Holistic Wellness

Have you ever considered how your physical, mental, and financial health are all connected? Judith Ndaba from Elevate Life joins us to explain how we need to take care of all aspects of our health in order to live a long and prosperous life. If you, like me, want to live a better quality and longer life, we need to make sure we are physically, mentally, and financially healthy. Judith also explains how important data is in helping us make better decisions. Good information shows us our blind spots, in health and finances.

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Transcript

[Judith Ndaba 0:02
So you can’t make informed decisions about your finances or your health if you don’t have the right data - so making sure that you have good information so that you can really make good decisions.

And then I think a third aspect that we haven’t spoken of is rest. I think it’s really important that we take time out. There was some interesting research that the Harvard Business School actually published recently about how resilience is not to do with how much you can sustain and how much pressure you can be under. It’s actually about your ability to take time off in between periods of high stress.]

Diana Granoux 0:41
My name is Diana and this is The Family Finance Show: the podcast to help you manage your family’s finances better. Every week, we share an episode on topics relating to increasing your family’s income and managing expenses, controlling your debt, and investing for the future.

Have you ever considered how your physical, mental, and financial health are all connected? Judith Ndaba from Elevate Life joins us to explain how we need to take care of all aspects of our health in order to live a long and prosperous life. If you, like me, want to live a better quality and longer life, we need to make sure that we are physically, mentally, and financially healthy. Judith also explains how important data is in helping us make better decisions. Good information shows us our blind spots in health and finances. Enjoy the show.

We are all striving to live a long, healthy and prosperous life. Elevate Life has designed its life insurance offerings to help you best achieve this. Through its holistic wellness platform, customer-centric products, and generous rewards, Elevate Life is leading the way to provide a new generation of financial services offerings.

Hi Judith, and welcome to the show! It’s so nice to have you here today. We are recording in person, which is something fun and I haven’t done that in a long time. So that’s cool. And we’ve got a great topic to discuss today. The topic is the link between health and finances, which I find really a fascinating link. Can you tell us more about the relationship between the two?

Judith Ndaba 2:31
Thanks, Di. It’s so nice to be on your show because your show is so practical and that’s what really attracts me to it.

So the link between finances and your health: first of all, when your finances are in distress, automatically you can feel unwell. Already your stress levels go up, you might struggle to sleep at night, you might struggle to have a compromised immune system. There’s many different things – high blood pressure, for example. So it really has an immediate physical impact on your health.

But then also indirectly. We all know that being healthy can be quite expensive, so for example, having access to a good specialist, even the dentist, might be something that people can’t really afford. So having finances that are in a good shape that you can actually allocate and make good decisions – for example, buying free-range meat – really makes a big difference.

So finances and health are completely intertwined, as is the whole human condition. If you have any part of you that’s out of sync, if your emotional wellbeing is suffering, then your physical health, and your societal health will also suffer. We can’t really separate out any part of the human condition from any other part. We’re all completely intertwined beings. And our finances are really an important part.

Diana Granoux 3:46
I love that concept of holistic wellness and how everything is intertwined and how we can’t separate them. I think if you try to separate them, you kind of go down the wrong path. I think you have to see it holistically. And part of that is also mental health. And I think that money troubles often do lead to poor mental and physical health. We all know people who’ve lost sleep over some debt they might have or other financial trouble. What do you see as the link between money trouble and mental and physical illness?

Judith Ndaba 4:24
Well, I think the biggest thing there for me is that they both have big stigmas. So no one really wants to speak about their poor mental health or their poor financial health. So I think immediately that’s a big problem in actually addressing and fixing things. The first step in fixing something is to actually face it, name it, and then actually understand what you need to do to make incremental change to get out of the situation. And I think if you’re not, for example, admitting or acknowledging that you have either a financial or a mental health condition, then you aren’t actually going to fix it. It’s not actually going to improve. It’ll just fester and potentially actually get worse.

