In this world of abundance, simplicity is the key to surviving, managing, and avoiding stress. But how is this possible in the era of mass production and fast fashion? When we go to the center, everywhere, it gives the impression that we constantly need to buy things to be happy, to feel special. But does this constant hunting for items make us happy?
According to a research, household overcrowding not only makes us unhappy, but also negatively affects our physical and mental health over time. Furthermore, the results of the same study showed that changes in housing conditions are associated with an increase in depressive symptoms.
Sensory overload and anxiety
Despite the material abundance, humans’ time and mental capacity is limited. Research shows that humans forget approximately 50% of information within an hour, 75% within a year. Visual memory is inadequate. Busyness is a good thing, however too much busyness may harm human health. Here are key memory statistics regarding the capacity of human brain.
Sensory overload is taking your brain more capacity to process information. It has direct relationship with anxiety. When your brain is overwhelmed, it perceives it as a stressful event and make you feel stressed and panicky. The modern world is full of sensory information, multiple screens, videos, phone calls, WhatsApp messages, emails, calendar alerts and much more. This might deteriorate mental health in the long term. According to a research, signs of sensory overload are anxiety, restlessness, stress, fear, panic, and high levels of excitement.
Burnout
This is a state of emotional, physical and psychological pain. Constant exposure to stress leads to chronic symptoms and drains your energy and motivation. It reduces all your productivity and takes away your motivation. However, is work the only source of burnout?
Although work is the major source of burnout, it can also occur because of social life, such as parenting or care taking. Hard work and long to-do lists can be the blame, however burnout can occur because of helpless that comes from a lack of control and conflict with one’s sense of self. Click for the full list of burnouts.
Typical symptoms of burnout are not being able to enjoy the day, chronic exhaustion, lack of motivation, helplessness, and feeling dull or overwhelmed. For those who are burned out from social roles, they might feel that they do not fulfill their goals well.
The abundance of sources, and the speed and density of information contribute a lot to burnout. Thanks to technology, we can access anyone 7/24 through messaging systems and constantly use the internet to get things done. This is against how the human brain works. Now we feel that there is no beginning or end to things, and too much multitasking complicates our rewarding mechanism. Furthermore, communication is not as accurate as in-person dialogues without mimics. Lack of visual cues makes the communication more open to misunderstanding. Furthermore, new message alerts contribute to a loss of focus and lower productivity.
The stuff you own, owns you
The more you own, the more you need to manage. More management means more task to do, more stress, less time for enjoyment. Learn to be happy with less. Stop the habit of feeling attachment to the objects. Learn to be happy just because of breathing and not because you own something. Here is an informative article over happiness.
Life is full of pressures from society, peers, social media, parents, personal values that are determined from childhood. We are expected to study, find a job, buy a house, get married, have kids, exceed at work and promote regularly. However, isn’t this a lot? Not all of us would be skilled at managing life in this way. Besides, a standardized expectation of a life scheme, would it suit us all?
Bob (a fictional character) is 33 years old, has worked at a well-known company for 15 years, and is divorced. He has a good income, gets regular bonuses from his company in addition to his salary. Although he does not hate his job, he does not find it satisfying. Bob spends his weekends in the city center, goes out with friends, and regularly visits the grand shopping mall nearby. He buys things when they are on sale. Although Bob finds himself not a compulsive buyer, things started to accumulate at home, and Bob started to feel very frustrated. One day, Bob wakes up and realizes that his lifestyle is not meaningful at all, and he is not fulfilled. He decides to change his lifestyle. He quits his 9–5 job, moves to a village 1-hour away from home, buys a small vineyard, and dedicates his life to wine production. Bob is now very happy and fulfilled, very fulfilled and has more free time for his hobbies.
Today, more and more people like Bob decides to quit their 9-to-5 job and follows their passion. They decide to end their slavery to objects and societal pressures and take a step to true happiness.
In order to achieve this, we need to change our mindset. Mortgage, salary, clothes, accumulations—these are all perceived security. As Madonna says, “There is no real security except the one that we create in our heads.” No one knows what tomorrow brings. It does not mean that we save some for bad days in the future, but relying only on our possessions and making them the center of our lives is just slaving ourselves to things that are not even living beings. They might bring unhappiness and depression to our lives.
Here are some strategies to shift your mindset.
Affirmations: You can use affirmations to deal with negative feelings, thoughts or situations. It is an effective method to rewire your brain and change the way you feel about things. Click to learn more about affirmations.
Reward: There are two kinds of motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation comes with rewards, like pursuing a hobby or interest. On the other hand, extrinsic motivation is more associated with external sources like money and reward. Shopping behavior is a form of extrinsic motivation. The more we harvest, the more we gain the concept of pleasure from activities we do, like doing a puzzle, reading a book, cooking a new meal, or watching a movie. The less we encourage behaviors like shopping and the more we reinforce other activities, the more it will bring us peace, happiness and fulfillment.
Monitoring: Monitor your behavior and try to understand when you want to buy new things. Is there a relationship with your mood? Is it when you feel unhappy, happy, or depressed that you go to shopping? When you see something that you want to buy, how do you behave? Next time when you want to buy something, write down your thoughts and feelings.
Experimenting: Experiment your behavior. For instance, put away half of your clothes for a month and see what happens. Does it make a difference in your life? Then pay attention to how many items you need to continue your life. Stop buying something new for 2 months and see what kind of difference it would make in your life.
Making others happy: Maybe you cannot stop buying something. Then maybe just buy gifts for your friends. The same is true for home, are there things that you bought but did not use? Give them to friends as gifts. The pleasure of making someone happy may be more rewarding than compulsive buying.
Positive Consequences: Think about the positive consequences of changing shopping behavior. You will have more time for self, less time trying to find things, less time for laundry, more time for future vacation and more simple life.
To Conclude
In this abundant era, life has become extremely complicated. With the development of technology, we are all surrounded by screen-based devices, and crowd brain day by day. This might create mental health issues since tiredness and chronic stress accumulate. In the end, it might lead to depression. Reducing screen-based devices, simplifying the environment, and changing shopping habits might help to prevent mental health issues.
