Financial Stress is Contagious: Don't Catch It

Unless you have a trust fund or you've won the lottery, I won't even ask you if you're feeling stress about money or work.

Nearly all of us are feeling the strain of these harsh financial times. And what's hard to take is that the same people seem to have once again bamboozled us and walked away with a ton of money, without going to jail. Whereas, if you stole a Snickers bar in a CVS store, you'd probably be in a state prison.

Exaggerations aside, financial stress is tough, tough beyond its objective reality. It can conjure up our worst fantasies, and keep us up at night and worried through the day. Financial stress goes to the bone of our deepest worry, staying alive. Money represents survival.

Stress is Contagious

Stress is contagious and studies show that "second hand stress" can do a job on families and groups. In the same way that there can be a flu epidemic that infects large populations, financial stress can spread rapidly among many thousands and even millions of people.

Right now we are in the midst of an outbreak of serious financial stress, an epidemic of financial stress fueled by a combination of real and dangerous conditions and the never-ending bad news media hysteria.

The news media no longer just reports news. It seeks profits, profits that depend on ratings and ratings go up with sensational news broadcasts.Unfortunately this creates real problems for us.

Because if the financial crisis doesn't damage us, our chronic stress over it will. You see a part of your brain called the hypothalamus cannot tell the difference between financial worry and financial disaster.

The Media Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

For example, one financial trend forecaster, Gerald Celente's, did an interview recently. He's predicting a total worldwide financial collapse, a collapse worse than anything ever known. And he's predicting violence in America over it.

It's a tricky situation because no one really knows whether the roof is going to fall in from this financial crisis or not.

But at the level of runaway financial stress-it doesn't matter. Because when large numbers of people are infected with stressful concerns, their minds can become enmeshed in a form of primitive and illogical thinking where it become impossible to distinguish fact from fiction.

Today many people are in this bind. They watch CNN blasting yet another financial collapse story, they read more of the same in the newspaper and on the internet, they go shopping to see prices rising again and then they go home and open their financial statements to see that they've lost even more money than they imagined. No wonder so many people are anxious, fearful and depressed.

You're hard wired with a survival mechanism called the Fight or Flight Response. It prepares you to fight or flee from life threatening danger. It does so by releasing powerful chemicals, called stress hormones, into your system. But there's a problem: The Fight or Flight Response is meant for short-term use only. If it's on too often and too long it will damage your mind and body.

Beware of the Galloping Herd

When large numbers of people are driven into fear together, they begin to share a kind of herd-like Fight or Flight Response. Today it's as if the minds of large numbers of people are joined together believing and expecting a meteor to crash into the earth.

Be careful about getting swept up in this as it can have a hypnotic affect on you. It's very difficult to break free from the herd when it's running in fear, because once stress hormones are flying around your system your primed to fight or flee, not calm down and relax.

Studies show that when you're stressed and stress hormones seep into your blood and tissues and linger there, you're at risk for serious health problems as well as the misery of chronic anxiety and depression.

The Mayo Clinic Staff put it this way: "The long-term activation of the stress-response system, and the subsequent overexposure to cortisol and other stress hormones, can disrupt almost all your body's processes, increasing your risk of obesity, insomnia, digestive problems, heart disease, depression, memory impairment, physical illnesses and other complications."

Stress hormones are indeed bad news. Do whatever you can to stay out of the galloping herd's financial panic. If you have serious financial problems, seek trustworthy comfort and counsel and then develop an action plan so you can get in control.

Drs. Lyle Miller and Alma Dell Smith, two Senior Stress researchers said it in a nutshell: "Chronic stress kills. People wear down. Stress is linked to the six leading causes of death."

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