So I think the idea is to make both of these topics – remove the stigma from them – so people actually then have the courage and have the information and have the ability to understand what they can do to improve their situation. Is to see a psychotherapist? Is to chat to a friend? Is to have a better informed view of your finances? What can you do to first of all remove the stigma, bring things into the light, and then to see incrementally what you can do day-by-day to move in the right direction?

Diana Granoux 5:38
Exactly. And that’s really the inspiration for the show. It’s how can we help people make better financial decisions? That’s really what we’re trying to do. And as you say, there’s a huge stigma around managing your finances poorly, or poor mental health, especially around depression and anxiety. And I think for me, many people struggle with money because they don’t know how they’re spending their income. So if you don’t know this basic information, it’s really impossible to save and get back on track financially. But if you can identify the areas in your expenses where you can improve, you can start to take back control of your finances.

So that’s similar to wanting to be healthier: you need to know your problem areas first. Is it sugar level? Cholesterol? Do you have an unhealthy weight? So if you’re struggling to get started, just start by admitting to yourself, “Okay, this is overwhelming. I find finances overwhelming. I find them boring.” Whatever it is. “I feel angry that I didn’t start earlier.” Whatever anxiety you’re feeling about your finances, own it, and then start to make the changes that you can, so that your future-self will thank you.

So I think also that health can be summed up by that brilliant quote by Michael Pollan. I just love this quote. I read it a number of years ago. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, but the quote says, “Eat food. Not too much. And mostly plants.” And I love the quote, because it just says so much in these three, simple sentences. So reduce your processed food in favour of real food; don’t over eat; and don’t eat too much meat – incorporate plants into your diet. So if I just added regular exercise to that recipe, I think it’s kind of like the perfect recipe for good health.

And as I read this quote on good health, when I was thinking about the show, I was thinking about what my equivalent three sentences for financial health would be. And for those, I think the basics are: have an emergency fund; pay off your debt; and save and invest consistently. For me, those are the three pillars. What’s your take on how to be healthier, physically, and financially?

Judith Ndaba 7:56
Sure, I think that’s already a very good start. Back to your point about habits: definitely make sure that you spend less than you earn. And then the second point is more along, I suppose, nutrition. You can’t make informed decisions about your finances or your health if you don’t have the right data. So making sure that you have good information so that you can really make good decisions.

And then I think a third aspect that we haven’t spoken of is rest. I think it’s really important that we take time out. There was some interesting research that the Harvard Business School actually published recently about how resilience is not to do with how much you can sustain and how much pressure you can be under. It’s actually about your ability to take time off in between periods of high stress. So the key to being resilient actually lies in having times of rest. And I think we also forget that in our day-to-day lives; we forget that in our mental health; we forget that in our finances, to actually not be in a rush and to have time where we actually just literally give some time to ourselves and actually just have some times of rest, some times of relaxation. And people say “me-time”, but you know what I mean? The kind of time when you aren’t expecting that much of yourself, when you’re just really having an extra-long bath or whatever, to kind of rebalance and reset the clocks and…

Diana Granoux 9:28
I love that. I love that. I feel that, especially for families – and I think a lot of people listening to the show are in families – families require a lot of time and effort. We don’t get a lot of time off as parents, especially as mothers, like you and I are. It’s really intense and between that, your job, finances, health, it’s really a lot. So I really like the point about rest. I think we don’t do that enough. And I think, for myself, even when I try to rest, I find it quite hard because we’re always so connected. I was reading or listening to something about information diet, and I think that’s also really important, like the information that you take in and how connected you are. When you rest, you should actually turn off completely: turn off WhatsApp, turn off social media, and fully relax. And I think that more and more is becoming quite important. So I really love that point.

