MM_E1 The Cost of A Thousand Small Choices_Audio
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[00:00:00] Dr. Julia Bowlin: Sometimes it isn't one hard decision that's draining us, it's thousands of them. There's a specific kind of tired that doesn't come from one hard decision. It comes from stacking up hundreds of small wins until the stacking itself becomes the exhausting part.
[00:00:24] Dr. Julia Bowlin: Hello there. I'm Dr. Julia Bowlin, and you are listening to Mindset Medicine, your weekly dose of personal awareness. So I want you to take one deep breath and let this episode meet you where you are. This month, we're gonna spend time on decisions, the ones we make, the ones we avoid, and the ones that quietly wear us down before we even realize it.
[00:00:48] Dr. Julia Bowlin: Decision-making gets exhausting when we stop trusting ourselves, and this month, we're focusing on choices that feel grounded instead of draining, and there's no better place to start [00:01:00] than with the sheer volume of it all because sometimes it isn't one hard decision that's draining us. It's thousands of them.
[00:01:07] Dr. Julia Bowlin: There's a specific kind of tired that doesn't come from one hard decision. It comes from stacking up hundreds of small ones until the stacking itself becomes the exhausting part. It doesn't matter what the job looks like on paper. If a manager is approving requests over and over before the first meeting starts or a teacher making a judgment call every few minutes for six hours straight, it's whatever version of constant small choices a given day happens to run on.
[00:01:40] Dr. Julia Bowlin: Different rooms, different jobs, different stakes, the pattern underneath is still the same. Picture this for me. 15, 20, 25 sets of patient lab results, each asking for a judgment call before a single patient has walked into my office that day. Then the phone calls start [00:02:00] kicking in. Then the exam rooms of evaluating patients, where the job shifts from walking someone else through their own decisions, trying to hold steady while they are wrestling with something that might change their life.
[00:02:12] Dr. Julia Bowlin: Then lunch comes for me, except lunch is charting and lab review and documentation and more review, more decisions, all dressed up like paperwork, and none of it's really dramatic. No single moment is as a villain. It's just that sometimes it's really hard to name when decision fatigue is really coming in because it rarely announces itself as fatigue.
[00:02:40] Dr. Julia Bowlin: It shows up disguised as something else entirely, like walking in the back door at the end of the day and a small little voice in the kitchen just asks the simplest question, "Where's the milk?" And our reaction that surfaces might have nothing to do [00:03:00] with the milk. It's not really about that question at all.
[00:03:04] Dr. Julia Bowlin: It's what happens when the mind that's been asked to decide and evaluate and choose all day long finally runs out of room for one more ask, even a tiny little one. And that reaction isn't a character flaw. It isn't proof of our impatience or of failing as a parent or even failing as a partner. I've said in the past, my husband put a heart on the back door to remind me to be the person that I wanted to be to feel love, and that they wanted to see to give love, because I was decision fatigued out.
[00:03:40] Dr. Julia Bowlin: That's why I'm doing this topic. It's what happens when a decision-making system that's done over and over and over hits its limit, and the understanding that is really what this episode is about, is how decision fatigue happens over time with a thousand different questions. [00:04:00] And that reaction at the back door before we come in deserves a second look, because it's not really about a four-year-old or a child's question that's so simple.
[00:04:10] Dr. Julia Bowlin: It's really about what happens when the decision-making system, after hours of nonstop breaks, breaks before you come home And here's what's actually going on underneath. The prefrontal cortex of our brain, that part of the brain responsible for weighing options, sizing up risk, choosing a course of action, it doesn't run on an unlimited tank.
[00:04:36] Dr. Julia Bowlin: It runs on a pool of mental fuel that gets siphoned off with every single choice, whether the choice is, does this lab value need a phone call right now, or turkey or peanut butter? What should we have to eat right now? Researchers call this ego depletion, and one of the strangest, most convincing examples actually [00:05:00] came from a study about parole board judges.
[00:05:03] Dr. Julia Bowlin: These are the parole that make decisions on whether somebody gets to get out of prison or not. And the ones who heard cases early in the morning granted parole far more often than the ones they heard right after a break. The same judges, the same legal standards, same kinds of cases. The only real difference was how much decision-making fuel they had left in the tank.
