With the condition the world is in, and stay-at-home or shelter-in-place orders prevalent, it’s easy to try to self-medicate our anxiety with retail therapy.
Unfortunately, this form of therapy is not only on the expensive side, it can cause relationship issues, space issues, and even completely avoidable stress.
These alternatives are either free or cheap, and can be a great coping skill against anxiety in general – while helping you avoid that expensive form of (less helpful and unecessary) therapy.
Alternatives to Retail Therapy:
- Play outside – although this may not sound comparable to retail therapy (or therapy at all) it’s a great distraction and when you are through you may just want to rest and relax – no shopping needed! You could try frisbee if you have a person (or two) to play with, or if it’s just you gardening, bicycling, or going for a walk/run are also great options.
- Watch a movie – if it’s a rainy day, or otherwise not nice outside, consider “vegging” on the couch for a bit to enjoy a movie or television show. As long as you are careful with the snacks and sugary beverages, and don’t make vegging out a habit, this is a nice occasional activity.
- Crafts – jewelry making, crochet, knitting, sewing … these are all activities that you can see the yield from, and can even produce something of value to make some extra pocket change!
- Reading – although you could listen to an audiobook while doing most of the above activities, sometimes it’s more enjoyable to sit with a physical book and read. There are many book reviews under the “media” tab in the navigation bar, or you could read a book from your never ending to-be-read collection!
P.S.: (The Reason I’ve Been Absent)
Hopefully by now we are back to our regularly scheduled posting, but you deserve an explanation. For a long story (much) shorter, I’ve been absent due to an (unplanned) move and the internet being down. After much cleaning, organizing, and back-and-forth with tech support, we are (hopefully) back up and functioning again.
Christian, wife, “hybrid” mama, I run the site All Behind A Smile to help others like me.
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