Why Financial Stress Wrecks Your Sleep and What You Can Do About It

Financial stress can disrupt sleep by triggering anxiety, hormonal imbalance, and racing thoughts. Creating a financial plan, improving sleep hygiene, and seeking support can help restore balance and better rest.

Sleep is an imperative part of our health and well-being, which is why neglecting it can have such detrimental effects.

Throw in financial stress, and it can make for a lot of stress and weight on your mind. Financial stress can wreck your sleep, especially as it triggers that fight-or-flight response.

In this guide, we’ll look at why financial stress can wreck your sleep and what to do about it so you can get a good night’s rest.

Why financial stress disrupts your sleep

There are several ways in which financial stress can disrupt your sleep and make you feel less like the person you usually are.

Physiological arousal

Money worries can often activate what’s called the sympathetic nervous system. This can lead to increased heart rate and blood pressure, the two never being a good pairing, and muscle tension, too. These are all counterproductive to sleep as well. 

Racing thoughts

The mind can often race, especially when you’re in bed at night and trying to get to sleep. The mind often becomes preoccupied as a result; it creates mental chatter that makes it more difficult to power down your brain and catch the flies.

Vicious cycle

With poor sleep, you’re likely to impact your cognitive function. This affects decision-making and can lead to poor financial choices as a result.

Hormonal imbalance

Chronic stress on your body, it can lead to elevated cortisol levels. These levels should naturally dip in the evening, but if you’re worried about financial stress, it can often keep you awake with high cortisol.

What you can do about it to improve your sleep habits

So what could you do to help yourself and improve your sleep habits? Well, firstly, you should try to address the financial stress in question.

Create a plan, as this will provide you with a sense of control, helping to create a realistic budget and a clear plan for managing your debt or saving. Seeking professional advice is also helpful, so it’s good to talk to a trusted friend or family member.

Build up an emergency fund so you’ve always got some form of savings to lean back on for security. 

For your sleep environment, a lot can help to improve your quality of sleep, despite the financial stress you may be feeling. Be sure to establish a bedtime routine, practice relaxation, and improve your sleep hygiene in general.

It might be helpful to incorporate some alternative medications or supplements to help with sleep, like these CBD sleep gummies. Keep the room cool and dark, as well as prioritizing exercise in the evening so you’re exhausting your body, ready for sleep.

If you’re really struggling, then there’s nothing wrong with seeking out professional support and mental health resources. There’s a lot out there that can help when it comes to financial stress and the impact it has on your body and mind in general.