Decision Making
It’s easy to get stuck when making decisions. Whether the challenge is with small daily choices or the big ones (work, career, relationships) we can still get tripped up. Making decisions can feel difficult for a variety of reasons including decision fatigue, past experiences, the perceived risk of a situation, or the state of our mental health. Sometimes those of us with anxiety can find decision-making even more overwhelming. Interestingly, there is science behind this with how areas in the brain interact with one another.
When you have feelings of anxiety, the connection between your brain and the pre-frontal cortex — the part of the brain responsible for decision-making — may be weakened. Additionally, anxiety can impact memory. When you’re anxious and stressed, the hippocampus — the part of the brain responsible for memory — shrinks, making it difficult to hold on to memories. However, your brain might hold on to the memories associated with a stressful event. So, when you’re facing a similar situation, you will most likely only be able to remember the feelings of anxiety, fear, and stress.
When you’re experiencing feelings of anxiety, hormones like adrenaline and cortisol increase, prompting your brain to prepare for fight, flight, or freeze response. This can lead to physical symptoms of anxiety such as rapid heart rate, increased breathing, and muscle tension.
This is a great time to work on regulating your nervous system. Employ some exercises you know can help, like breathing (https://www.verywellhealth.com/breathing-exercises-for-anxiety-5088091), or grounding (https://www.healthline.com/health/grounding-techniques#physical-techniques). If you can work on your decision-making from a place of less stress and anxiety, and more regulation and calm, you’re more likely to be successful in this process.
Here are some tips for decision-making:
Ask yourself if the decision takes you toward or away from your goal
Talk with friends and loved ones who you trust to gain another opinion or perspective
Sleep on it (if you can) to ensure you’re well-rested and not rushed
Create a checklist that the decision must meet based on your needs and goals
Reframe your decision from loss-oriented to gain-oriented
Express your emotions in a journal during your process
Set a reasonable deadline for yourself to make the decision
Create a positive plan for the alternatives
It can be helpful to make a pros and cons list. However, sometimes there are items on that list that have more weight for you than others so this process can sometimes feel like it isn’t capturing the full picture. Perhaps adding a degree of positive or negative value to these items can be effective.
For example: “I am trying to decide whether to sign up for online dating again. A pro is meeting someone great and maybe that has a positive value of +3 for me on a scale of 0-5. However, a con is that my previous online dating experience was not enjoyable or successful and that has a negative value of -4 for me.”
This process and looking at my value-assigned pros and cons list might help me wade through some of the uncertainty.
My decision: “I will try online dating again, but I’m not ready to quite yet, so I allow myself to revisit this decision in a month. I did it!”
Remember, you’ve got this! There are people out there who would be happy to help you make decisions, including your therapist. If you are on a search for a therapist, give Advanced Counseling Bozeman a call today to see if we could be the right fit for you.
Rachel Brown, MSW, SWLC
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