Wednesday Welcome: Genie James on Stress — and How it Impacts Your Finances
I’ve long been interested in the health/wealth connection — in fact, I dedicated an episode of my TV show, Money Matters, to it this season. So I was more than interested when Genie James reached out about a guest post. Genie is the author of the new book The Fountain of Truth and a trailblazer in natural women’s health.
Are you surprised, shocked or edified by the recent Pew Research Center study showing that, in 4 out of every 10 American households, a woman is the primary breadwinner? If this surprises you, the following stats as to the growing economic force of women may further boomerang your thinking:
- In the United States, women over 50 currently control a net worth of $19 trillion and, over the next decade, women will grow to control two thirds of the total wealth in our country.
- 10.1 million businesses are owned by women, employing more than 13 million people, and generating $1.9 trillion in sales as of 2008. One in five firms with revenue of $1 million or more is woman-owned.
As a financially-savvy business woman who has had her share of knocks through my cubicle to corporate ladder climbing years, I find much to celebrate in these stats. Our nation’s life expectancy projections have marched steadily upward – reaching 78.5 years in 2009 – but the greatest wake-up call is that a growing body of research shows that the most gain in number of years lived and, more importantly, the number of years lived with good health and high quality of life goes mostly to those residing on the upper end of the income ladder. Let me restate more simply: Poor women age faster, get sicker and die earlier than women with money.
Our good news is that the economic connection to longevity has the potential to profoundly influence the lives of more and more breadwinning women. The bad news is that women taking on more financial responsibility can experience seismic stress. Please don’t quickly pooh-pooh the impact. Stress can literally age you faster, then kill you sooner.
Experts are clear that when individuals are routinely under assault—over money, health woes, a daily freeway commute, whatever—a biological system that was designed to occasionally fight or flee a predator gets markedly out of balance disrupting the balance of the hormone cortisol. Stress has been found to play a role in so many diseases of modern life—from asthma, depression, and migraine flares to heart attacks, cancer, and diabetes. In addition to increasing your risk of multiple serious chronic health concerns, financial stress has been found to prevent a woman from achieving orgasm, decrease fertility and result in a higher incidence of miscarriage.
All of us hard-driving, make-it-happen-at-work-and-at-home women need to be cognizant of our stress and do what we can to lessen it. Studies show that 3 to 5 minutes of conscious deep breathing can lower heart rate, blood pressure and breathing rate. Exercise is a great multi-faceted health booster-stress buster. And more good news: New studies from UCLA show that time with girlfriends decreases stress while boosting the “calming” hormone oxytocin. Best of all, higher levels of oxytocin have been linked with better financial decision making!
Finally, for those of us women fortunate enough to have the means to pay our bills and store up some savings, I challenge us all to consider this continuing startling reality: In 2008, over half the 37 million Americans living in poverty were women. At great risk are divorced and widowed baby boomer women whose financial solvency was dependent on their spouse. Is it not our job, our responsibility, to do whatever we can to narrow this gap? Perhaps our impact will be through volunteering, perhaps philanthropy, possibly via politics. Regardless, I recall the words of Madeleine Albright: “There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.”
About Genie: Genie James is an author, speaker and business owner. With her husband and business partner C.W. Randolph Jr., M.D., she co-authored the bestseller From Belly Fat to Belly Flat. Her new book is The Fountain of Truth: Outsmart Hype, False Hope and Heredity to Recalibrate the Way You Age.
