The Colors Of A Optimistic World - Logan J. Davisson

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by shopping tours. The role of work in everyday life is often underestimated. It cannot be denied that the profession is essential for the daily structure of many people. If these structures no longer exist, there is a danger that many unemployed people will fall into a hole and from now on opportunities will be sought to fill the day with other activities.

      If an already buying addict is affected by unemployment, the symptoms of buying addiction may worsen. More drastic, however, are the financial consequences of unemployment. Both factors favour each other and lead to a deterioration of the coercive behaviour. Even people who are potentially at risk of becoming shopping addicts should pay particular attention to their buying behaviour in the event of unemployment.

      If a partner dies and children are left behind, many shopping addicts with a bad conscience start buying countless products not only for themselves but also for the children. Not only the emotional gap in oneself is to be closed with it. Such behavior is a desperate attempt to make the family happy again. Here the low self-esteem shows itself again, because without the partner the affected feel a large inability to care for the common children. If this feeling is compensated by an enormous number of material goods, it can no longer be understood as normal mourning behaviour.

      The aforementioned strokes of fate do not necessarily lead to someone slipping into shopping addiction. Ultimately, numerous factors determine whether buying addiction occurs at all. This can be the interplay of a low self-esteem and a possible stroke of fate, but it can also be the interaction of a low self-esteem and a possible stroke of fate in another mental illness. Depending on personality and life management strategies, difficult life situations can also not lead to a psychological imbalance at all and can be mourned and processed to a normal degree. Since behavioural addictions are primarily about learning behaviour, it is recommended that people who are affected by strokes of fate should be mindful of possible addictive substances or behavioural addictions. This includes drugs, alcohol, but also shopping or gambling. If someone in your environment is affected by a stroke of fate, it is advisable to offer help and support.

      Occurrence with other diseases

      In most cases, shopping addiction is linked to other illnesses or other psychological and physical symptoms occur that indicate the presence of another illness. Depression often occurs in parallel with shopping addiction. Anxiety disorders and inner emptiness are also characteristic of people with shopping addiction. Accompanying eating disorders can also occur.

      The accumulation or morbid hoarding of goods can possibly lead to the well-known "Messie syndrome". Studies show that half of all shoppers have Messie syndrome at the same time. Similar to shopping addiction, this syndrome is characterized by reduced self-esteem and psychological imbalance. Nevertheless, not every sales addict necessarily has to be a Messie. Depending on personality and past, a sales addict may tend to give away or throw away his or her purchased products and thus not count as a Messie.

      Inevitably, from a scientific point of view, the question arises at this point whether shopping addiction may only occur as a symptom of other mental disorders and whether it does not exist at all as an independent disease. As already mentioned, buying addiction is obviously associated with an impulse control or obsessive-compulsive disorder. However, it is argued that shopping addiction should be listed as a disease in its own right because, among other things, the neurobiological mechanisms should be clearly distinguished from an obsessive-compulsive disorder and shopping addiction could not yet be clearly assigned to the impulse control disorder.

      The question also arises when shopping addiction is combined with depression, for example, which disease is the result of the other disease. Or to put it another way, what came first? Chicken or egg? However, the answer to this question is only relevant from a scientific point of view. For first aid measures and other treatments, the question of whether addiction to shopping is caused by depression or whether depression is caused by addiction to shopping is not of decisive importance. The treatment in both cases would probably differ only slightly from each other. If the shopping addiction is clearly only a symptom of a borderline disease, for example, and self-injurious behaviour occurs, the treatment should of course be adapted according to the underlying disease.

      Scientists have also observed that shopping addiction is just one of the many addictions that people can have. In some circumstances, shopping addiction can go hand in hand with drug or alcohol addiction, but also with another behavioural addiction such as gambling addiction.

      Hormones as cause

      It is controversial whether an imbalance of serotonin and dopamine is the cause of symptoms in a shopping addiction. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that affects the central nervous system and is better known as happiness hormone. A lack of serotonin can negatively influence the mood and lead to depression. Since shopping addiction can often occur in combination with other mental illnesses such as depressive moods, an unbalanced serotonin-dopamine balance is not uncommon. Therefore, it is not possible to identify this hormonal imbalance as the sole cause of shopping addiction. However, the aim of a behavioural addiction such as shopping addiction is to compensate for an imbalance in hormones that has already arisen or has arisen as a result of the addiction.

      The exact processes that take place in the brain of a shopping addict have not yet been fully clarified. However, studies have shown that, similarly to other addicts, purchasing addicts have fewer receptors in their midbrain to which messenger substances such as dopamine, which trigger feelings of happiness, can dock. The purchase of a certain product triggers the release of dopamine in the brain. The reward system of humans is misshaped with a buying addiction, since the act of purchase alone leads to the distribution of feelings of happiness. In addition, in people with addictions, due to the lack of possible docking sites for these hormones, an increased release of dopamine is necessary to contribute to a satisfying feeling of happiness. Experts describe this chemical process in the brain as "addiction memory". The reward system in the brain is given a central role and it is pointed out that it ultimately does not matter to the brain whether the increased release of dopamine and the associated euphoric effect is related to a substance or to an activity. In the case of buying addiction, psychological dependence is crucial.

      While at the beginning of the addiction to buying the distribution of dopamine still leads to a longer lasting feeling of happiness, with the progression of the addiction to buying this period becomes shorter and shorter. Soon after the purchase, the person concerned falls into a depressive hole and is subject to the assumption that only a purchase will make him happy again. A vicious circle has arisen. The reason for this is that the brain has reduced the body's own release of dopamine to a minimum and has already become accustomed to the increased release of hormones resulting from the purchase. This hormonal process in the brain is responsible for the fact that the longer the affected person is suffering from addiction, the more things have to be bought. Only through this more can the intoxicating or satisfying feeling be experienced again and again.

      This state is comparable with a downward turning spiral. So, the longer you suffer from shopping addiction, the more your brain gets used to the happy hormones. In order to maintain this feeling of happiness, you must therefore consume an ever higher "dose". So, every day, a shopping addict feels the need to buy even more clothes or an even more expensive car in order to trigger the surge of happiness hormones.

      Shopping addiction often occurs similar to a seizure. It is often associated with certain triggers. This can include stress and frustration, among other things. Everyone knows the situation of the so-called "frustration purchase". Trouble in the office or stress with the partner, then gladly on-line or however in the shopping centre a not compellingly needed pair of shoes or a DVD is bought. In principle, such frustration purchases are unproblematic, they are regarded as so-called compensatory actions and have the function of suppressing problems and eliminating frustration for a short time. Such a compensatory action may not sound reasonable at first, but it is a normal mechanism of the human psyche. If a person would immediately deal with every problem or frustration he experiences, the result would be excessive demands. A short-term distraction through frustration buying is therefore socially recognized and tolerated. Boredom

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