It’s a Thursday evening, you’re on your way home from a later than usual work day. You’re exhausted, hungry and the next episode of your favourite series is waiting restlessly on the app. You remember that you haven’t prepared dinner, “UGHHH!” You try to think through a plan and an immediate solution miraculously presents itself as a large yellow ‘M’ on a pole. As you pull up at the fast food drive through, the promise you made yourself to try reduce your fast food intake is a distant memory.
If you’re anything like me, this scenario is not uncommon. You could substitute some of the words and it would be like I was in the car with you. This fairly common experience may be as a result of decision fatigue.
What is decision fatigue:
First things first, decision fatigue is not a diagnosis it’s a psychological phenomenon. Decision fatigue is the exhaustion developed around making decisions because of continuous decision making (aka being an adult) and can lead to a decline and alterations in your decision making.
Why does it happen?:
Decision making requires multiple complicated cognitive processes, including reasoning, judgement, planning etc. These are cognitive processes that require energy exertion (often unconsciously). Like any other exertion of energy, if there isn’t enough rest or recovery it can lead to being over exerted and fatigued.
In addition, since we are wholly human our decisions are not made in a cognitive vacuum, our decisions are often emotionally influenced. Therefore, there is also emotional exertion in decision making. This happens because decisions may have judgments attached to them, for example food decisions for some people are loaded and layered and make the decision more emotionally charged. Additionally, there may be uncertainty around the impact of the decision. Like the decision to leave a job, take on a new role at work or change a module at varsity. The uncertainty around the impact of the decision on yourself and people around you can leave you with a bunch of feelings.
Signs of decision fatigue:
Physiological symptoms
You may feel tired and lethargic, and have brain fog.
Feeling emotionally overwhelmed
Decisions that would generally feel manageable and doable become mentally and emotionally overwhelming when you are experiencing decision fatigue. This feeling of overwhelm could present as being more irritable, lower frustration tolerance and feeling more emotionally vulnerable. This will likely impact the way you engage with tasks.
Impulsive decision making
The ability to think through decisions is impacted once we are fatigued and we are more likely to make impulsive decisions at this point. This looks like making decisions you wouldn’t usually make and making impulse purchases.
Increased rigidity
Due to increased exhaustion you may feel you have no capacity for any more decisions or tasks and become more rigid in your responses. Immediately saying no, opting for low-risk options or refusing to consider anything that requires assessment.
Procrastination
Putting off decisions in order to avoid having to deal with them.
With more access and options comes a necessity for more decision making. Whether we’re fully attuned to it or not we’re constantly making decisions, and so it’s important we understand how to cope with this demand. Part 2 will discuss the ways we can work towards mitigating decision fatigue.
Soft Landings 