Bipolar is just one example of a mental health condition that can put people’s finances in jeopardy. "My research showed that other emotions play a role," explains Dr Thomas Richardson, principal clinical psychologist at Solent NHS Trust. "Greater depression, anxiety and stress increased compulsive spending over time. Participants also reported comfort spending to cope with difficult emotions. Lots of different mental health problems can be related to financial problems in many different ways."
People with mental health issues are three times as likely to be in problem debt, according to charity Money and Mental Health. Our impulse control becomes weaker when we’re sleepy, for example, and insomnia often goes hand in hand with anxiety, depression and stress. If you’re lying in bed awake at night, scrolling through your phone, it can take superhero strength to resist the lure of a flash sale.
"People can end up spending thousands of pounds in the night and realising in the morning that they’ve made a really big mistake,” says Helen Undy, director of Money and Mental Health. It’s also understandable that lots of people self-medicate with alcohol when they are going through a tough time and this causes any last drop of impulse control to evaporate.
Courtesy of Neville C. Bardoliwalla OBE