Mental health

Your mental health can be affected when worrying about money, which is why it's crucial to manage and maintain your mental wellbeing.

This can help you to:

• Manage your finances.
• Cope with and reduce stress.
• Make informed decisions about your future.

To help you improve and maintain your mental wellbeing Mental Health UK suggest you can:

• Prioritise your sleep.
• Foster and maintain healthy relationships with friends, partners etc.
• Exercise regularly.
• Maintain a balanced diet.
• Connect with others.
• Practice mindfulness or breathing techniques to manage stress.

An important step to managing your finances and mental health is understanding your current financial situation and what it might be in the future.

Making a budget and regularly reviewing it is critical. Understanding how your budget has changed can help you adapt financially to any changes in your situation.

You can use the Budget Planner from MoneyHelper. The Calculator will give you a report of your overall finances and using this information you can draft a budget to help plan your spending and saving and what to cut out.

The Mental Health and Money Toolkit is a free resource to help you understand, manage and improve your mental and financial health.

The toolkit can help you:

• Understand the relationship between money and mental health.
• Learn self-help techniques for managing your anxiety and wellbeing around your money worries.
• Take control of your finances.

When it comes to money, the sooner you begin to tackle the problem, the easier it will be to take control. But, of course, this is easier said than done for some people.

Talking about how you are feeling can have significant benefits. People who care about you like friends, and family, are usually happy to listen and support you.

If you're struggling with money and it's affecting your mental health, you can talk to a trained adviser today who can help you manage your financial problems. To reach a trained adviser contact mental health support in your area.

If you are in debt, it is important not to panic or ignore the situation. Instead, you should seek free debt advice.

You can have advice from a debt advisor either:

• Face-to-face at a local debt advice agency
• Over the phone with a local or national organisation

Some debt advisers will offer self-help advice. This means they will explain the different options to you, and you will take action for yourself to solve your debt problems. Other advisers will offer casework, where they take some steps on your behalf.

It can be hard to seek help if you're in debt because you may feel guilty or ashamed. But debt advisers are used to helping people from all walks of life with money problems, and they will not judge you.

You can get free, impartial debt advice from these organisations:

• National Debtline on 0808 808 4000. Website: www.nationaldebtline.org
• StepChange on 0800 138 1111. Website: www.stepchange.org