How I cope with the mental pressure of loans

Prior to taking on student loans for my MBA, I really had never had experience with a sizeable amount of loans. I had a quick run in with credit card debt in my early 20s after I got my first credit card, but that was nothing a couple of months of tightening the belt couldn't fix. My foray into the US system of higher education was what really propelled me into taking out around $75,000 of student loan debt as an international student, which was the biggest amount of debt I had ever had in my entire life.

I didn't know at the time how much this decision would affect me mentally and emotionally. The pressure and stress of having a large amount of loans - not just mine, but my spouse's, too - started affecting other parts of my life. I was distracted at work, losing sleep, often contemplating getting multiple jobs, and feeling guilty about non-necessary purchases that often relieved some of the stress, albeit temporarily.

So I tried a bunch of things to cope with the constant pressure. Here's what worked, and here's what didn't:

1. Creating a budget spreadsheet

First, I created a budget spreadsheet that tracked every single thing down to the last cent. It was amazing and it helped me really understand where my money was going. From there, I could predict what my income and expenses would be for each category, and then determine where I should be cutting down and forecast different scenarios of payoffs for my loans. I recommend this!

The only con was that I got pretty obsessive with the spreadsheet. I would spend hours tweaking it, redoing projections, looking at numbers again, which was not the spreadsheet's fault but just something I fixated on to try to cope.

2. Therapy

I went to therapy for a bit to try and address the obsessiveness I was starting to develop around this issue. The therapist gave some helpful suggestions, such as lessening the amount of times I checked my online spreadsheet in a day or thinking about the worst case scenario that could happen. I felt better ranting to her for a couple of sessions and testing out her suggestions, but eventually stopped seeing her since I started to have to pay co-pays to keep seeing the therapist. Pretty ironic!

3. Mindfulness

Without money to visit the therapist, I then tried to do at-home intervention through mindfulness exercises and meditation. I downloaded a meditation app and whenever I felt anxious, I would open a session and start meditating.

However, a more useful form of mindfulness for me was actually running! Sometimes, the burden caused me to have what felt like panic attacks - constricted and shallow breathing, a tightness in my chest, inability to concentrate. In this case, nothing more than physical activity helped me out and running really made me so physically tired and forced me to change my breathing patterns while focusing on what was happening in real time around me. Highly recommend it, or any other tiring yet easy physical activity for you to do.

4. Deal with it headfirst

This stems from #1, Creating a budget spreadsheet as well. Once I was able to see where my money was going and what I was essentially prioritizing over my loans, I was able to come up with a plan for how to tackle the loans. This coping technique has helped the most because it is so refreshing to see the numbers go down month over month and just view progress over time. Seeing smaller student loan amounts in total also makes the burden feel lighter!

5. Focus on the end goal

I have a section in the spreadsheet specifically for this purpose, to see my progress and project how long it'll take me to reach my student loan goal of $0. Seeing my net worth 0 date creep nearer and nearer definitely makes me feel more empowered.

So what was the most helpful coping mechanism?

Overall, what really helped me was creating my own spreadsheet and budget and planning how to most effectively pay down my debt. When the mental aspect became too much to bear, having mindfulness activities like meditating and running in my back pocket really did wonders for my mental health.

Have you discovered similar or different tactics in your debt journey? Which ones have been most helpful?