We all have been known to buy something just for the surge of happiness, guilty as charged. It is most often the case with material possession, rather than spending over comfort food.
However, trouble looms when this splurging is not just once in a blue moon, but your modus operandi. Add to cart button is your favorite, the cha-ching of the payment getting through at the store makes you happy, going to the mall is downright ecstasy for you.
If you can relate to such heightened levels of happiness with shopping, then you need to address this issue. Retail therapy is naturally, not healthy, as it is not addressing the underlying cause. After the high of the purchase, also comes the low, and you cannot keep chasing this feeling.
It is therefore vital that you reflect on your emotional habits. It is also important to realize that you understand if you have become a shopaholic or not. If the answer comes out to be yes, you have problems and yes, you are becoming a shopping addict, you must then try to visit a mental health expert, even if it’s a consultation with an online psychiatrist, as long as you start to address the problem.
Dealing with retail therapy
If you think you are not yet there at the scale of a full-blown shopaholic, you can take steps to reel back, so that you do yourself, and your bank account justice.
Balance your cheque book
A good deterrent for spending money is by looking at your finances. When you realize how much money you have spent, especially if there is only so much money that you make, you might be scared into not making new purchases, at least in the near future.
Channel energies otherwise
The next time you itch to spend your money, you should try to divert your attention elsewhere. Maybe focus on expanding your energy the physical way, by exercising or going for a walk.
Maybe, do something that gives you pleasure otherwise, like reading a good book, or a warm bath.
Or you can also try relaxation techniques like meditation, yoga, breathing exercises. These will help your mind and body in relaxing, so that the stress behind wanting to buy things is addressed.
Deferring tactic
If you often spend money only to regret it later, you should try the deferring tactic.
If you are not able to stop yourself from checking out the websites, just go as far as adding things to the cart. Do not checkout, simply defer the checking out to later. You will then find that if you defer it, you do not follow through with it altogether.
Take it slow
You might not be able to quit cold turkey. So, to take things slow and steady, try to give yourself a spending limit. You are then not only lowering your spend, but are at the same time limiting your dependence on retail therapy yet not depriving yourself of the pleasure of buying.
Understand the why
One way to make sense of your love for shopping is by understanding why you want to do it, as it is not based on needs, but instead, wants.
There might be different reasons why you might want to shop at the moment; you might be having anxiety, you might be feeling stressed out, you might have experienced rude behavior from others.
By this way, understand the pattern of your thinking. Then, rather than diverting your attention from your emotions by shopping, understand the emotions. Validate your feelings. Get some closure.
Seek help
If despite doing everything, you are unable to stop, and you think you are still going into the terrain of compulsive shopping, which is often marked by impulsive purchase, followed by guilt and shame, then you must consider seeking help from a Psychiatrist in Lahore.
