Normally
I don’t have much of a sweet tooth. But
our apartment was flooded and we had to move out while they redo our
floors.
We had
to put all our stuff in storage, while separating out what we would need for
the next two months. And did I mention
that we have lived in the apartment for 28 years? You accumulate an awful lot of stuff in 28
years.
As a
result, I have been making lots of difficult decisions for months. What to keep, what to toss, what to move to
the rental apartment.
And making
decisions is exhausting. The more you
have to make, the worse it is. The more
choices you have, the worse it is. Do
you have any idea how many 8 x 11 rugs are available on the Internet these
days? The choices are infinite.
At
this point, I am definitely suffering from decision-making fatigue and it shows. I have made bad decisions by focusing on
limited criteria, impulsive decisions that I have regretted immediately and
done nothing when I should have acted. (Tierney,
2011)
But mostly,
I have been eating donuts, cookies and candy.
So I
wasn’t surprised to read that research has shown that when we are stressed it
alters the decision circuits in our brains.
There is more activity in the part of the brain that is linked to
seeking immediate rewards and less in the part that affects long range
planning. (Reynolds, 2015)
But
knowing that doesn’t seem to help much.
Todd Hare,
one of the authors of the study, which was published in Neuron, suggests finding an action path that will improve your
choices, like taking a walk. (Maier, Makwana, Hare, 2015)
I think I’ll give it a try. But I’ll have to be careful not to walk past a candy store. ;-)
I think I’ll give it a try. But I’ll have to be careful not to walk past a candy store. ;-)
Tierney,
J. (2011, August 17) Do You Suffer From
Decision Fatigue? nytimes.com. Retrieved June
5, 2018, from https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/do-you-suffer-from-decision-fatigue.html?_r=0
Reynolds,
G. (2015, August 20) Candy Brain nytimes.com Retrieved June 5, 2018, from
Maier,
S., Makwana, A., Hare, T. (2015, August 5)
Acute Stress Impairs Self-Control in Goal-Directed Choice by Altering
Multiple Functional Connections within the Brain’s Decision Circuits. Neuron Retrieved June 5 2018, from https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(15)00627-3
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