Over the past few years, I've experienced enough cataclysmic jolts - including grief, financial insecurity, and a few brushes with death for both my firstborn - to significantly rewire the brain I used to consider so resilient and optimistic. And after grappling with insomnia, debilitating headaches and panic attacks, I got a diagnosis of anxiety and PTSD and a treatment plan. I still have bad days and better days, but therapy and Wellbutrin have been life changing. Exercise, support and meditation have also given it all a big boost, along with the ongoing experiment of buying stuff.

I'm a skeptic who spent years rolling her eyes when her friends talked about their homeopathic remedies. But last winter, in the throes of my crisis, I went out with a friend. She is a therapist. She is from Norway. She has a kid with serious depression. Two hours later I was on Amazon, ordering something called a Happy Light.

I talked to my therapist about it, and a few days later, I was eating my breakfast at my desk, feeling like I was at a Yankees night game. Using the light did not feel like basking in the warm, inviting light of the sun. It was instead bright as hell, and I was not immediately charmed. But I kept routinely flipping it on every cold, dark morning regardless, until the sunrise caught up with my alarm.

There's the Dohm white noise machine, which helps blot out both screaming street noise and my spouse's snoring. They say money can't buy happiness, but it can reduce my anxiety.