How to break the spiral The most useful thing you can do before making any financial decision in this state is to calm the amygdala first. The most direct way to do that is simpler than it sounds: look at the pictures. Scroll through the holiday photos and remember the laughter, the small moments and the experiences that were the point of the whole thing. Visual memory recall of positive experiences has a measurable calming effect on the amygdala. The threat response softens, cortisol settles and the thinking brain comes back online. Follow that with a physical reset: a stretch, a walk or a few slow breaths. The nervous system responds to physical signals faster than to cognitive ones. You are not bypassing the financial reality; you are simply creating the internal conditions to meet it clearly. Then, and only then, look at the numbers. Separate the one-off summer costs from your regular expenses. Ask what has actually changed and what has not. The September expenses that feel so heavy right now are almost certainly the same ones that felt manageable in June. The numbers have not changed. Your state of mind has. If there is one key takeaway, it is this: our nervous system listens to us. You get to choose how it responds. The steadier you can be right now, the sounder your decisions, financial and otherwise, will be. Explore more of her work at www.priamasson.com @coachingwithpria bahrainthismonth.com | SEPTEMBER 2026 COMMERCE 68 Mindful Money Matters The summer break is over and life is back to its regular beat. But something may feel a bit different, rather like a post-holiday lull that hits so many homes. The excitement you planned for was experienced and the de-stressing achieved, yet something doesn’t quite add up. As you’re settling in, along come the bank statement and credit card bills. Like a slow blow, they shift something inside you. It is not a dramatic reaction but a quiet one, and most people do not even notice it happening. I’d better find a way to earn more; the EMIs are too high. Why do we pay so much in school fees? Look at the children. Is it even justified? It’s already September and there is another break planned for winter, so why are we even thinking about it? Do you really need to renew that membership? Do you even use all the facilities? New uniforms? Why? Do these thoughts sound familiar? Read on. There is a reason these thoughts arrive together, and it is not about discipline or gratitude. It is about neuroscience. What your brain is doing When you come back from a holiday, the expenses become visible and your brain does something predictable but unhelpful. It changes how you view the holiday based on how you feel now, like a filter that colours your view and creates a picture more faithful to your current feelings than to what happened then. The holiday that felt entirely worth it while you were living it starts to look different through the lens of a credit card statement. The good parts fade slightly. The costs become the loudest thing in the room. At the same time, the amygdala, part of your brain’s threat system, wakes up in response to perceived stress. Pria Masson combines over 20 years in finance with a master’s degree in Psychology and Neuroscience of Mental Health from King’s College London. She writes about money, mindset and the patterns that shape financial wellbeing. The Holiday is Over. Bills are due. Let’s catch your brain up Another part of your brain, which is involved in conflict and error detection, tries to resolve the gap between “the holiday was good” and “this number feels uncomfortable”. When both these systems are activated, the body and brain experience anxiety. Stress raises cortisol and suppresses the thinking mind’s ability to make decisions. With all of this, irritability rises, as does the need to belong. This amplifies comparisons with others and with what they appear to have achieved over the holiday. The list of implications is long. But the result is simple: when your brain needs to make sound decisions, relax and simply carry on with life as planned, guilt-activated brain systems suppress that ability within you. What this looks like in practice You snap at an expense that is entirely legitimate and was always part of the plan. You defer something you had decided months ago was worth doing. You start questioning the winter holiday, not because the finances have changed but because everything feels heavier than it should right now. Irritability rises and, with it, comparison. Back in the school or work environment, you see what other families are spending on, signing up for and doing. The amygdala, in threat mode, is hypervigilant to social signals and comparison becomes louder than usual. Some people overcorrect into austerity, cutting things that were always planned and never actually questioned. Others avoid looking at their accounts altogether. Both responses feel like they are about money. They are mostly about cortisol.
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