New Year and friends' birthdays, all kinds of holidays, meetings-seeing-off - all this is an excuse ... to look into the store. And another day of salary (how, for a month, have you been tormented - and not to please yourself?) And special, memorable dates in the calendar of two lovers. Assigned appointments and interviews. They are united by one thing - they all can cause an active, but exhausting shopping trip.
When the credit cards are empty, and only a couple of coupons are in the purse, one wonders in your head the question: is shopping a dependency or a means of stress? What do we do more - calming the nerves or aggravating the dependence on "this nice little thing, I will not pass into life"?
Many people do not notice how buying very necessary things in the household turns into collecting small things. Beautiful (and quite cheap!) Statuettes have an unpleasant property to assemble into huge collections. A cream, bought at sales - do not bring benefits, but harm after the expiration date. How to determine whether shopping was caused by an already formed dependence or was still quite an adequate means of stress?
Useful and unpleasant acquisitions
Unequivocally, dependencies are things that duplicate or overlap with others in functions.
For example, it is not considered a luxury to purchase a second cream (even a night cream) when changing seasons. It's not a secret that the condition of the skin directly depends on how attentive we are to its needs. In winter, to nourish and moisturize, and in the summer - to dry the fatty skin - this is normal. But if the funds are two or three or even five, and there is no use for them, this is definitely a waste of money and an attempt to damp the stress by shopping, and hence dependence.
Shopping for loved ones and not only - a greater likelihood of buying, and not caring for other people.
To say unequivocally that it is not necessary to buy other people means to describe an infinitely lonely person. All of us periodically have to buy something from others - from a sweater to a beloved man to a symbolic gift to a colleague.
But the number of purchases "for others", ostensibly in their interests should be reduced to a minimum. In extreme cases, you can allow "please" another person or take care of him, if it's a child. And even in this from an early age, try to accustom the child to an independent choice. At the same time - yourself to the fact that your spending is not connected with other people, so as not to be tempted to shift responsibility for shopping.
Shopping for a home for the family - a bottomless bowl for a shopaholic
"General" shopping - a great way not only to enjoy shopping, but also to show a shopaholism. Monthly housewives buy washing powders and detergents, tablecloths and coasters under the hot - a lot of everything.
Alas, not uncommon and such a disguise of shopping-dependence or means of stress. Moreover, advertising further convinces us: here, the old grater is no good, we need a newfangled one!
It is not difficult to cope with this either. Imagine the thing that you sincerely want to buy "for the home, for the family." Think about how often you will use it. How to deal with it? Will it have to be washed every time after use?
Of course, shopping is a dependency when it is used with an enviable regularity as the only worthy remedy for stress. But quite often things are really needed. Therefore spend the sums on the newfangled "gadgets" only after you prove to yourself the frequent use and the undoubted value of the thing. Buy it with a pure heart and use it for many years.
So you will stop every time to doubt whether you are making an ill-considered purchase in favor of an inner shopaholic. By the way, the same recipe concerns the updates of the women's wardrobe.
How to deal with stress?
So, you already understood that shopping as a dependency or a means of stress is a dead-end way. Since this is undoubtedly not the best tool has its drawbacks. The main one is that no shopping can help.
On the topic of treatment from the mania of shopping, hundreds of articles have already been written. But the main thing always remains one. If your credit card does not withstand the fierce pressure of the desire to "buy more and that's it," and the calming of buying is short-lived - it's time to find other, less painful and more effective means of stress.
If the shopping mania has moved to the next stage and has become independent, it does not arise from stress, but by itself (and then the stress is thought up to justify itself) is still more serious. And it is necessary to start with the fact that unwind this part of a complex, contradictory coil of motivation.
So, before you go to the store, answer yourself to the question:
- Do you want to buy because you need a thing?
- Because you feel bad, sad, sad?
- Or just because you want to buy?
For the latter case it is worth separately allocating a small amount to easily control their lovely female whims.