Deepak Chopra warns of disaster unless people address their wellbeing

People need to pay attention to their overall well-being, and if they don’t, the consequences can be dire, according to wellness expert and best-selling author Deepak Chopra.

Total wellness includes goal – or career – social, physical, community and financial factors, he said. For example, community well-being can mean feeling safe and involved in your community, while social well-being can be the quality of the relationships you have with family and friends.

“Unless we tackle these five basins of wellness … we are on the road to a global disaster,” said Chopra, founder of both The Chopra Foundation and Chopra Global. He is also a member of the CNBC Invest in You Financial Wellness Council.

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Financial health is more than just where you stand with your money. When you’re financially stressed, it will raise your cortisol levels and weaken your immune system.

“You have inflammation that goes up, making you more prone to chronic and acute illness, even Covid-19,” he said.

Yet the pandemic is also the cause of financial anxiety for many. Millions of jobs have been lost, wages have been cut and some parents have had to leave the workforce to look after children.

More than 4 in 5 Americans, or 84%, feel stress on their personal finances as a result of the crisis, according to an October survey by the National Endowment for Financial Education.

Another Fidelity study found that 79% of women, who tend to suffer more from financial anxiety than men, suffer from money and stress.

While there may be real reasons to be concerned about money, ultimately financial well-being is a state of mind, said Chopra, whose latest book is “Total Meditation.”

“It doesn’t have to do with the amount of money you have, it has to do with how safe you feel with the money you have,” he explained.

Here are Chopra’s five tips for financial wellness:

1. Don’t spend money you haven’t made to buy things you don’t need, to impress people you don’t like.
2. Put away 10% of your income every month. “I’ve been doing that since 1970 when I was making $ 202 a month.”
3. Find an employer who takes care of their employees and offers benefits such as retirement, disability, and insurance. Collaborate with friends and people you like; otherwise you will not be successful in your career.
4. Don’t ignore your body, mind and emotions. “If you have a healthy body, if you have good emotional relationships, and if you are rested, you will make wise financial decisions.”
5. Make other people successful, which is the best way to be successful yourself. “I discovered in my career that if I could make other people make money, I would make money too.”

Chopra says he strives every day to have a happy, energetic body and a compassionate heart, as well as a clear, reflective, alert and creative mind, and joy and lightness of being.

“If you are whole in your body, in your emotions, in your mind and in your spirit, you can achieve anything, including having a very successful career and making a lot of money,” he said.

REGISTER: Invest in you: done. Set. To grow. will host a free virtual 5k for financial wellness from April 12-19 to promote financial wellness. During their racing experience, users will receive tips for saving, spending and investing, as well as motivational quotes about financial wellbeing from wellness expert and CNBC Financial Wellness Advisory Council member Deepak Chopra. Register here: cnbc.com/virtual5k

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