states are starting to ease pandemic restrictions but
regardless of any state requirements, people still have
to make constant pandemic related decisions and it's
exhausting. So we want to go in depth on this topic. My
guest tonight is very familiar with the strain all
these decisions can cause because she has written about
it, jenny Gold is a senior correspondent with Kai
Health news, jenny thanks so much for coming on. Thanks
for having me. Yeah and of course you know there's a
lot of stories we do that. Some people don't relate
the topic but I'm pretty sure that so many people
relate to this topic. So the pandemic has forced us to
make a lot of difficult choices. Talk about some of the
decisions that people have been constantly forced to
make. Oh my gosh The stakes of the decisions during
pandemic has just been so much higher things that we
took for granted or that we never thought about before
that just felt routine. Now have this weight of life or
death to them things like can I see my elderly
relatives, can I visit my frien Do I have to wear a
mask. Can I send my kid to daycare All of these
decisions just pile on us one after one all day every
day and we're making them in an environment of
constantly changing information Making everything just
feel even more confusing and even more stressful. Yeah
the big one for me is should I eat, go out to eat
inside trying to decide ah if that is safe or not. Well
you spoke with psychologist, you spoke with
psychologist Barry Schwartz about decision fatigue. So
talk about that. How has the pandemic affected our
ability to make decisions The idea of decision fatigue
is basically, you know, as americans, we think more
choice is always better. But it turns out based on
research that the more options you give somebody, the
more choices they have, Well, it doesn't actually
necessarily make them happier at the end. Once they
make that decision, In fact, you know, it turns out
that if you have too many options, it can be paralyz
and when you do finally make that decision, well, you
might not be as happy with it in the end because you're
still thinking about the things you can't, you know,
you might have had, but you're not going to have
because you didn't pick them. There's just too many
options. And the pandemic has just exacerbated this so
much. I mean, it's just, we're in a totally different
world now and you know, for for, for folks that can
really fray their minds. If there's a lot of pressure
on people, it becomes exhausting, it can really
contribute to anxiety and even potentially depression
Yeah, because I wanted to ask this decision fatigue
very likely affects our mental health. There are so
many reasons why americans. Mental health is suffering
right now. It's hard to put the blame on any one thing
were also much more isolated for example than we used
to be, but it's hard to imagine that all of these life
or death decisions that we are constantly making hasn't
haven't also had an effect on us. And if one of our
viewers is struggling with decision fatigue or burnout,
I'm sure a lot are what what do you recommend they do,
Who can help, what can help So I talked to dr George
and I asked him that very question because I am feel
that and I wanted to know for myself and here is the
advice that he offered. He said first of all try to
make some set rules for yourself. They don't have to be
the best, the best choice is the best rules you can
make. But it might be something like I'm not going to
eat indoors, you then take a decision completely off
the table or anytime someone asks you if you want to
eat indoors, you don't have to think about it. You have
an answer. You might miss out on some fun opportunities.
That's kind of the downside. But on the upside you save
yourself some of these decisions. Um The other thing
that you know, he he suggested to me was that you sort
of change the way you think about your choices instea
of asking yourself what is the best thing I can do,
what is the best choice I can make in this situation,
you kind of subtly shift that and you say what is a
good enough thing I can do. You remove some of that
pressure and you just ask yourself, you know, what can
I live with And it takes some of the pressure off. And
you know, again, it doesn't mean you're always going to
make the best decision or that you'll know whether you
made the best decision or not, but at least you might
feel a little bit better. Uh well, when you were just
giving that answer, I started to feel a little bit
better. So, very good advice. Very good advice. Just
yeah, stick with the plan and try not to waver too much
because that's, that's just makes it worse. We really,
really appreciate your reportin and your work on this
topic, jenny gold for us. Thanks for being here, jenny.
Thanks for having me.