The stock market is plummeting, people are losing their jobs, and companies are going bankrupt… The stock market is plummeting, people are losing their jobs, and companies are going bankrupt left and right. But don’t worry. While 91 million Americans individually invested in stocks and 50.3 percent of all households in the United States had some sort of stock ownership, according to the 2005 census, fretting can only make things worse, said Pitt psychology professor Andrew Koffmann. ‘We need to reassess our relationship with money,’ said Koffmann. ‘It’s important not to panic,’ said Koffmann, who also directs the School of Arts and Sciences’ Clinical Psychology Center. ‘People can find themselves feeling anxious for many reasons right now.’ In addition to making the economic situation worse, getting too upset about it could be damaging to one’s health, he said. According to Koffmann, citizens should avoid letting anxious feelings take over their lives and instead become more educated on what is truly going on in the economy. ‘For students, this is an opportunity to get back to the fundamentals of money management,’ he said. Koffman said that the crisis shouldn’t give anyone an excuse to neglect regular habits and routines. Good habits should continue, such as healthy eating, exercising and sleeping regularly. He also warned Americans not to eat or drink in excess because of economic-related reservations. Nervous Americans may be enticed to use other stimulants to feel better, such as drugs or tobacco. Nervous habits like these are detrimental and might lead to bigger health problems in the future, said Koffmann. Pitt marketing and finance major Chad Jaggard said that people can look to the past for a solution. ‘The only way to get out of this is to spend money,’ he said. ‘I’m worried about the economy in some aspects, but it should work itself out. It has in the past, and it will in the future.’ Jaggard said he hasn’t changed his spending habits since the economic issues started and hasn’t taken too much time to worry about them. Though the economy’s problems seem inescapable, he said, he feels it’s easier to forget about the crisis while he’s at school. ‘It’s sort of like being in a college bubble,’ he said. Jaggard said the economic crisis will get worse if Americans continue to spend less because they’re apprehensive, instead of taking his advice to continue spending steadily. He added that he directly lost from the recent stock markets crisis. His family had money for college saved in stocks and lost some of it because of the recent economic situation. Though unhappy with this loss, Jaggard said he has begun looking for ways to gain the money back and believes the economy will get better. Joe Mama’s manager Kevin Segal shared Jaggard’s optimism and said he hopes that his restaurant will be able to avoid any losses. ‘We haven’t noticed any slow-downs of business yet,’ he said. Segal said he was worried that the stock market might soon begin to affect businesses in the area. He added that he believes that Joe Mama’s has always been good about promoting new business and hopes that this will help even if the economy does not recover quickly. Joe Mama’s is part of a company whose flagship restaurant, Uncle Sam’s, has been around since 1971. ‘We have weathered storms before and we will have to in the future,’ said Segal.