Decision Fatigue: And Why It Feels So Exhausting
Everyday you wake up with so many decisions to make: what to eat in the morning, what to wear, what time to leave for work, what to make for dinner. The list can feel never-ending. Every small decision you make can feel so big when you're drained mentally. Decision fatigue is what happens when your mental energy is running low. It's the reason that these small decisions can feel so big and tiring. Let's learn about why it feels so exhausting to make small decisions sometimes.
What is Decision Fatigue?
Decision fatigue is the drained and exhausted feeling you get after making too many decisions (Cleveland Clinic, 2023). After making so many decisions, you can become tired and your mental energy becomes depleted, leading to poor decision-making.
Every decision you make, big or small, activates the same cognitive systems and draws from the same mental energy reserve. According to research, as this mental reserve depletes, the brain does not stop making decisions (Quattash, 2025). Instead, it alters the way decisions are made (Quattash, 2025). Typically, the brain tends to choose whatever is easiest, most familiar, or requires the least amount of mental effort. With this in place, sometimes decisions we choose when we are mentally exhausted are not what we actually want. This is why it is so important to practice mindfulness and relaxation to prevent decision fatigue from worsening.
How Decision-Making Drains Mental Energy
The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain where decision-making happens (Agbangla et al., 2022). It is responsible for the most important cognitive functions, but most notably, making your deliberate choices. Research has identified the prefrontal cortex as one of the regions in your brain which uses the most mental effort, and in turn, it is one of the most vulnerable to depletion when you mental efforts are high (Agbangla et al., 2022).
Research on cognitive load and decision-making has found that as the amount of decisions increases, the prefrontal cortex works continuously harder while simultaneously producing lower quality decisions (Quattash, 2025). Brain studies has shown that rising cognitive load leads to significant changes in prefrontal activity that correlate directly with a decrease in decision performance (Agbangla et al., 2022). Essentially, this means that the brain is using more effort to achieve less effective results.
All of this together explains biologically why the last decision of the day feels so much harder than the first (Quattash, 2025). It is not necessarily because the decision is harder, but it is because your brain is exhausted from running all day without a break.
How Decision Fatigue Affects Daily Life
Decision fatigue does not only affect your ability to make decisions. Because of the exhaustion your brain feels, it begins to affect other aspects of your life:
Attention and Productivity
Research has found that as the amount of decisions you make in a day increases, the quality of thinking decreases (Jia et al., 2022). This is because the brain shifts from careful and deliberate decision-making to a faster and more automatic response (Jia et al., 2022). This means that work which requires intense focus gets done less effectively the longer the day goes on and the more your brain works.
Emotional Regulation
Research on mental fatigue and self-regulation has found that extended cognitive effort weakens your brain's capacity to manage your emotional responses (Lewczuk et al., 2022). When mental resources are depleted, emotional reactivity increases and your ability to regulate your emotional responses decrease (Lewczuk et al., 2022). Your patience begins to diminish and small things begin to feel bigger.
Self-Control
Research has found that self-control and decision-making draw from the same region of your brain, meaning they draw from the same mental energy reserve (Choudhury & Saravanan, 2026). When your mental energy reserve is low, self-control declines alongside it (Choudhury & Saravanan, 2026). This makes it harder to stick to your set intentions, resist impulses, or follow through on your goals that you made earlier in the day.
Avoidance
Research also shows a pattern regarding avoidance and cognitive load (Pignatiello et al., 2021). As your cognitive load increases, people typically tend to move towards avoidance and simplification at an increased rate (Pignatiello et al., 2021). Decisions can get postponed, delegated, or made without even realizing it.
Common Sources of Decision Fatigue for Young Adults
Being a young adult comes with a lot of new responsibilities you may not have had before. And there are so many decisions you need to make as a young adult, and they are pretty big decisions. Below are a few sources of where cognitive load tends to hit the hardest:
Finances
Finances are already a stressful part of life, especially when you are starting your career and having big bills to pay. Every financial choice can feel extremely daunting with its need of mental math and ability to have big stakes. You feel the weight of budgeting, spending, saving, student loans, etc. The cognitive burden of managing money on a limited income is constant and can accumulate quickly
School
When young adults are still in school, it's just another responsibility on their plates. Trying to figure out what to prioritize, when to start, whether to ask for help, etc. An academic career generates a constant stream of decisions that collectively drain mental energy.
Career
You're at the stage in life where your career truly starts. It can feel high-stakes because you feel that there is a long horizon ahead. Career uncertainty can be a major source of stress for young adults. You may not even realize that it is constantly in the back of your mind draining your mental energy. It can feel like such a big decision that is too much to handle.
