One of the reasons it’s so important to file bankruptcy in a timely fashion is the way debt can impact your physical and mental health. Numerous studies show these two issues can even create a vicious cycle, where one triggers the other. Physical health can enter this cycle, too.
In fact, if you’re in debt you’re at risk for all these conditions.
- Digestive problems.
- High blood pressure.
- Atrial fibrillation.
- Back and neck problems.
- Migraines and tension headaches.
- Insomnia.
Each of these issues can make it hard to go to work, can increase your medical costs, and can in turn put you under even more stress.
As for mental health, severe depression and anxiety are highly likely. 16% of suicides in the United States are linked to financial problems. Psychologists who attempt to treat these problems have found granting material guidance which leads to direct improvements in a patient’s financial state can have a direct impact on the patient’s ability to heal.
In fact, a recent study by Dr. Annie Harper, Associate Research Scientist at the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health in the Yale Department of Psychiatry even goes so far as to say the following:
“Some things we think of as mental health problems are actually poverty problems. If we solved people’s financial problems, I think many of their other problems would go away.” –Yale School of Medicine
You may not be living in true poverty at this time. Plenty of people fall into financial distress while living in nice neighborhoods and making good incomes. The danger to mental and physical health remains the same.
Companies have concerns about this issue as well, leading to articles like this one…though you might find it amusing to watch how corporate solutions seem to dance around just about everything other than say, raising employee wages, which might have a direct, measurable, and immediate impact on their well-being.
As your employer is unlikely to rescue you, you must give some serious thought to rescuing yourself.
While needing to file for bankruptcy is stressful, the actual case isn’t. It gives you a legal way to break the cycle. You may just get more relief than you’ve enjoyed in some time.
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