If you’re feeling especially busy this holiday season, now may be the time to take a moment for yourself and indulge in “self-gifting.”
A new study finds that when consumers are the most stressed, that’s when taking the time to self-gift offers the most benefit.
Self-gifting, or the process of engaging with a product or experience with the primary goal of boosting your emotional well-being, doesn’t have to be overindulgent. It can be drinking tea, listening to music, watching a relaxing YouTube video: anything you can do with a focus on yourself.
“There are so many ads reminding us to take a moment for ourselves, for self-care, but we find that people are least likely to engage in this kind of behavior when they need it most,” says Kelley Gullo Wight, assistant professor of marketing at the Kelley School at Indiana University.
“There’s this moment of self-sabotage. People who feel the most constrained or stressed aren’t taking advantage of these self-gifts. You might think, I’ll be too distracted, or I won’t be able to have a mindful moment to benefit, but our research shows this belief is wrong.
“People are able to benefit and focus even if they’re stressed. In fact, that’s exactly when you need it the most. Taking the time to ‘self-gift’ will lead you to feel less stressed in the long run.”
For the study, published in the , Wight and her coauthors, Jacqueline R. Rifkin, assistant professor at Cornell University, and Keisha M. Cutright, associate professor at Duke University, used behavioral experiments to consider why people wouldn’t take advantage of “self-gifting” experiences, and when it would most benefit them.
They found people who felt pressed for time were least likely to engage in self-gifting, but they were the ones who experienced the most significant boosts in how happy and relaxed they felt afterwards.
For marketers, researchers suggest they encourage consumers to “self-gift” by framing the product or experience as beneficial especially during stressful times.
“This holiday season, if you’re focusing on everyone else, you’ve got people coming into town, and absolutely no time for yourself, take two minutes,” says Wight.
“You may tend to want to wait for self-care until the stressor is over, but our research shows you’ll benefit most by taking a minute for yourself anyways. That’s when you should be looking out for you.”
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