Choices Sap Your Stamina, Self Control: Study

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It's true, however, that choosing is difficult, he added. "Think of those fancy restaurants that have a small menu. It's often refreshing not to have to read through eight pages of choices. Having said that, lack of choice is very constraining," he said.

Overall, "freedom means a lot of choice, but too much can be overwhelming, even outside the choice set itself," Zak said. "This adds fuel to the idea that humans have evolved for simplicity, at least in the short run."

However, the brain's cognitive powers probably "reset" themselves pretty fast after making a choice, Zak said, adding, "My guess is on the order of minutes."

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Brad Sagarin, an associate professor of psychology at Northern Illinois University, agreed that the brain-sapping effects of choice-making aren't permanent. "The basic idea is that self-regulation is a limited resource that can be temporarily exhausted, and that making choices is one activity that can exhaust this resource. However, the resource replenishes with time," he said.

So what should the choice-challenged do?

"Keep in mind that the process of making choices is not cost-free," Sagarin said. "It can exhaust an important resource that we might well need for other pursuits. Choices are an inevitable aspect of modern life. But this research suggests that we might not want to take on additional choices unnecessarily."

More information

To learn more about the human brain, visit the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

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