Relationships
Relationships can take up a huge part of your life. Social decisions are both emotionally and cognitively expensive. Navigating through conflict, maintaining connections, and deciding how to respond to something difficult -- it can all feel mentally draining, especially at such a stressful period in your life.
Daily Life
The small decisions you make in your daily life can even feel daunting. Deciding what to eat, when to go to sleep, how to structure your day. These small recurring decisions slowly drain your mental energy, even if you don't realize.
Practical Strategies for Reducing Decision Fatigue
The good news about decision fatigue is that it is manageable. Here are five strategies to reduce decision fatigue:
Front-Load Important Decisions
Research on cognitive energy across the day supports making high-stakes decisions in the morning when your brain is at its freshest (Wei, 2025). Most people experience peak cognitive function within the first few hours of waking up, so it's best to make the most important decisions during that time period.
Automate Low-Stakes Choices
Research on routines and habit formation supports using automatic systems for recurring decisions that do not require peak cognitive function every time (Wei, 2025). These can be decisions such as meal planning, a consistent morning routine, and planning outfits ahead of time. Small changes such as these can remove decisions from your cognitive load entirely.
Reduce Your Options Before Deciding
Research on choice overload has found that having too many options can increase mental fatigue and reduce quality thinking (Wei, 2025). By narrowing these choices down to two or three, it can make the decisions both easier and more satisfying.
Take Decision-Free Breaks
Research on cognitive restoration finds that breaks only help if they allow the brain to fully relax (Wei, 2025). By walking, listening to music, or doing something familiar, you can help to restore your mental reserve.
Write Decisions Down
By being able to get your decisions out of your head and onto paper, you can reduce the mental cost of holding them in your working memory (Kaiser Permanente, 2025). Unresolved choices continue to draw from your mental reserve even when you are not actively addressing them. By writing them down, you can release it from your mind.
Conclusion
Decision fatigue is a real thing, and it can be physically draining. The good thing is that it's also manageable. Focus on your mornings, build routines, give yourself breaks, write things down. And if it all still feels like too much, The MIND Project can help. Click here to book a free Quick Connect Session with graduate-level and licensed mental health therapists or find it under our services page.
Written by:
Madeline Morales, BS Candidate
Health Major, University of Houston
References
8 Signs of Decision Fatigue and How To Cope. Cleveland Clinic. (2023, June 1). https://health.clevelandclinic.org/decision-fatigue
Agbangla, N. F., Audiffren, M., Pylouster, J., & Albinet, C. T. (2022, October 28). Load- dependent prefrontal cortex activation assessed by continuous-wave near-infrared spectroscopy during two executive tasks with three cognitive loads in young adults. Brain sciences. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9688545/
Choudhury, N. A., & Saravanan, P. (2026, August 6). An integrative review on unveiling the causes and effects of decision fatigue to develop a multi-domain conceptual framework. Frontiers. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cognition/articles/10.3389/fcogn.2025.1719312/full
Jia, H., Lin, C. J., & Wang, E. M. (2022, June 23). Effects of mental fatigue on risk preference and feedback processing in risk decision-making. Nature News. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-14682-0
Kaiser Permanente (2025, February 2). What is decision fatigue? 4 tips on how to cope. Kaiser Permanente. https://healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/southern-california/health-wellness/healtharticle.tips-for-dealing-with-decision-fatigue
Lewczuk, K., Wizła, M., Oleksy, T., & Wyczesany, M. (2022, February 16). Emotion Regulation, effort and fatigue: Complex issues worth investigating. Frontiers in psychology. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8888450/
Pignatiello, G. A., Tsivitse, E., O’Brien, J., Kraus, N., & Hickman, R. L. (2021, July 21). Decision fatigue among clinical nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of clinical nursing. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8447365/
Quattash, Dr. M. S. (2025a, June 2). The Neuroscience of Decision Fatigue: Why we make worse choices at the end of the Day. Global Council for Behavioral Science. https://gc-bs.org/articles/the-neuroscience-of-decision-fatigue/
Quattash, Dr. M. S. (2025b, September 22). The impact of cognitive load on decision-making efficiency. Global Council for Behavioral Science. https://gc-bs.org/articles/the-impact-of-cognitive-load-on-decision-making-efficiency/
Wei, M. (2025, April 8). How High Performers Overcome Decision Fatigue. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/urban-survival/202503/maximizing-decisions-how-high-performers-overcome-decision-fatigue
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