How to go shopping without being exhausted?
Supermarkets are giving me anxiety. All the sounds, neon light, the music, one billion yoghurts and the people. Standing in line at the cashier, feeling all the energies of all these people around. What helps you most for a shopping experience, where you function properly afterwards and don’t need two hours of resting?
Home delivery by grocery stores, supermarkets, and other shops is a game-changer for me. I can choose in calm, and get it delivered at a preferred time to my home. No stress, only dealing with the selection, waiting time, and delivery person.
Use Google Maps to check for the days per week and hours per day that have the lowest numbers of visitors. It’s usually shown as a graph in their app or on their website.
Some supermarkets offer “calm hours”, some are officially made for Autistic people. Autism often comes with high sensitivity to lights and sounds. This can be used for us HSPs as well.
Your supermarkets don’t do that? Show them some examples from other cities or countries. The branch manager might take into consideration trying it once or twice, to see if it has a positive effect on revenue and customer happiness.