I was on a long flight recently. On the flight, I decided to watch a documentary about how sugar is addictive and how it is a drug stronger than hard drugs such as cocaine. They were showing how when they gave more sugar to rats in the experiments, the rats got used to the sugar and they needed more and more doses for their brains to show signs of excitement. That got me thinking—does money have the same effect on people?
I mean think about it. When one does not have money, one would get excited about $100. Look at your college days. I remember I used to get excited about a free T-Shirt for filling out credit card forms! As you accumulate more wealth, that excitement does not last anymore. One needs more money to get excited as one makes more money. I am sure at your first job, you were thrilled with a $ 2-an-hour wage increase. If someone offered you that at the peak of your career you will consider that an insult right? What changed? $2 per hour is still $2 per hour. The value of $2 for you changed when you started making more money.
So I started to research this topic for this episode. It turns out there is some interesting research on the topic. One I found most interesting was from the University of Minnesota study in China. They gave a group of students money count and other students just paper to count. After the counting was over, they asked them to put their fingers into a bowl with 122-degree hot water. The group that counted the money before did not find any discomfort in the hot water! This was a similar result to when people had their loved ones next to them when dipping their fingers into hot water. So our brain equates money to love. Go figure…
So if money is a drug, can it be addictive? It sure can. An interesting thing is that there are some obvious signs such as gambling or indulgence in luxury items that you may not be able to afford. But here is something I learned that was unexpected. It turns out that excessive saving habits can be a form of money addiction. It turns out that people who save excessively tend to believe that more money will bring more happiness and they don’t think it is ever enough no matter the size of their savings account.
According to Kabir Sehgal, author of the book Coined, the effect of money on your brain is similar to that of cocaine.
Neuroeconomists—I didn’t know there was such a thing—have performed several brain scans on individuals who were about to make money, and the results were staggering, says Sehgal. The studies show that these people had the same neurological response to making money in their “pleasure centers” as someone high on cocaine.
Money is a powerful addiction and creates good feelings when you get it and bad feelings when you lose it. Here is the difference between money and hard drugs. Cocaine, heroin, and crack will kill you if you do too much, but not money. Money won’t harm physically you. But it will destroy your mental peace just as any other addiction would.
So how do you make sure you get your mental peace back if you think you may be on money drugs? Of course, the first thing to do is realize that it may be a problem. And that it is unhealthy if you are thinking about money all the time.
After that, it is important to realize that it is our attachment to money that drives our addiction to money. So the easiest thing in my opinion is to try and reduce our attachment. One good way to remove attachment is to start giving away money. Make a habit of giving away 10% of what you make to a good cause. When you begin to give away money, usually you will do it to causes that you feel strongly about and you think are worthy. That creates a state of compassion in our minds. That coupled with the generosity you demonstrate by giving money away reduces the attachment towards money.
Please realize, I am not saying money is bad. I am just saying excessive concern about money is not healthy. And when I look around, it seems that more and more people are giving more and more attention to money than ever before. We need to change that for the mental health of our society.