Decision Fatigue
The average adult makes 35,000 decisions in a day. Many of these decisions are things we don’t actively think about- or rather we don’t deliberate over. We don’t necessarily feel the impact of making all of these decisions. Sometimes though, that changes drastically and the details of those decisions are all brought to the forefront. We deliberate every piece of the decision. We are depleted by the emotional and mental energy it takes to make those decisions.
When that switch happens, you may be suffering from decision fatigue. According to Sara Berg, MS, a senior news writer with the AMA, decision fatigue is defined as “a state of mental overload that can impede a person’s ability to continue making decisions.” It can lead one to feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, anxious, and stressed. Decision fatigue has always existed, but has certainly skyrocketed during the COVID19 pandemic as the criteria for every day decisions changes drastically week by week and month by month.
How can you tell if you’re feeling decision fatigue? Even if you never had the language for it, chances are you have felt decision fatigue at some point during your life. For many people, symptoms of decision fatigue include feeling as though you lack willpower and make impulse choices. You may also feel difficulty making typically simple decisions. You brain raises all decisions-simple and complex, important and mundane, to the highest level of importance and difficulty. You may find yourself procrastinating. Additionally, you may find yourself experiencing decision paralysis and brain fog making it feel impossible to make any more decisions. You may find yourself simply saying “no” or “I don’t care” not because you actually don’t want something or don’t care, but because the effort to weigh the cost and benefit of a given decision-even one seemingly small-is more than your brain can handle at the time.
The impact of decision fatigue can be far reaching. From the results of four separate laboratory studies, researchers found that Making choices led to reduced self-control as defined by having less physical stamina, reduced persistence in the face of failure, more procrastination, and less quality and quantity of arithmetic calculations. In a follow up field study, it was found that reduced self-control was predicted by shoppers' self-reported degree of previous active decision making. Further studies suggested that choosing is more depleting than merely deliberating and forming preferences about options and more depleting than implementing choices made by someone else and that anticipating the choice task as enjoyable can reduce the depleting effect for the first choices but not for many choices (Vohs et all 2008).
Additionally, having insufficient information about the choices at hand may influence people’s susceptibility to decision fatigue. The presence of high levels of stress and general fatigue, also increase the likelihood of experiencing decision fatigue. And, most interestingly, it is suggested that if believe that the choices you make say something about who you are as a person, that can ratchet up the pressure, increasing your chances of being vulnerable to decision fatigue.
Now that you have complete picture of what decision fatigue is and what can lead to it, what can you do to avoid it or get out of it once you’re experiencing decision fatigue?
Check in with yourself How have you been feeling lately? Are you recognizing any of the above symptoms in your day to day life and decision making ability?
Ensure your basic needs are being met. We could repackage this as self-care but I want to be very clear here that I’m not necessarily talking about the capitalistic view of self-care. I’m referring to ensuring that you are getting sleep (quality sleep), that you are nourishing your body with food and water, that you have a shelter. We are typically at our best brain-fog wise in the morning. Ensuring that your basic needs are met allows you to create a ritual around when you make heavier decisions.
Put some choices on autopilot. By creating routines, we’re able to reduce the emotional and mental attention we’re giving some decisions in our life. In basic ways, you can do this by meal prepping or creating a capsule wardrobe that removes some of the energy you have to give to every day decisions like what you might eat or what clothing you will wear in a given day.
Seek counsel. This does not have to be professional counsel. Talk to trusted friends or family about choices you’re trying to make and let them help you. When you’re feeling brain fog, they can step in to fill the gap of what your choices even are.
Decision fatigue does not discriminate and many people will experience it at some point in their life. This does not have to be a long standing state of being. If you’re struggling with decision fatigue and are struggling to reset, click the button below and let’s have a conversation.