the U.S. — and debt in recent years has been growing the fastest among people 65 and older.
While the majority of that debt comes from mortgages, the type least likely to cause financial stress, retiree-age credit card balances and medical debt have shot up as well.
How do you get relief? You might consider tapping home equity via a cash-out refinancing or home equity line of credit to pay off high-rate credit card debt. Even with mortgage rates recently at a five-year high of around 6.5% and HELOC rates around 7%, you’d still save substantially compared with paying off plastic at recent financing charges averaging 23% to 24%.
Longtime customers can also try calling their issuer and asking for a lower rate. More than 80% of cardholders who did were successful, knocking more than six points off their interest rate on average, according to a 2025 survey by LendingTree.
If you have medical debt, try negotiating directly with your provider to reduce your overall bill and work out a more reasonable payment plan for the remaining balance. Or you might be able to work with an organization such as Dollar For or medical billing specialists such as Resolve to help you with the process or negotiate on your behalf.
"Most creditors will work with you if you demonstrate that you're trying to pay off your debt and have good intent," Jepson says.
Adjust your perspective.
Rattled by the stock market's constant volatility? Increasingly anxious that the effect of war on the economy and high consumer prices raise the risk that you'll run out of money in retirement? To reduce your financial stress levels, CFP and therapist Michelle Perry Higgins has two words for you: "Zoom out."
"Pause, slow down, step back and look at the bigger picture, instead of making a reactive financial decision under stress," she says.
"Ask yourself whether the cause of your anxiety is something that needs your immediate attention and is within your control. You can't control the president, the Federal Reserve chair or the outcome of war, and if you have a solid financial plan in place, those things won't derail you in the long term, so there's no need to act. What you can control is your response to what's worrying you."
Have a plan.
People who have a formal financial plan in place are twice as likely to say they are not anxious or depressed compared with those who don't, research shows.
"When people have a plan, hope can begin to increase," researcher Jiménez-Solomon says in the Columbia Medical School article. "One of the key components of hopeful thinking is to feel that you have concrete pathways to achieve the things that matter to you and your life goals. Having a sense that there's a way out of your situation can have an important financial and mental wellness impact."
Identify a specific step or two that will directly address what worries you most about your financial situation. That might mean finding places in your budget where you can rein in spending for a while to relieve pressure on cash flow or building up emergency cash reserves so if you were to lose your job or the stock market tanks just as you need to make withdrawals in retirement, you have a financial cushion to soften the blow.
Having a robust emergency fund can also help you sleep better. According to the MassMutual survey, one-third of Americans lose sleep at night due to financial worries or stress. Four in 10 of them say it has made their financial situation worse, and more than half report a decline in emotional or mental health as a result.
"Having a cash cushion is positively associated with being able to sleep better at night and very positively correlated with feelings of financial well-being," says Vaughn Bowman, head of wealth management at MassMutual.
"In a world that is tumultuous and unpredictable, having a plan A and a plan B — so you know that even if there's great disruption in the stock market or society, you're prepared for it — helps me feel better personally and helps our clients feel better, too."
Lean on others.
Experiencing a high degree of financial stress makes people less likely to discuss money with their romantic partners, researchers at Cornell found. That can undermine joint problem-solving and negatively impact communication within the relationship.
"Share what’s going on and how you're feeling about it with your spouse — I feel like I'm letting you down, I feel like a failure at work, I'm worried we won’t have enough for retirement, whatever it is," says Higgins. "Keeping it to yourself just makes it all worse, like a simmering volcano that eventually will blow."
Enlisting a financial planner or financial therapist who can serve as an objective sounding board and provide smart, actionable advice can also be helpful, either for one-time assistance with a specific issue or on an ongoing basis.
(You can search for a CFP in your area at letsmakeaplan.org or a CFT using the find-a-therapist tool at financialtherapyassociation.org.)
There may also be free or low-cost community resources you can tap, such as debt-counseling services. Says Jepson: "For almost every situation, there's a resource out there that can help. You just have to find it."
Do some deep breathing.
Or hop on the treadmill, take a walk in the park or try meditating before you sit down to pay bills or tackle other financial tasks that can cause your anxiety to spike.
Participants in the qualitative FHN study on money and mental health mentioned exercising, mindfulness practices and going to therapy as techniques that helped them feel calmer, think more clearly, and deal with whatever money worries were troubling them.
"Alleviating their physical and mental stress made them more able to manage their financial stress," Berdie says.
Give yourself some grace.
Financial stress can be very isolating, so it can be helpful to understand the feeling is pervasive these days. "If you feel overwhelmed or out of control when it comes to your money, know you are not alone," says Bowman. "There are people all over the country who are struggling with the same issues."
Focus on clarity over perfection, prioritize your physical health, and accept that uncertainty is part of the process, Higgins says. "Financial peace does not come with everything being perfect," she says.
"Financial peace comes with having your ducks in a row and a team on your side who can answer your questions and help you if your head gets too deep in worries. Stress and cortisol levels drop, decision-making is improved, and the way forward will become clear."
Note: This item first appeared in Kiplinger Personal Finance Magazine, a monthly, trustworthy source of advice and guidance. Subscribe to help you make more money and keep more of the money you make here.
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