Financial stress increases people's risk of poor mental health. Almost one third of adults (31%) felt anxious in the last month due to their financial situation, according to our survey (November 2023).
Find out more about what you can do to protect your mental, emotional and physical health during the cost-of-living crisis and how you can help support others.
Cost-of-living crisis is still causing widespread mental distress
Almost one third of adults (31%) in the UK felt anxious in the last month due to their financial situation. That’s what our recent poll in November 2023 has told us. It also tells us that more than one quarter (27%) felt stressed and almost one in ten (9%) felt hopeless.
This shows that things haven’t improved since our report in 2022. We’ve been living with the cost-of-living crisis for more than a year, and people continue to struggle with essential living costs and the mental health impact of money worries. This is particularly worrying as we know that if people feel anxious or stressed over a long period of time, it’s more likely they will develop more severe mental health problems.
We need our government to take more action to lessen the financial pressure people are experiencing, to prevent them from developing poor mental health. We also need government to make sure their decisions benefit people’s mental health, especially those most at risk of financial strain.
It's important to keep doing the things that are good for our mental health
Our research has shown that during the cost-of-living crisis people are doing less of the things that are good for our mental health.
These statistics are from our 2023 survey.
Explore our mental health A-Z
Learn more about things that can have an effect on our mental health during the cost-of-living crisis, such as housing, debt, work-life balance, stress and much more.
Explore all our A-Z topics