Although most people don’t have these sums to spend, buying in a time crunch is something we can all relate to. Whether it’s buying Christmas presents on Christmas eve, eyeing the clock as the sales draw to a close, or picking a purchase a couple of minutes before your train departs, we’ve all felt rushed into making a decision. So what happens when shoppers buy under pressure?

Consumers are more likely to do what the retailer wants. And they want you to spend more money, says retail psychologist Tim Denison. “If you are under time pressure, you are basically looking for cues and shortcuts in the process,” he says. “You’ll be more likely to look at products that the retailer has positioned in places for you to pick out easily.” So when a shopper is looking for a can of beans at the supermarket, they are more likely to pick out the more recognisable brand, the can placed at eye level, or the one with a price promotion, he says.

Sales can also put undue pressure on buyers for two reasons, says Consumer.ology author Philip Graves. Sales usually last for a limited time and products on sale tend to have limited stock. Most shoppers attach greater significance to potential loss – missing out on a bargain – than they do to a reward like having bought something that was needed. The purchaser thinks if they don’t buy the item at that instant they might miss out entirely, Graves explains. So when an item is discounted, consumers focus on the discount as opposed to the actual price of the good, even if the ticket price is still high, says Dr Denison. “You’re thinking ‘this is a bargain’ rather than ‘this costs £100′.”

But sometimes the pressure consumers feel can actually be a good thing, says Graves. An abundance of choices can confuse shoppers because there is too much to consider. “We tell ourselves we like choices, but when we have more choices we get confused,” he says. So an outside factor, like a refrigerator breaking, that forces consumers to make a fast purchase can actually help them reach a decision quickly before they become overwhelmed by the options. But if a shopper hasn’t gone through a rational process because of time constraints or other elements of stress, they may feel guilt or anxiety, referred to as “buyer’s remorse”, explains Dr Denison.

And there is a difference in the way men and women rationalise their shopping behaviour. “Women look for the bargains and pick up something thinking it’s scarce, come home, unpack it and frequently will accept that what they bought is a disappointment,” he says. “For men, whether they feel remorse or not, they are unlikely to declare it.” So what can be done to avoid the pitfalls of buying under pressure?

The old adage “if you are going supermarket shopping, never go on an empty stomach” can apply to any sort of shopping. Going with a plan or a list may help curb unplanned spending and reduce potential feelings of regret, says Dr Denison. For example, if you go to WHSmith looking for a book 10 minutes before the train leaves, spend time browsing books rather than getting seduced by Maltesers, and the other impulse products, which are strategically placed to make you grab them on your way past. These days many shoppers seem to understand this notion.

According to Planet Retail’s research director Natalie Berg, consumers have been buying wisely during the recent austerity. To stretch their budget, shoppers have tightened their purse strings and are generally sticking to lists. But this is bad news for retailers, as impulse buys are often more profitable, she explains. Retailers are scrambling to figure out how to get consumers to spend more again – and not just on their shopping list, but also on unplanned purchases.

Brigitt Hauck, BBC News

For Erik Yehl, an 11-year-old Chicago boy who began stuttering in preschool, the movie’s powerful message is, “I’m not stupid.” It’s a stigma all people who stutter contend with — the notion that because their words sometimes sputter or fail to come out at all, their minds must be somehow mixed up. “People who stutter — their minds are perfectly good, and they’re not deaf, and they don’t need to be told to breathe. They know how to breathe. What they need is to be listened to,” said Susan Hardy, who saw the film with her son Aidan, a 14-year-old Chicago eighth-grader who also stutters.

The film depicts King George VI as a reluctant leader tortured by his stuttering. But with a sense of duty as England confronts a second world war, he musters the courage to seek speech therapy so he can address and calm an anxious nation. The movie and its actors have already won Golden Globes and Oscars.

The focus on George’s relationship with his eccentric speech therapist who insists on treating him as an equal makes the king a sort of everyman for people who stutter. TV commentator Clarence Page, a nationally syndicated Chicago Tribune columnist, said in an interview that the film heroically depicts a condition he has battled most of his 63 years. Like the king, Page had a strong advocate: a coach who helped him as a teen win second-place in a speech contest after a humiliatingly bad performance the previous year. “Every stuttering kid needs optimistic support like that,” Page wrote in a recent column praising the movie.

Jane Fraser, president of the Stuttering Foundation of America, said the movie mirrors her experience growing up with a father who stuttered. Malcolm Fraser formed the advocacy group in 1947 to raise awareness and provide resources for people who stutter. Watching the movie, Jane Fraser said she relived the mortification she used to feel on her father’s behalf.  “The impact for me was just bringing home 64 years of trying to get across to people how devastating this disorder is. Just in one fell swoop, this film really got that across,” she said.

Stuttering affects almost 1 percent of the global population, including 3 million in the United States. It typically begins in early childhood as kids are learning to speak and is more common in boys. About 5 percent of children stutter, but most outgrow it. The condition tends to run in families and genes are thought to be involved in at least some cases.

