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Sales 2020: How to buy wisely
Compulsive shopping
Purchases during the sale period become compulsive when items are purchased repeatedly and constantly
Surely you have been approached for days and days by different means with discounts and promotions that have been warning of the imminent January sales. The idea is to capture your attention, and create the need for what you did not buy when it went on sale, now is the ideal time to do it because it has a considerable reduction in prices. And, without counting on Black Friday a few days before Christmas, there are two sales per year in which more than one person leaves a significant amount of money if they allow themselves to be carried away by the apparently low prices.
No, shopping addiction is not officially recognized as a mental illness, but there are many who suffer from it. This means that, although this expression is often used in informal settings or even in the context of psychotherapy, it would not be used as an officially recognized diagnostic label, since it is not contemplated in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , last updated in 2013 and which is the main tool used in clinical psychology to establish official diagnoses. Currently there is not enough scientific evidence to establish an agreement around the so-called «shopping addiction», So this does not exist as a clearly diagnosable and describable mental disorder. “Discounts affect us psychologically, since the expectations of obtaining a reward (acquiring a desired product for a lower price) motivate the purchase for the short-term pleasure that this gratification generates,” says Candela Molina Gutiérrez, general health psychologist and coordinator of Cepsim Av. De América.
Take care of shopping
There are days when we feel sad or discouraged and we try to alleviate this uneasiness quickly. That is why, without much thought, in search of a comfort, we decide to buy something we don’t need or we indulge in junk food. What has been helpful for a brief moment is a volatile way of “comforting” ourselves.
When we make such a decision, poorly thought out and with short-term personal benefit, our brain functions in a rush: «These behaviors are an excessive reaction as a consequence of a state of mind, of a mismanaged frustration, due to a depressive or euphoric state … an attempt is made to get out of that uncomfortable emotional state by manifesting inappropriate behavior, which does not solve anything and which can generate physical and mental health problems, ”says Vicente Prieto, a psychologist specializing in clinical psychology and director from the clinic of the Álava Reyes Psychology Center.
What’s behind a compulsive shopper
Compulsive purchases respond to a process of addiction, whereby any normal behavior that is pleasant, be it gambling, sex or food, for example, is liable to become addictive when used abnormally. “Shopping becomes compulsive when items are purchased repeatedly and constantly, investing a lot of money that can cause damage to the family or personal economy, “warns psychologist Candela Molina Gutiérrez.