Does Retail Therapy Help Relieve Stress?

Being a shopaholic means that you are constantly spending money on things you don’t necessarily need. I constantly shop because it is a way to distract myself from dealing with my emotions. People who consider themselves shopaholics are shopaholics because they find a sense of joy/happiness from compulsive shopping. I find joy and happiness in shopping, the best part of shopping is when you aren’t spending your own money. I, unfortunately, don’t have the luxury of spending someone else’s money.  Regardless of the reason why and how you shop, rather it’s online or in-person. Research has shown that shopping, in general, can help decrease stress levels.  Overall, retail therapy does help relieve stress.

The Happy Shopper

The article “Why Retail “Therapy” Makes You Feel Happier” talks about how shopping actually does bring you some sort of happiness. This is because shopping restores a sense of control in your life, and shopping also helps distract you from anxiety. The author states that “Research has shown that making shopping decisions can help reinforce a sense of personal control over our environment. It can also ease feelings of sadness… retail therapy not only makes people happier immediately, but it can also fight lingering sadness…  ” ( 2021). This is relevant to my topic because my research question is “Does Retail Therapy Help Relieve Stress?” I strongly believe that retail therapy is a form of relieving stress, therefore retail therapy can help with decreasing stress levels. The reason that people feel happier when they shop is because of dopamine, which is a type of neurotransmitter in your body. “As Dr. Bea points out, just browsing, scrolling or window shopping (but not buying something) can positively impact your mood. It’s this simple anticipation of the eventual possibility of a reward or treat that releases dopamine — the hormone neurotransmitter in your brain that makes you feel good. Dopamine increases your desire to continue to seek out things that make you feel good (hence retail therapy being a favorite go-to!) “Some think the dopamine is released when you actually get a reward or purchase an item, but it begins before you make a purchase as you’re delighting in all the possibilities,” he says. “It’s about the whole journey.” (2021). This evidence just goes to show that shopping acts like an activator to the dopamine in your brain. The feeling to me can be described as a rush, so think of it as a rush of dopamine. If you are moody and you go shopping or shop online, you automatically become happier.

Shopaholic or Frequent Shopper

Although shopping helps relieve stress, If you aren’t careful it can also become addicting.  Which can become dangerous, because if it gets to a point where you can’t resist the urge to shop, how far will you go?  This irresistible urge can lead to developing a disorder. According to the article, these disorders are  “compulsive buying disorder (CBD), buying-shopping disorder (BSD), and pathological buying.” (2021). These disorders are mostly found in women. This is because women are the ones who tend to turn to shopping when they are stressed. I would say there is nothing wrong with liking to shop frequently as long as you know how to control it. When it comes to developing these conditions it is best to seek professional help, such as, seeing a therapist and/or attending help groups like shopaholics anonymous. You seek help because once you become addicted to shopping it might become really hard to stop.

Learning to control

 In the article, the author also talks about how you can determine if you are a shopaholic. “Pay attention if you feel your spending is out of control. Signs of a shopping compulsion include: • Preoccupation with and difficulty resisting buying unneeded items. • Spending a lot of time doing research on items that may or not be needed. • Financial difficulties because of uncontrolled shopping. •Problems at work, school or home because of spending that’s gotten out of control. Therapy and support groups can help if you think you may have a problem, Dr. Bea says — as well as education.” (Dr Bea, 2021). These are just a few ways you can determine rather you are a shopaholic. But after reading those statements, I came up with some questions of my own. I would suggest you try asking yourself these questions: Do you often find yourself buying items that you don’t need, but you want to buy them because they’re on sale or simply because you can? Are you frequently looking for items to buy just to spend money? Do you often max out your credit cards? Have you ever had trouble paying your credit cards, because you decided to buy a bunch of items that were completely unnecessary?  Have you ever used your company’s (work credit card) credit card to support your shopping addiction? And lastly, have you ever borrowed money from a friend to go shopping and never paid them back? If you have answered yes, to 3 or more of these questions you might be becoming a shopaholic, if you aren’t one already. Dr. Bea has good suggestions on how to go about a shopping addiction, and what not to do. In the article, “Cutting up your credit cards isn’t going to do it. …“If you’re concerned about developing a compulsive shopping behavior, try to convert your goal of control to the excitement of a new, positive behavior — like working out or eating healthy,” Dr. Bea suggests. “You’ll be surprised at how happy you can feel working towards those positive results, too.” (2021). The Bottom line is that although you might feel like you can’t control your shopping behavior, your best bet is to try and seek help from others/professionals. Just like Dr. Bea said you can’t just cut up your credit cards, it won’t solve your problems, especially not now in the 21st century when we have mobile pay/apple pay.

Overall, this article provides my point that retail therapy does relieve stress, because you become happier once you shop. Visiting your favorite store, or any store really could help decrease the levels of stress and anxiety. It’s extremely satisfying to treat yourself, it makes you feel really good. So next time you feel like you are stressed, overwhelmed and/or anxious, go treat yourself by buying that one item you’ve been putting off on. Trust me! You will feel so much better afterwards. 

  Reference 

Team, F. H. (2022, March 7). Why retail “therapy” Makes you feel happier. – Cleveland Clinic. Retrieved May 8, 2022, from https://health.clevelandclinic.org/retail-therapy-shopping-compulsion/amp/ 

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/retail-therapy-shopping-compulsion/amp/ 

https://www.inspiringquotes.us/picture/21243 – image

Reflection 

I don’t feel like this was my best work, and I definitely struggled to write this paper. Due to the fact, that this was my first time ever completing a research paper. The videos we watched helped me get a better understanding of how to write this paper, but I didn’t completely understand how to put it all together into a paper. Picking my subculture wasn’t that hard because I knew what I wanted to write about from the beginning. I am a shopaholic so I knew I wanted to base my research on something similar. The hard part was coming up with a research question and then picking a scholarly article. I ended up with a research question that I thought was too basic “Does Retail Therapy Help Relieve Stress?”, but I didn’t really have time to come up with a new one. One of the course learning outcomes I used was enhancing my strategies for drafting, revising, and editing. My draft was rushed and a last-minute thing, I wouldn’t say it was that bad because I didn’t change anything from my draft to my final. Although my first draft was only 3 paragraphs it was well structured and organized. The second-course learning outcome I used was developing and engaging in collaborative and social aspects of the writing process. Since this was my first time writing a research paper, I struggled with basic things such as knowing how to correctly paraphrase after using evidence. Speaking with my professor and meeting with my partner for peer review really helped me because the feedback they provided helped me get a gist of what I was supposed to be doing for this assignment. The third learning outcome that I used was the practice of using various library resources, online databases, and the internet to locate sources appropriate to my writing project. Which, in this case, is the research paper. Finding the right scholarly article was hard, but I managed to find an article that answered my question the way I wanted it to. The article supported my thesis even though I might have not made my thesis as clear as I should’ve. Reading our thesis out loud in class and having everyone make comments about each other’s thesis helped me a lot as well. The fourth-course learning outcome that I used was negotiating my own writing goals and audience expectations regarding conventions of the genre, medium, and rhetorical situations. Receiving the feedback I got from my peer I realized what was the main point I was trying to get across and I somewhat successfully got that point across in my paper.