For Erik Yehl, a fair-haired, soft-spoken boy who loves basketball and video games, the film was sometimes tough to watch, because it hit so close to home. A scene showing George failing miserably while trying to give a speech to a packed stadium was particularly difficult. British actor Colin Firth’s portrayal makes the shame George feels uncomfortably palpable even for non-stutterers. “It was hard to hear the speech because he stuttered and I hate to hear that,” Erik said haltingly. Erik’s stuttering becomes most noticeable when he’s nervous. Curiously, his speech flows fluently when he calls out to teammates while playing basketball or football.

The film reveals another surprising truth — singing often frees stutterers of their problem. And experts say that for some people, stuttering disappears when they speak to infants or animals, imitate a foreign dialect, or perform a role onstage. British actress Emily Blunt has been quoted as saying she chose her career after discovering in a school play that her own stuttering stopped while she was acting.

The scant brain imaging research done on the impediment has suggested that different kinds of brain activity occur when people stutter than when they speak fluently. Scientists aren’t sure why, and also don’t know why different activities induce fluency among some but not all stutterers, said Ehud Yairi, a prominent University of Illinois expert on stuttering. Research published last year identified mutations in three genes that likely contribute to some cases of stuttering. But it’s unclear what function those genes have and much about the condition remains a mystery, Yairi said. A researcher and professor emeritus, Yairi is also a stutterer, who speaks at a measured, slow pace. It used to be thought that stuttering was a psychological problem caused by anxiety or nervousness, and “The King’s Speech” seems to suggest that George’s mistreatment as a child may have contributed to his condition. But experts have largely dismissed that idea, Yairi said.

When children begin to stutter, they’re usually too young to be aware of it and rarely seem anxious about their speech. It’s only as they mature and perceive the negative reactions that they become anxious and ashamed, Yairi said. Scientists also used to believe stuttering developed in some children in reaction to parents reprimanding them if they repeated words or sounds while learning to speak. “We have shown that this is quite likely not the case,” he said.

Speech therapist Stephanie Hirsh, who runs the Center for Communication & Speech Therapy in Highland Park, Ill., says she learned to control her own stuttering by using a singing-like breathing technique to maintain a continuous flow of air while talking. In the film, the speech therapist used a similar method by having King George insert an “ah” sound into a sentence before a treacherous word. Hirsh also offers this advice: Let stutterers know they have all the time they need to express themselves, and that you really want to hear what they have to say. She said her own parents were advised by speech therapists not to talk about her stuttering and not to bring it to her attention. The opposite approach is now favored. That may be why many stutterers have embraced “The Kings Speech,” for bringing stuttering out into the open.

Lindsey Tanner, Associated Press

This year No Smoking Day takes place on the 9th March and there will a variety of events going on across the country to support people who want to make that quit attempt. 

The NHS Stop Smoking Service offers free, friendly and non judgmental advice and support on stopping smoking where you can talk through quitting with a trained advisor or choose to attend fully supported Stop Smoking Groups with likeminded people. In either case, there is plenty of encouragement and useful tips on coping with stress, dealing with those cravings and how to prevent weight gain.

Steven Lucas, who works for NHS Northamptonshire Provider Services, says:

“No Smoking Day provides a fantastic opportunity for would be stop smokers to focus on a particular date to quit, and people are four times more likely to stop smoking with help from their local stop smoking service. It’s a great opportunity to take that first step towards a healthier future.”

Almost a million people in the UK make a quit attempt on No Smoking Day each year, so don’t go it alone, call the NHS today on 0800 022 4 332 or visit www.smokefree.nhs.uk and together we will help you succeed in stopping smoking.

Image provided by: No Smoking Day

“There are many apparent reasons why people engage in activity, such as to earn money, to become famous, or to advance science. In this report, however, we suggest a potentially deeper reason: People dread idleness, yet they need a reason to be busy. Accordingly, we show in two experiments that without a justification, people choose to be idle; that even a specious justification can motivate people to be busy; and that people who are busy are happier than people who are idle. Curiously, this last effect is true even if people are forced to be busy. Our research suggests that many purported goals that people pursue may be merely justifications to keep themselves busy.”

Participants were offered an identical reward (a chocolate candy bar) for either delivering a completed questionnaire to a location that was a 15-minute walk away, or delivering it just outside the room they were in and then waiting 15 minutes. 68% chose to deliver it just outside the room and wait. When the reward was changed to a slightly different chocolate candy bar, 59% chose to walk 15 minutes to deliver the questionnaire (and this held true even though both types of candy bars were rated as equally appealing by all participants).

Afterwards, participants who took the walk rated themselves as feeling significantly happier than those who sat it out. It appears that our first instinct is for idleness, but when given an excuse to be busy (even a meaningless one), we’re liable to act on it and consequently feel happier. But before you go looking for busy work, remember that our evolutionary vestige to conserve energy is tough to overcome. Believe it or not, laziness, in marginal doses, serves a purpose.

David DiSalvo, Neuro Narrative