Decision Fatigue

This article was shared with me by a friend of mine a little while back, and I've been wanting to share it with all you folks in ADD-land ever since. It's from the New York Times and it details an interesting phenomenon that the author dubs "decision fatigue."

Basically, the idea is this: the more decisions you have to make in a day, the more your mental energy gets sapped and, as a result, the harder it gets to make those decisions well.

Not exactly rocket science, is it? Anyone with ADD understands the problems of limited mental energy, but this article makes a solid statistical, anecdotal and scientific case for decision fatigue being a lot more than some vague, quasi-imaginary concept. Mental energy is real energy, connected with one's metabolism, which is why you can restore it by snacking

Here's the kicker for folks like us: mental energy gets sapped at much higher rates whenever the decisions you're making require forcing yourself to do things that go against your impulses - and after all, what is any task, on a mental level, but a series of intricate decisions?  Now, let's just couple that with certain facts about ADD neurology...namely, the fact that we are naturally more impulsive and driven by impulse because the mechanisms in our brains meant to control impulses are underactive.

What it comes down to, in the end, is this: if you have ADD, mental energy is a precious resource. You have to ration it out carefully in the course of a day and learn ways to replenish it as you go.

I think I'd like to do a series of personal experiments along the lines of learning to minimize decision fatigue. I'll confess that at the moment, I'm still feeling pretty high-on-life from the new medication and that's caused me to neglect a lot of my usual regimen of natural coping methods, but now's as good a time as any to get back into the swing of things. I'll keep you all filled in as I go.