Stressed-Out? Therapy, Exercise, Or Adult-Sized Pacifiers?

Sleep isn’t coming easily these days. Neither is calm. And for thousands of young adults in China, the solution isn’t therapy, exercise, or even melatonin—it’s adult-sized pacifiers. And for a lot of people, that’s enough to click “buy.” According to South China Morning Post, some shops are selling thousands of them every month. Many users claim to understand. Some say it calms their nerves during work. Others claim it helps them sleep. A few even say it’s helped them stop smoking. “I feel comfortable sucking it,” one review reads. “It gives me psychological comfort and makes me not so fidgety.” Psychologists call this the “regression phenomenon”—basically, the idea that when life gets overwhelming, people retreat into something that made them feel safe as kids. The pacifier, in this case, isn’t just an object. It’s a shortcut to comfort, a reminder of a time when you didn’t have meetings, bills, or reasons to wake up at 3 a.m. with stress-induced chest pain. They’re everywhere on Chinese e-commerce platforms like Taobao and JD.com, selling for as little as 10 yuan (about $1.40) or as much as 500 yuan (roughly $70). They’re marketed as sleep aids, stress relievers, even tools to help you quit smoking.

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Source: Vice