Healing in Hallmark and Frozen Dinners: Decision Fatigue
Written by Renee Brush, Ph.D. & Linda E-F
When I was going through the toughest part of my healing, a time when I felt like I was always running on empty, I kept finding ways to make my life feel easier. All in the name of self-care. Somewhere, I had read that it doesn’t matter what rules you grew up with - when you need to, you can change the rules. Like running the dishwasher twice when dishes don’t get clean - or running the washer when you have a half load because you do not have any clean underwear.
I embraced that permission with my whole being! I found that, at the end of the day, I would be so tired that I did not want to make dinner. I wasn’t sleeping well at night, I was angry much of the time, and I found that I was set off (i.e., “triggered”) easily. And during the day, I was working with a full load of clients who all had their own challenges and I was holding space for all of them and I did not know how to let it go at the end of the day. When I got home after work, I just wanted to collapse… but I usually had more work. Dinner was the last thing I wanted to think about.
So, I decided that I would make things easier for myself by having my meals consist of sandwiches and frozen meals - the healthy kind that included vegetables. But, I didn’t have a microwave in my apartment, so I decided I would have the frozen meals for lunch, since there was a microwave at the group practice where I worked. Then, for dinner, I would have a sandwich with chips and dip. That is what I ate pretty much daily for over one year. Every now and then, I would break from the plan and grab dinner out, usually at some fast food joint. Fried chicken at Royal Farms was one of my go-tos.
That sort of planning to make my life easier carried over to other areas as well. There was a time in my life where I watched nothing but Law and Order - the original, SVU, and Criminal Intent. But, in the deepest part of my work, I could not handle the victimization that is depicted in those shows. So, I began to watch other things, like NCIS - the original, New Orleans, and LA. Notice a trend?!
Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash
Eventually, even that became too much drama and suspense for an overworked nervous system. One year, I spent Christmas watching the holiday movies on the Ion station with a friend. That was a nice way to connect with a long-distance friend as well as to connect with the memory of how I used to love Christmas. At the time, I did not have cable and I did not have any streaming services, so the Ion station was one of the few that I could pick up with only an antenna. The next year, I had some streaming service, and so I watched more Christmas movies on Hallmark.
The Christmas movies brought me a joy and happiness that I was not experiencing in the rest of my daily life, thanks to my healing journey. During that second Christmas, Hallmark advertised that they played Christmas movies throughout the year, on their “Movies and Mysteries” channel every Thursday evening and on the original channel every Friday evening. I felt some hope in that moment. There was something on TV that was going to allow me to connect to that joy and happiness throughout the year. The March following that Christmas, I moved. And I vowed, in the new house, I was going to have cable that included both of these Hallmark channels (The Drama channel was still too much for my nervous system). That was three years ago. And, for most of those three years, one or the other Hallmark channel has been on my TV. I discovered the Hallmark Movie checklist app and I have been diligently marking off all of the movies I have seen. I would be embarrassed to admit the number of movies I have seen, but you probably get the picture. And, like with the meals, every now and again, I would watch something else (like “The Voice” or something on HGtv), but most nights, there were very few choices that needed to be made.
Now, am I saying that Hallmark movies are the way to heal from complex trauma? I wish it were that easy. And I am not foolish enough to believe that all people will enjoy Hallmark movies. But, it is important to be able to tune into what you need - not what other people think you need, or what society thinks you “should” be doing. People, even the well meaning ones, are quick to tell us the things that would make them feel better, but their suggestions may or may not help us feel better. For me, it was the medication provider or my therapist telling me that working out would help me feel better. Yeah, sure, I was aware of the research on that, but they did not understand how I had no energy or motivation to even think about working out. Instead, healing requires us to look inward and make our own choice about what would help us feel calmer, more at peace, centered.
The important thing I had noticed as I was looking inward is that my nervous system was in a lot of chaos. I was learning how to regulate my nervous system, but that was not an easy process - and it still is not! I needed the peace that comes with not having to make decisions. What I had done, without realizing it, was give myself a break from “decision fatigue.” In fact, I began writing this blog without naming this process for myself. It wasn’t until I was telling this story to my business coach, Tara, and a peer in the group, Stephanie, that they helped me see how my year-long meal plans and TV schedule were part of the healing process. There had been so much upheaval, that I needed to give myself a break somewhere.
What is decision fatigue?
Hirshleifer et al. (2018) defined decision fatigue as “a decline in decision quality after an extensive session of decision-making.” The average human makes over 35,000 decisions a day (Pignatiello et al., 2018), which honestly sounds very tiring! Of course, we are freshest in the morning. The more decisions we make throughout the day, the more difficulty we have with each new decision, though we may not notice it.
How does fatigue affect decision making?
According to Pignatiello et al. (2018), decision fatigue negatively affects a slew of cognitive and emotion regulating systems. The outcome of these negative experiences may cause people to take a step back and become more “passive” in their decision-making process (Pignatiello et al., 2018). I don’t know about you, but I do not want my surgeon to step back and become a passive decision-maker during surgery or a pilot to take a second too long to react when there is an inflight emergency. Nor would it be good for a parent to allow someone else to make decisions for their children. Other deficits could include a tendency to become more impulsive or to make irrational decisions (Pignatiello et al., 2018). You may even not be able to make a decision or think clearly!
How to handle decision fatigue
We will continue to live our lives, even in our darkest moments of our healing. So here are some tips on how to handle decision fatigue.
Make your most important decisions for your day in the morning when you are the freshest. This way you have the greatest amount of energy to spend on your decision making.
If a decision comes up later in the day, you can use the help of a trusted friend or a pro/con list to help make the decision. If neither of these work, then consider postponing the decision to a time when you feel refreshed.
What I did with eating sandwiches and watching Hallmark movies is what Pignatiello calls “automation” (Marples, Apr 21, 2022). The decision was already made automatically. I didn’t have to decide. The decision making was removed from the process. You can use this for meals, exercising, even your work schedule - by preplanning your to do list.
Sunrise in Gatlinburg, TN
Healing is hard work and it takes up a lot of our energy, especially when we are learning how to regulate our nervous systems. Give yourself permission to keep things simple in any and every way that makes sense to you! Decision fatigue is a very real side effect of our healing and hopefully you now have some new tools that will help you fight this battle!
References
Hirshleifer, D., Levi, Y., Lourie, B., & Teoh, S. H. (2018). Decision fatigue and heuristic analyst forecasts. Journal of financial economics, 133(1), 83-98. https://doi.org/10.3386/w24293
Marples, M. (Apr 21, 2022). Decision fatigue drains you of your energy to make thoughtful choices. Here’s how to get it back. CNN. Retrieved from: https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/21/health/decision-fatigue-solutions-wellness/index.html
Pignatiello, G. A., Martin, R. J., & Hickman, R. L. (2018). Decision fatigue: A conceptual analysis. Journal of Health Psychology, 25(1), 123-135. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105318763510