Judith Ndaba 10:22
I think digital cleansing is definitely something that we need to do much more of. I find myself personally that I’m a better mother after I’ve walked around the block. [laughs] I just find that with being outside and just taking time out without a phone, without having any kind of basic interruption, without having a tweet enter, it really does cleanse you. And I feel as though when I come back into the home after doing something like that – going for a jog or going for a walk – I feel rejuvenated and I feel more able to connect to my children. Whereas I might have left the house having 72 questions going through your head at the same time, by the time you get back, you actually have the patience again to answer each question and not get flustered. So I think it really is just a good habit to have, to always remind yourself to not have to be a superhero, and to actually have those times every day that you rest.

Diana Granoux 11:20
Exactly. And that’s a practical thing that people can take from this episode, especially, is just: Today, take some time to rest and switch off and take some “me-time”. And it’s such a cliché, as you say, but it actually says what you need to do: have time for yourself. So what does all this mean from a family health perspective, then Judith?

Judith Ndaba 11:40
So families are pretty much exactly the same as any individual; they’ve just got many more moving parts. Everything is much more heightened. And then there’s the whole thing of inter-dependency: there’s no decision that you can take in isolation that won’t affect anyone else. If you, for example, have a really bad saving that just goes south, you might actually, end up compromising your children’s education that you’d planned for the future. So everything that you do, you have to think extra-much about. So I think the idea here is about informed decisions play a much more important role in the family life.

But then also the whole idea of dynamism. Your children start off being very dependent on you, but by the time they’re in their late teens, they’re actually already kind of itching to get out the house and they also become much less financially dependent on you ultimately. But then you might find that your parents, if you’re still fortunate to have them, might take an increasing dependence on you. So there’s definitely ebbs and sways in your financial life with a family. You can’t always say that your children will cost a certain amount. I know that I completely underestimated what living with children would be. Every single meal, for example, is an expensive meal. You can’t get by any day with spending little.

So I think the idea of family life is one of dependency – inter-dependency; it’s one of exponential costs; and it’s also one of a huge impact of your decisions, therefore, you need to make more informed decisions.

Diana Granoux 13:22
I think every parent underestimates how much children cost before they have them. And it’s not really something you consider; having children is not a financial decision in any way, but as we are talking about holistic health, you’ve got to consider your finances when you do consider starting a family. Because it’s quite intense. We can speak from experience here [laughs] having kids roughly the same age. You have three; I have two, so the pressure on you is even more. And what about finding the right financial products and services to help your wellbeing? How do these two things relate, Judith?

Judith Ndaba 14:01
Well I think nowadays – it’s wonderful that we’re living now, because now it is possible. I think in the past, people used to take their money to the bank and just drop it off and hope for the best. But now we really do have financial institutions that have a lot of data about us – a lot of dynamic data – and they can really understand how we spend our money, what we’re about. And from data can come so much information that can help us understand wellbeing.

As Elevate, if I can speak about my company, we’ve painted a holistic universe for each person who’s part of the Elevate Life group – across their financial, their credit, their healthcare, and their fitness data. And from this we can see what steps each person could do incrementally to improve the longevity of their life, the health of their life, and also their prosperity. So the whole idea – our catchphrase is, “We want you to live a long, healthy, prosperous life” – and as a financial services provider, it really is possible, because with each person’s permission, we can have access to their dynamic data across these different spheres and we can really take a proper, integrated view of their wellness and see where they could make improvements that would help their longevity, their prosperity, and their freeness of disease.

For an example, we can see from healthcare data that if someone is walking, let’s say 3,000 steps a day, we can see that if they were able to bump that up to say 4,000-5,000 steps a day, their risk of getting diabetes, or having poor health, or poor cardiovascular disease, would really decrease. So we can actually see proper data. It isn’t like you just assume that if you do something that you’ll be healthier; we can actually see from the data that this can really make a tangible benefit for your life. And so we take a person’s data – actually, we set goals for them to see what they can do in the coming month to take one step towards being healthier, living longer, and being more prosperous.

