Health & Wealth - Episode 3

Nate Crosby |
Categories
health and wealth

 

Health

Managing stress throughout the winter (and all year around) can be tough. The American Psychological Association reports a third of Americans feel extremely stressed and nearly half of Americans believe their stress has increased in the past five years.  

We all know somebody that loses their car keys on a regular basis (maybe it’s even you?!), setting the tone for a chaotic day. Implementing stress management techniques is easier said than done. However, we’re here to help! Our goal is to help you implement key techniques to make your day, your week, your month or even your year amazing! 

 

Here are our top 10 strategies for breathing easy: 

  1. Breathing techniques (see what I did there?)
  2. Meditation. Guided techniques are everywhere online (YouTube & Peloton have great options) or just simply give yourself 5 minutes of silence. 
  3. EAT THAT FROG, based on the book by Bryan Tracy. Do whatever task you’ve been putting off, first. 
  4. Change your perspective. The way you think about things can affect how you feel about them. 
  5. Detox. Rethink social media, people, and/or situations that make your life difficult. 
  6. Find a tribe. A circle of people whom you can count on. 
  7. Prepare yourself. If it’s a big meeting, Monday morning, or dinner, being prepared guarantees you’ll be less stressed going into it. 
  8. Organize. All of it. Your desk, your closet, your pantry. Clutter creates stress because you’ve lost something in the chaos. When you’re frantically looking for things your cortisol levels will increase because you’re in fight or flight mode (remember those car keys from earlier?!).
  9. Take a step back. Reacting on emotion (fight or flight) can be really critical. If you need to react to something but feel like you might lose your cool, you are 100% allowed to take a minute to collect your thoughts. Insert your breathing techniques here! 
  10. Exercise. Even a 10-minute walk will help decrease your stress.

 

Wealth

This week’s topic carries into our wealth as well. If you’re a Dynamic Growth podcast and/or blog reader, you know that we’ve been talking a lot about market volatility. Managing your reactions when it comes to waking up to red and going to bed to green will serve you well both internally (your emotions) and externally (your actions). 

 

Here are our top 5 tips when it comes to managing investment stress: 

  1. Controlling your emotions while investing. This is the single biggest factor in your investment success. The Dalbar Study is a 27 year study on investment performance.  It is published every year with the same results: investors are their own worst enemy. They buy when markets are high and panic well when they are low. Train your mind to see market declines as what they are: opportunities. Use your newly learned stress management technique of taking a deep breath and take a minute to find your calm. Multiple studies show that investors that check their investments monthly on average perform much better than investors that check their accounts daily. Daily investors tend to talk themselves into seeing risk.  
  2. Create an IPS (investment policy statement). This will be an outline for your adviser on things such as your risk tolerance. 
  3. Understand what you’re invested in. Ask your advisor any question about your investments and feel free to dig deeper into your strategy.
  4. Know your time horizon. Volatility today has no vote on where your investments will be three years from now.
  5. Review your accounts. We would be doing a disservice if we didn’t mention that it’s a great idea to review your accounts at least once per year with your advisor. 

 

Call our office at 419.496.0770 to set up a review, ask questions about your investments and/or review your strategy. Let us take some stress off of you - that’s what we are here for!