Black Friday Leads To Depression

While stores gear up for the busiest shopping day of the year, consumers should beware that too much spending on Black Friday often leads to an often untalked about syndrome known as Stupid Monday.

Although Stupid Monday is not as highly publicized as the traditional Black Friday, it is celebrated across the nation and throughout the world by psychologists, therapists and pharmaceutical companies as the highest income producing day of the year.

One local therapist in California says the Monday after Thanksgiving is usually the busiest day of the year for her.

"People want to feel good at this time of the year but they often fail to put a limit on their spending because the deals are so good the day after Thanksgiving," she said. "This is especially true of those who shop using credit cards."

She said consumers often don't feel the pain until sometime Sunday when they start tallying up their receipts and realize that they've spent far more than they anticipated.

She added that the guilt of spending beyond ones means leads to an assortment of anxiety producing symptoms including rapid heart beat, excessive sweating and a tourettes-like syndrome of cursing aloud at any given time.

"I tell my clients that they should put cash in their wallets before they hit the stores and when it's gone they should get back in their car and go home," she said. "This does not happen often enough though and that's when my phone starts ringing off the hook Sunday afternoon."