Susan Britton MCCICF Award-Winning Coach Educator, Neuroscience-Informed ICF/SHRM Coach Training, INSEAD Executive Masters in Change, Advocate for Evolutionary Shift from “Red Zone” to “Blue Zone” for Leaders, Coaches & Fellow Humans

Encourage Your Brain: Have You Had Fun Shopping? Science Tells Us Why We Love It

Name: Encourage Your Brain: Have You Had Fun Shopping? Science Tells Us Why We Love It
Uploaded: 2022-12-02T07:00:00+00:00
Duration: 2 min 2 s
Channel: Susan Britton MCC
Description: In this short monologue, Susan Britton MCC reflects on her recent Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping experiences and shares findings from a Journal…

2 Dec 2022 · 2 min

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2:02

In this short monologue, Susan Britton MCC reflects on her recent Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping experiences and shares findings from a Journal of Consumer Psychology study that validates retail therapy. The study showed that shopping can alleviate sadness by restoring a sense of control and by triggering dopamine release, a neurochemical associated with pleasure. Susan explains that this dopamine boost occurs even when people are already happy, especially when they intentionally select gifts that truly satisfy the recipient. She connects this to her daughter, who she describes as an Enneagram Type 1, noting that Type 1 individuals prefer gifts that match their wish lists, making gift‑giving easier and more rewarding for both giver and receiver. Susan expands the idea, suggesting that many people share a “1‑like” tendency to enjoy receiving exactly what they want, and warns that receiving disappointing gifts can lower serotonin and dopamine levels. Concluding with a holiday‑shopping pep talk, she encourages viewers to approach gift‑buying with intention, wisdom, and love, emphasizing that such mindful choices can dose the brain with dopamine and enhance overall happiness during the season.

Chapters

It's Susan, and I've been shopping. We just had Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and I've been looking for an espresso machine, so finally found something that would work. Um, and so I've been thinking about shopping, and I came across a study in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, and it happens to prove that retail therapy is a real thing. So shopping in this study reduced sadness, and they concluded that it was because shopping restored people's sense of control. Which is kind of another way of saying that it, it restores our sense of choice and empowerment. So shopping also doses us with dopamine, so that's that happy neurochemical that literally makes us feel better. But luckily you don't have to feel sad to also get that dopamine high if you have been shopping or want to be shopping. So it comes even when we're already happy, the dopamine dose. We just get happier, and especially when we're intentional about choosing a gift that hits the spot for others. So that reminds me that I have a daughter who is leaning towards a 1 on the Enneagram. And if any of you know the Enneagram and you know 1s, you know that when it comes to receiving gifts, they only want things that are on their wish list. So luckily she shares her wish list with me, and that makes it a lot easier to get winner gifts every time. She's happy, I'm happy, delicious dopamine, everybody's happy. So I kind of wondered if there wasn't a little bit of a 1 tendency in all of us when it comes to receiving gifts, because most of us do enjoy getting things that we want. And there's a whole other neurochemical cascade that happens when we are disappointed over something that we get, you know, lower serotonin and dopamine and all of the other things in our system. So as you enter the holiday shopping season, my wish for you is that your brain chemistry would be dosed with dopamine as you remind yourself of the control you have to choose with an intention, with wisdom, and with love for those on your list.