Well, for most women and especially women – it’s what you’d often hear them say “retail therapy“. Does it really work you might ask? Actually, the answer is YES and NO.

YES – it does make you feel good when you see something nice or a pair of shoes you had always wanted. The adrenalin rush begins at the time when you pick the shoes up from the rack and pass them on to the salesperson, telling him your shoe size.  Then, it continues when you try on the shoes in your size and when it fits, the rush gets to a heigtened level when you tell the salesperson “I’ll take these..” — with a smile I might add. Then, the rush sort of calms down when you start paying for the shoes at the counter. It hasn’t completely left you yet but it’s now not at peak level.

You go home, try on your shoes. Feeling satisfied, you start thinking of the occasion when you’d be wearing the shoes and imagining how you’d look. You take the pair out for one last try before you stuff them back into the box waiting for that ocassion. Yeah, you are happy. You serve the internet and possibly a round of more shopping – online shopping

NO – the next day, you look around you and everything is the same. You think about the new pair of shoes you had bought but you can’t wear them yet cos the occasion hadn’t arrived. Everything is now a downhill spiral; your life is the same. If you are working, you are at the same desk, staring at the same computer looking at the same paperwork you couldn’t figure out last night and which you ditched to go shopping with the intention to clear your mind. Now that you have done your shopping, you have bought that pair of shoes, your mind is definitely clear but why do you still feel like you need another round of therapy?

The answer is simply – retail therapy doesn’t always work. In fact, it doesn’t at all.It’s only a temporary high.

So, what do you do now. You are as depressed as you were yesterday evening. There could be another solution – online shopping. It’s not the solution but well, when you are an addict, it fills the gap!

Disclaimer : The last sentence was intended for some humor. Author’s stand is and will always be shopping doesn’t cure anything, it kills. It’s always better to have self-control and self-discipline rather than “shop till you drop”.