Navigating the seasonal shopping frenzy with an ADHD brain

The holiday season is upon us, and for many neurodivergent people, this means more than just the joy of giving. It’s a time of navigating sensory overload, setting limits, and managing unique needs that everybody else seems to handle effortlessly.

Marketers are paid to maximise the spend of each individual and to lower your wallet’s defences. They have developed clever tactics from cognitive and affective psychology to make it hard to resist those “Order Now” buttons. For those with neurodivergent brains, these tactics can be particularly challenging. Let’s take a look at how marketers hook us in and how we can resist those impulses.

Consumer Psychology

Marketers are experts at using our brains against us. They leverage:

  • Urgency and Scarcity: “Only 27 remaining!”, “Act now before our sale deadline!” “Once we sell out, this deal won’t be coming back!” These limited-time offers and stock runout warnings create a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out), triggering impulsive decisions.
  • Social Comparison: Ads featuring high status or attractive role models and happy families make us compare ourselves to them. This can lead to feelings of inadequacy and trigger a desire to “keep up.”
  • Emotional Appeals: Heartwarming stories and nostalgic imagery tug at our heartstrings, making us buy based on emotions rather than logic.
  • Ease of Access: One-click shopping and fast delivery remove any friction that might give us pause, making it easy to spend without thinking. Research has shown that people are twice as likely to make an impulse buy with a credit card than with cash.

These tactics work powerfully on everyone, but they can be especially potent for neurodivergent brains, which are often more sensitive to impulsivity, emotional appeals, and decision fatigue.

Counter Their Tricks Before You Get to the Counter

It could be handy before you enter the battlefield mall to be forearmed with some tricks of your own to ensure you leave with your self-esteem and your wallet in good shape. Here’s what you can do to counteract each of the strategies named above.

  • Urgency and Scarcity: People behaving like the worst version of themselves during Black Friday sales is nothing new. But you can be the better version of yourself and avoid buyer’s regret by following these 4 steps:
      1. It all starts at home. Before you open that internet browser or even get to the store, make a list of what you’re planning to buy. What’s not on that list? All the things the stores and marketers want to sell you.
      2. When you see an item or an offer that employs urgency or scarcity messages, take note of it and check in with your body. How is your breathing? Your heart rate? Are you feeling a pull to click on the “Buy” button or grab that last item in your size? Just observe those sensations and do nothing else for a while. Then when your body has settled down…
      3. Categorise or label your thoughts: “worry”, “threat”, “self-evaluation”, “fantasy” etc.
      4. Check your list and remind yourself what you came here for.
  • Social Comparison: These tactics often immediately trigger feelings of longing or perhaps shame, accompanied by thoughts of “I wish…” or “I want to be like…” We start with the body again:
      1. What sensations are you having that seem to be the location of those feelings? Heaviness in the chest? Lump in the throat? An urge to curl up or to run away? Notice those feelings and accept them as they are. Recognise that if you stay with them for a few minutes they will pass. If only that worked with credit card debts!
      2. Remind yourself that the thoughts you are having are not the truth, but a response that someone else has triggered in you. It’s as if your mind fills in the blank that the marketer has planted there. Your nervous system finishes the loop with painful reminders of when you somehow didn’t measure up. It’s the same thing that happens inside your mind when I say, “The best things in life are…?” No, the answer is not “only $97, or 3 for $250!”
      3. Put your self-worth into perspective by reminding yourself of what you want to be remembered for. Wore really nice shoes? Or, was a good friend?
  • Emotional Appeals: When you’re exposed to the heartwarming features of these ads it’s like hooking yourself up to a bag of feelgood neurotransmitters – serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin. The latter is the ‘bonding’ hormone – the one that floods the brains of parents of a newborn or all of us when we have a meal with our favourite friends.
      1. Awareness is the first step again. Recognise that the urge to buy this product now, is connected with the hope (that’s the dopamine talking) of getting to feel worthwhile, approved of or loved.
      2. Let’s now do an end run for those states and cut out the middleman (retailer that is). Pursue activities that produce those good feelings. Remind yourself of your intrinsic worth, or ask a friend to. Or try these methods to release oxytocin naturally.
      3. Like eating before you go grocery shopping to avoid overspending, when your emotional needs are met, your shopping becomes a transaction not an addiction.
  • Ease of Access: Ever noticed how is it is to subscribe to a streaming or regular shopping service, but you have to hunt high and low to find the tiny Cancel button? Easy in, hard out. So we want to turn that buying gradient upside dow and make it hard to buy each time.
    1. Don’t save your payment details with online shopping sites. If you have to manually enter them each time, that gives you time to employ the strategies we’ve suggested above.
    2. Before you go bricks-and-mortar shopping, set your budget. Let’s say it’s $250. Go withdraw that amount from an ATM, then take your debit and credit cards home, put them in your underwear drawer (to remind you that money in the bank is sexy) or in your fridge (cold hard cash-equivalent). Now go shopping with your cash. “But Julian, the nearest ATM is at the mall where I’m going to shop. You mean I have to go down there, come back home and go down there again? How frustrating!” Frustrating, eh? I think you’re catching on.

Slowing Down the Consumption Cycle

If you’ve ever regretted an impulse purchase, you’re not alone. Here are some tips to navigate the holiday shopping frenzy:

  1. Identify the Hook: When you feel tempted, ask yourself: What tactic is this ad using? Recognizing the strategy can help you make a more conscious choice.
  2. The 24-Hour Rule: Give yourself a cooling-off period before making a purchase. If you still want it tomorrow, it might be a worthwhile investment.
  3. Real Self vs. Ideal Self: Are you buying something you genuinely need, or is it for the “perfect” version of yourself that ads portray?
  4. Make It Harder: Remove saved payment details or unsubscribe from tempting email lists to create friction and give yourself time to think.

Remember, you’re not alone in this. By understanding the tactics marketers use, we can make more mindful decisions and avoid buyer’s burnout.

Let’s support each other in navigating the holidays in a way that feels good for our unique brains and budgets.