Impulsive shopping, greed, and regret ... How do you control menstruation habits?

Farida Ahmed

Shopping habits for women in the menstrual period differ from their normal days, as researchers monitored the prevalence of the desire to shop during the fertility period, as well as the prevalence of a tendency to eat more calories in the period before menstruation.

Specialists believe that shopping can be a way for women in that period to deal with the negative emotions caused by hormonal changes, where they feel very tense or depressed and often go to shopping in order to feel happy.

Women at that time prefer to buy clothes and everything that boosts their self-confidence, and jewelry comes next and foods that are high in calories.

Clothes and food
The cravings for calories, shopping, and buying clothes are formed during a woman's ovulation cycle, and the reason for this is not mood swings during the menstrual period, as some believe, but due to hormonal changes that affect consumption habits.

A Concordia University study conducted on 59 participants over 35 days, and published in the journal Consumer Psychology, indicates that during the premenstrual period of fertility there is a marked increase in the behaviors associated with the appearance of women during the fertile phase of the menstrual cycle, i.e. from day 11 to On the 17th of the date of the onset of menstruation, women were more likely to spend more money on looks, clothes, jewelry and all that boosted their self-confidence.

Researcher responsible for the study, Jad Saad, professor of marketing at John Molson School of Business and research officer at Concordia University, explains that women focus more on mating-related activities during the fertile phase of the menstrual cycle, when the probability of pregnancy is higher, and that those same physiological mechanisms drive women Now to engage in increased consumption of femininity-related products during the fertile phase of her cycle, she buys high-heeled clothes and shoes.

At the same time, the pattern of food consumption decreases during this period, and then increases and increases the intake of high-calorie foods a few days before menstruation.

In another study at the University of Hertfordshire, evolutionary psychologist British researcher Keren Payne reported, that women are overwhelmed by a strong desire to shop and spend without account during the last ten days of their menstrual cycle.

She added that they may use shopping as a "socially acceptable" way to deal with the intense feelings that often afflict women with premenstrual syndrome, explaining to the British newspaper "Telegraph" that women feel very tense or depressed and often go shopping for joy and regulate their emotions.

Regret after spending
Remorse is closely related to spending rates during that period, after the hormones subside and the woman returns to normal, realizing the magnitude of what she committed and the remorse.

Dr. Ryan Howell, associate professor of psychology at the University of San Francisco, said through an article in "Psychologytoday," many research has found that when women are in fertility, they become more impulsive in spending compared to other times of the month.

Women in post-fertility menstruation tend to overexpend in ways that they later greatly regret, and the reason is that hormonal changes that occur during the menstrual cycle are most likely responsible for changes in spending, just as they are in a well documented mood associated with menstruation. These changes cause a woman to spend a lot of money on things she may never use and not match her natural taste.

How do you control spending?
Excessive economic behavior among women during this period may feel remorse at a later time, so specialists stress the need to adhere to a number of steps that may contribute to controlling the spending process during the menstrual period:

1- Educating women on the importance of diet, exercise and managing stress to help boost hormonal balance.

2- Female hormone cycles are characterized by natural fluctuations that affect mood, energy and perception, which can be predicted and contained by engaging in work, which allows us to be more efficient and productive and to remain at the height of creative flow.

3- Avoid going to shopping during that period and plan to do something else.

4- Take someone with you while shopping so that they can control your purchasing emotions.