Decision Fatigue From a Massage Therapist’s Perspective

Woman with decision fatigue holding one hand to her head and the other in a "stop" gesture

Have you heard of decision fatigue? Since I’ve heard of it, it seems to be around every corner and in some way part of every issue that keeps popping up. Maybe you’ve heard of Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or some other high-profile individual wearing the same thing every day. Or maybe you’ve heard of capsule wardrobes or people who eat the same foods every day because it’s what works for them. All these odd habits are actually steps to combat decision fatigue.

The first time I became aware of decision fatigue was in January of 2019. I was in San Antonio, TX, for a Center for Barefoot Massage Instructor Training. It was very exciting, I was getting trained to teach Fijian Barefoot Massage, I was finally getting to meet almost all of the CBM instructor team, and I had never been to San Antonio or seen the Alamo and good golly, I was there for it! I was also getting a sinus infection.

I hope you can tell that while a lot of good things were happening to me, I was making a ton of decisions while learning in addition being in strange surrounds, and there was a lot of stress. As the training ended, one of our “tour guides” set up a float experience. And in true ‘Sharon knows she’ll have FOMO’ style, I was there for it. A new experience AND something I’d been wanting to try out for years. I tried it, the float was awesome, and while it didn’t cure my sinus infection, I’m pretty sure all that magnesium beat it back enough that I made it home before it got ‘go to the doctor’ bad. I look back now and think I wouldn’t have been allowed on the plane these days with that terrible case of the sniffles.

But goodness was I sick when I got home, and I stayed sick for a good, long time because I had overextended myself and now in addition to trying to get back to work, I was trying to heal and not giving myself the time or grace I needed and I ended up just trudging through a month or so of life not being able to do much of anything except get through it. And for those of you who know, that is not who I am and I expect if you’re still reading this, it’s not you either.

This experience really made me evaluate how I was organizing my life and what was causing a lot of hidden stress on a daily basis.

What is Decision Fatigue?

Decision fatigue is a type of exhaustion that results from making too many decisions within a period of time. How much time? That’s unclear and I think probably depends on the individual. How many decisions are too many? Again, unclear and probably depends on the individual. Here is what research is starting to suss out though, when a person makes an excessive number of decisions (~35,000/day is “normal”), their ability to make further decisions becomes impaired. Impaired could look like procrastination, putting off making a decision, impulsive or seemingly irrational decisions, avoiding making a decision altogether, or indecision where you just can’t make up your mind.

Apparently, our brains only have the capacity to make so many decisions each day and when you surpass that number of decisions it leads to what is called decision fatigue. Ever get tired of trying to figure out what’s for dinner? Could be decision fatigue. How about what to wear to work? Could be decision fatigue, especially if you’ve waited until bedtime to try to decide on tomorrow’s outfit. Trying to call in a prescription for your medicine, but just can’t dial the number? Could be decision fatigue and low-grade anxiety about the possibility of having to answer even more questions.

Decision fatigue is something that can lead to burnout. I have a theory that the stress of this ongoing global pandemic, changes in family structures, workplace changes, continuing losses of all kinds, and incomplete grieving, has led to an overall heightened sense of stress. More chronic stress leads us closer to burnout and we all know burnout makes even seemingly simple decisions more stressful and difficult. All of this points to decision fatigue for many people.

Why is decision fatigue a problem?

What if you’re a doctor or a lawyer or a meteorologist with a tornado bearing down on your community and it’s really important that you make the right decision? You can see pretty quickly where someone’s life could be at stake and you’re out of bandwidth because you’ve spent the last six hours making decision after decision and there’s no more decisions left in the tank. Most of us aren’t making life or death decisions every day, but most of us do drive somewhere every day. I’m betting money decision fatigue plays into your ability to deal with traffic and the laws. I know it does mine.

Streamline Your Life

So how do we protect ourselves from decision fatigue? The literature doesn’t have succinct answers for that other than to reduce the number of decisions you make daily. Makes sense, but how do you do that when you have so many responsibilities? I’ve put together a few suggestions for you:

Make important decisions first

Stack your day so that the most important things you must handle get done early.

Remove distractions

Turn down the noise, turn off ringers and notifications, give your brain a break from all the distractions while you’re trying to get things done. And when you’re off-duty, be off-duty. Don’t check email or answer the random text message, let calls go to voicemail and check them tomorrow. Figure out the biggest offenders and do what you can to mitigate them.

Take a break

This one is important. If you’re already in burnout and suffering from decision fatigue, then taking a vacation and really getting away from it all might be your best bet. If you can’t do that then it’s time to start scheduling shorter, regular breaks and adding in something that recharges you. Not there yet? Make sure you’re scheduling breaks, moving around in nature, and getting some type of mental enrichment regularly.

Capsule wardrobe

This is the one I was talking about earlier where you wear essentially the same thing every day. I’ve seen people who literally buy 5 of the same outfits and wear them every day to work so they never have to decide what to wear. I’ve read about people who only wear black slacks with a white shirt. The style of the slacks and the shirts can be different, but it’s always white over black. I’ve seen made for you capsule wardrobes where everything goes with everything else. It seems like a pretty versatile option for folks who don’t want to spend a lot of time scratching their head in the closet searching for something to wear while still allowing for individualism.

Leverage technology

Use GPS instead of struggling to figure out where you’re going, use alarms and reminders to free up the constant monitoring of the clock, use an app to make, order, and schedule grocery and supply deliveries/pick-ups. Use automatic bill pay. Leverage all the technology we have access to in order to make your life easier and cut down on constant and unnecessary decisions.

While scientists are still duking it out in the literature over whether decision fatigue actually exists (some think because they can’t figure out how to measure it or its consequences, it must not exist) I’ll be over here figuring out better ways to deal with it. I’ll update here occasionally as I discover ways to automate those niggling decisions of daily living that can easily be done without my attention.