THE stress of battling your way round the shops can be a nightmare so you need to be able to chill out. In fact, I read a survey recently in which almost a quarter of us view shopping at busy times of the year as creating more stress than rush hour traffic, filling in forms or flying.
The shops move things round so you can’t find anything, the crowds slow you down, the queues at the tills frustrate you, everything seems to cost more than you’d planned…stress sound familiar?
Psychologists say the stress of shopping produces what’s called the “flight or fight” state in which the brain releases the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol. Your heart rate goes up, you begin to sweat, you get knots in your stomach, your nerves are so on-edge you snap at the slightest thing.
It’s a survival condition that dates back to caveman (and woman) days. When we’re under stress we either become aggressive or we run away .
I saw a woman in Sainsbury’s the other day who abandoned a whole trolley of food and drink because, as she put it, “I just can’t take any more of this.” Poor love, I think many of us know exactly how she felt.
When we’re under stress we often turn to something for comfort and relief – and it could be food, especially anything high in sugar and fat. Researchers have proved that when you’re hungry and go shopping you buy far too much and end up throwing a lot away. What can we do to calm things down?
If you’re listening to your Slimpod then that should be making you feel more relaxed about your relationship with food. What does the trick for me is a Chillpod. In less than 10 minutes I find it calms me right down and makes the whole world a less daunting place.
The stress just seems to melt away. Aaaah….
