Decision Fatigue Causes, Risk Factors, and How to Deal with It

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Decision making is truly an inevitable daily act. But when it is done too often, decision fatigue can happen to some people. Just as its name, decision fatigue is simply defined as a condition in which people face difficult situation in deciding after making various decisions. Check out this article to know what condition it is, causes, risk factors, as well as the risk factors you should know.

First, let’s talk about how decision fatigue is defined. This kind of fatigue isn’t that typical physical fatigue that you face on a daily basis. Instead, decision exhaustion is more into a mental condition that may also affect individual’s physical condition.

What is the cause of this condition? Well, one of the main reasons people are facing this problem is that they must deal with making too many decisions each day. How many decisions per day is too many? Everyone has different threshold regarding this matter—hence it cannot be pointed out that a certain number is considered too many.

What about the risk factors of getting this condition? Some of the people’s traits which higher their risk of decision fatigue will be mentioned below:

  • They make too many decisions all day – How many is too many? No one can point it out since different people have different ‘threshold’ of decisions to make.
  • They make lots of stressful decisions – Stress is an inevitable thing to have in our life. However, when someone is required to make too many nerve-wrecking decisions, it will lead them to this condition.
  • They make decisions will give significant impact to other people – One great example of this is a surgeon in duty. What he/she must do will impact the success rate of the surgery. The success rate of the surgery will significantly affect the patient’s life.
  • They make a complex decision – Not only too many decisions which is bad, but too complex decision can also lead to such decision fatigue situation.

What are the Effects of Decision Fatigue?

Well, there can be many things coming as the effects of decision fatigue. One thing that can be underline is that every people have different coping mechanism which will help them to avoid the fatigue. These three can also be called as the potential effects of such decision fatigue examples.

  • Trade-off. This may happen when you are faced to a decision-making process, then you make a decision that you will regret later despite the longer time you take to contemplate.
  • Avoidance in making decision. It is pretty logical. When someone is forced to make too many decisions per day and facing a difficulty in making it due to decision fatigue, then avoidance is what comes next.
  • Impulse buying funnily said but that’s a fact. This may come because of making decisions while shopping in the groceries, bakery, or whatever store it is.

How to Deal with Decision Fatigue

Decision making is surely something that we must do every day. But, when it becomes too much for us, it turns into a detrimental thing for us. So, what to do to combat it?

According to MedicalNewsToday, there are several ways to help you combat this situation, which are removing distractions, making a planning before, and taking breaks. This will help you not only with decision fatigue study, but also decision fatigue while doing other things

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