A few weeks ago, I was a guest on the Ontario Psychological Association’s podcast, ONPsych.
You can hear the podcast by clicking here.
The podcast’s goal was to discuss my balanced living book, The Promise Wheel. But as the conversation unfolded, the topics became more and more diverse.
Balanced Living, Psychology, Politics, and Economics
We discussed a lot of topics in this episode. Here are some timestamps related to our conversation.
5:00 – We discussed what it was like to write my book,
24:00 – How emotions influence thinking and behaviours,
37:50 – How psychology affects politics, and vice versa.
But one of the topics that seem to have the most relevance today, given the bankruptcy of Silicon Valley Bank, was our conversation around mental health, economics, employee health, and how our emotions and thinking affect the stock market (beginning at 53:00 mark).
I can summarize the conversation on this topic by saying that the emotions of fear and worry significantly impact the economy. When our anxieties rise, for example, we take fewer financial risks and become more likely to withdraw money from the bank. When this happens, banks have less money to invest, ultimately affecting all other businesses that rely on bank loans.
It shows that the relationship between money and mental health doesn’t flow in just one direction. The economy affects our mental health, and our mental health affects the economy.
Richard