Rent or buy? Prioritise career or mental health? Stay in or go out? For many, this week will have already been full of big decisions – on top of the countless other choices we have to make every single day, from the mundane to the life-changing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Whilst on their own they may all seem like straight-forward enough decisions, research shows that with every choice we make, our ability to make good ones slowly deteriorates.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And technology is only adding to the burden, says Dr Kim Chronister, a licensed clinical psychologist, with every email, slack notification and WhatsApp message eating into our emotional bandwidth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dr Chronister argues that thousands of Britons are suffering from something called decision fatigue – where their ability to make rational choices is affected by too many options.<\/p>\n
‘In modern environments filled with notifications, thousands of choices, and constant demands for responsiveness, the brain is forced into a state of continuous evaluation,’ she says.<\/p>\n
‘Research shows that as mental resources decline, people become more impulsive, more avoidant and more emotionally reactive.<\/p>\n
‘This is why even very intelligent and capable individuals can make poor choices later in the day that they may regret in the morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘The solution is not simply better discipline, but better structure.<\/p>\n
‘Timing, environment, and cognitive load are all ingredients to the solution for better decision making.’<\/p>\n
However, Dr Chronister argues there are steps Britons can take to counteract their decision fatigue.<\/p>\n
![\"Research](\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2026\/04\/17\/19\/107977303-15735927-image-a-2_1776450580748.jpg\")
<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\nResearch shows that decision-making draws from a limited pool of mental energy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
What is decision fatigue?<\/h2>\n
Decision fatigue is a psychological phenomenon in which people revert to a default position because they are too mentally drained to weigh up a situation effectively.<\/p>\n
At the centre of this is the prefrontal cortex – the part of the brain responsible for judgement, impulse control and forward planning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When constantly bombarded with information, it simply doesn’t work as well Dr Chronnister says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘As decision load increases, the quality of decisions declines,’ she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘In modern environments flooded with notifications, microdecisions and constant context switching, the brain becomes fatigued and functionally compromised, leading to burnout and multiple poorly regulated decisions.’\u00a0<\/p>\n
The rule of three that could turn your mornings around\u00a0<\/h2>\n
Like a lot of things, Dr Chronister says the ability to make good decisions comes from practice – and creating a morning routine that eliminates as much unnecessary choice as possible is a good place to start.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This can be as simple as having the same thing for breakfast each morning, always wearing all black on a Tuesday or a non-negotiable hour of down-time when you get home from work, she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Limit](\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2026\/04\/17\/19\/64619681-15735927-Some_people_beat_themselves_up_for_taking_hours_to_reach_a_decis-a-1_1776451966121.jpg\")
<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\nLimit yourself to three meaningful decision every morning, says Dr\u00a0Dr Kim Chronister<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
This will free up space and time in the morning to make more meaningful decisions – when your brain is at its peak performance, thanks to a natural spike in cortisol.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
During this window – within the first few hours of waking – Dr Chronister suggests limiting yourself to three meaningful decisions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This routine should help you bypass what she calls ‘cognitive fragmentation’ – whereby every decision becomes difficult because your attention is torn between too many competing factors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘This is also where decision hygiene becomes important,’ she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘Automating low-stake choices like meals and what you will wear during the day helps preserve mental bandwidth for decisions that will really impact your life.’<\/p>\n
Why you should avoid big decisions after 4pm\u00a0<\/h2>\n
Equally important, Dr Chronister says, is knowing when not to make big decisions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And there’s studies to back the phenomenon up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Analysis by Cambridge University found that bank loan applications processed later in the day are less likely to be approved because of decision fatigue on the part of bank workers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Psychologists studied the decisions of 30 credit officers faced with 26,501 loan applications at a major bank over the course of a month.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They found that officers tended to reject nearly 40 per cent of applicants – suggesting the safest option was to decline an application, so that became the default when workers were fatigued.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘Credit officers were more willing to make the difficult decision of granting a customer more lenient loan repayment terms in the morning, but by midday they showed decision fatigue and were less likely to agree to a loan restructuring request,’ Professor Simone Schnall, the study’s lead author explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They said that this was likely because decisions on loan requests are cognitively demanding, with errors being costly to the bank,\u00a0<\/p>\n
The team concluded that avoiding long stints of intense work – where decisions are constantly being made.- and allowing regular breaks could reduce decision fatigue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘Even decisions we might assume are very objective are influenced by psychological factors,’ they concluded.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And that why, according to Dr Chronister, it’s best to avoid making decisions you might regret in the evening, when you’re more likely to abandon long-term goals in favour of immediate relief.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The simple habits that protect your brain power\u00a0<\/h2>\n
\u00a0‘Ultimately, better decision making is not about effort alone, but energy, impulse control and emotional regulation,’ the psychologist says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To help reset your nervous system, Dr Chronister suggests journaling in the evenings to help reduce rumination and improve clarity.<\/p>\n
Sauna use has also been shown to help lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol, helping shift the nervous system out of fight-or-flight and into rest and restore, helping us make more deliberate, well-thought out decisions that align with our goals.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rent or buy? Prioritise career or mental health? Stay in or go out? For many, this week will have already been full of big decisions – on top of the countless other choices we have to make every single day, from the mundane to the life-changing.\u00a0 Whilst on their own they may all seem like<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[520],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hot"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}