Diana Granoux 16:12
I think that that’s such a key point for listeners is: use your data to help make an impact on your life and take control of that data. It’s your data. And companies like Elevate Life, I think what you’re doing is really innovative and really cool. It’s such an interesting concept of how you take data. I think that’s really how you achieve big goals is by taking one small step at a time. Just by getting out the house, walking around the block, and so on, you can eventually run a marathon. So it’s all about just taking that step.

My final question is one that I like to ask all my guests and I’m really interested in your answer because I know your kids. So Jude, what is the one piece of financial advice that you’d like to pass on to your children?

Judith Ndaba 17:05
It’s quite a simple one: it’s to not do what mum did! It really is just to take the time more wisely before you have a family, to really save. Save and invest early. When I was single, I underplayed or didn’t really understand how much money I would need when I had a family. So I think if they could have a much bigger savings pot before they start a family, it really would be really beneficial. Travelling with kids just must be really wonderful. So I think if you have the means to do that, save for those future times, save for their education – but all that kind of saving early on.

It’s really difficult to save once you have a family because you’ve got so much that you have to be spending on. So I think to get in early; if you plan on having a family, get in early while you’re still single.

And then also to be very conscious about how you spend. Spending on material things really can be quite regrettable. Experiences are definitely much more beneficial for your life and for your family life. So if you can be very conscious in how you spend…

Diana Granoux 18:18
I just love that, Judith. That’s so much what I think as well. So that’s really great advice for the parents out there and potential parents, future parents, especially.

But before we go, I just wanted to make one point for our listeners: if you’re listening to this show and you’re thinking, “Okay, my finances are in order, but my health is not and I need to do something there“, before spending thousands and thousands on special healthcare plans or diet plans – the health industry makes billions of dollars a year; it’s a huge, huge, very aspirational industry. So just think before you spend a lot of money on improving your health. Don’t necessarily spend on expensive gym memberships; just take a 5km run around the block. Don’t spend on expensive diet plans; rather just, when you go grocery shopping, buy healthier foods so that there’s no unhealthy food in your cupboard. Like those simple things don’t cost anything and instead of spending these thousands, put that into your investments and save and invest for the future.

Judith Ndaba 19:29
Sorry, Di. Also on that actually, in our healthcare data during the lockdown period, we analysed how our members were exercising, and we expected it to be a huge drop-off once the first lockdown kicked in. And we found that initially, in the first one or two weeks, there was a bit of a dropdown.

But we found that since then, people have actually rebounded more than they were exercising before the first lockdown. But what they’re doing is really interesting: they aren’t going back to the gyms. They aren’t spending the money going through fitness clubs, etc. They’re exercising more, but they’re doing it in more creative ways, which I’ve found really encouraging. I think people are becoming much more creative: they’re exercising at home; they’re having more free or cheaper ways of being healthy; they’re walking further; they’re running further, but they’re doing it without spending. So I think it really is quite interesting how it seems that people are in a healthier space now than they were when they were commuting to work daily. It really is quite encouraging how it doesn’t have to cost you, because they aren’t joining the clubs.

Diana Granoux 20:36
That’s so interesting and so inspiring, as you say. It can be done without spending. You can take control of your health without breaking the bank. So definitely that’s, for me, I’m able to do yoga online now and fit it into my schedule, so instead of doing it once a week, I can now do twice a week. So those innovations around really inexpensive ways to get healthier and fitter are really great.

Judith, if our listeners want to find out more about Elevate, where can they go?

Judith Ndaba 21:06
The easiest is to go to elevate.co.za, or you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter, using the handle @ElevateLifeZA.

Diana Granoux 21:17
So thanks so much for your time today on The Family Finance Show. It was such an interesting episode and thanks for coming in, Jude.

Judith Ndaba 21:23
Thanks, Di.

Diana Granoux 21:19
Visit elevate.co.za to get an obligation-free quote in just 30 seconds, or ask your broker about Elevate Life’s market-leading offerings. Elevate Life is an authorised financial service provider, licence number 50555.

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