A new year is synonymous with resolutions and improvements to health, and health related habits are traditionally the most popular. We often scoff at these so called ‘new year resolutions’, dismissing them as meaningless, but just how much can a healthy mind and body impact success and, in particular, your financial success?
Studies often focus on how your wealth can affect your health – wealthy people can have more time to dedicate to exercise or more resources to put towards leisure activities for example. But what is the inverse impact? Are healthy people more likely to make better decisions that impact their financial status?
Sleep, diet and exercise are arguably the three most important factors affecting health:
Sleep
Benjamin Franklin’s adage of “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise” perhaps couldn’t be more true. It would be difficult to argue that lack of sleep doesn’t have an adverse effect on our decision making skills. Not getting enough sleep can reduce your energy stores, slow your thinking and reduce your attention span – all vital aspects when making decisions and choices. Ergo, when one or more of these is diminished, we risk making sub-optimal decisions.
Diet
Diet and emotions are very closely linked, so much so that the gastrointestinal tract is quite often referred to as the second brain. Different foods and combinations of foods can make us happy, sad, alert, tired, energised or even confused. It certainly gives new meaning to the phrases ‘Trust Your Gut’ and ‘Food for Thought’!
Exercise
It’s well documented that the endorphins released during exercise can help to improve your mood, promote sleep, and reduce stress and anxiety. Keeping active improves your well-being in general and research has shown that people who exercise regularly earn more money on average than their less active counterparts. The fitter we are, the more energy we have to take on new ventures, attain career success, and make clear and concise decisions. Mens sana in corpore sano or in other words ‘Healthy Body, Healthy Mind’.
So, whether you’re a proponent of new year resolutions or not, it’s never a bad time to change your life habits and perhaps a new year is just the impetus we need to start working on our wealth by working on our health!
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