[00:05:27] Dr. Julia Bowlin: The same math holds true outside of that kind of courtroom, in my exam rooms, or at a nurse's station, or at a teacher in front of a bunch of kids, or as a lawyer, right? Anywhere someone is asked to choose again and again and again without a real break in between. By the time a day like this reaches its final stretch, after 15 or 20 small clinical calls, maybe made even before our coffee is finished, after guiding someone else [00:06:00] through some of their hardest decisions of health decisions of their week, or even after an afternoon of charting or busy administrative work that's really just decisions wearing different outfits over and over, the tank isn't just low, it can be on fumes.
[00:06:17] Dr. Julia Bowlin: So our bodies know before our mind can name it. There's a door, right? A bag dropped by the entryway. A small voice, easy or unbothered, asking the simplest question in the world. And underneath it, our ribs, in some part of our chest, something might just flare. We might feel it. It might come back hot, fast, maybe totally disproportionate to the actual scenario.
[00:06:46] Dr. Julia Bowlin: Nothing to do with milk and everything to do with our nervous system that's ready to fire, coming in hot. And if any of you ever came home and had an inappropriate reaction to somebody at the house, had nothing to do with them, but just you [00:07:00] were tapped and hot, one more thing was going to tip the scales.
[00:07:03] Dr. Julia Bowlin: That's our nervous system saying, we're done. And once we start to see it, right, it's gonna start showing up. You're gonna start recognizing that possibly your agitation, your irritation might have nothing to do with the proverbial milk, but that you are in decision fatigue. And it's not just the back door and the milk question.
[00:07:27] Dr. Julia Bowlin: It's standing in front of the fridge at 9:00 at night, staring at options that should feel simple to get something to nibble on or to drink, and then picking nothing because picking nothing or picking anything is just too much. It might show up as rewatching the same show over and over again instead of just choosing a new one, not because the old one is better, but because just choosing has a cost, and there's no fuel left to spend on it It's the flat, worn-out, "I don't care, you pick something."[00:08:00]
[00:08:00] Dr. Julia Bowlin: At the dinner table, that sounds like indifference, but it's actually a nervous system waving a small flag saying, "I'm done." And here's the pattern underneath it all. Our brains don't sort decisions by size before it spends energy on them. So what do I mean by this? A choice about a patient's medication for me, and a choice about what's for dinner, gets pulled from the same account in our brain.
[00:08:31] Dr. Julia Bowlin: The body isn't tracking its importance at all. It's just tracking volume. And once the account is low, no matter what, every decision left in the day, no matter how small, can start to feel disproportionately really heavy. And that's why we might have some snapping or avoidance or sudden pickiness or sudden, "I don't care."
[00:08:56] Dr. Julia Bowlin: The kind that can look like a mood or a bad mood or a [00:09:00] personality slip or even labeled a bad day, when really it's just math. It's a resource running low, showing up in whatever form is easiest to spot. Call it a short temper or a stalled decision or a, "You pick. I don't wanna do it." That isn't really about any menu at all.
[00:09:24] Dr. Julia Bowlin: And here's where the meaning actually shifts. That snap at the back door isn't proof of anything broken. It isn't evidence of a short temper or a thin patience or even a parent who is somehow failing at the most basic parts of their job. It's just evidence of a system that has worked exactly as hard as it was asked to all day, without a real pause or simply no breaks, and it just simply ran out of energy before the day did.
[00:09:55] Dr. Julia Bowlin: And that distinction is really important, and it changes everything. [00:10:00] A character flaw is something we have to fix. A depleted resource is something we have to replenish And one asks us to feel ashamed about it. The other just asks us to notice, and noticing is completely different kind of work. There's a quiet relief in that.
[00:10:21] Dr. Julia Bowlin: The goal was never to become someone who has an infinite well of decision-making energy, someone who can field twenty-five lab values and a heartbreaking conversation and an afternoon of charting and still answer, "Where's the milk?" with a smile. That version doesn't exist. What exists instead is the ability to recognize the moment that our tank runs low, and to meet the moment with something other than self-judgment or self-criticism.
[00:10:54] Dr. Julia Bowlin: Let me say this for a second, because there's so much more happening here than a short temper. [00:11:00] This isn't about willpower. It isn't about a character problem. It's what a well-used brain does when it's asked to keep deciding past the point it has anything deliberately left to spend. And here's the mechanism.
[00:11:19] Dr. Julia Bowlin: The brain runs two different systems for making choices. One is slow, careful, effort, effortful. Is that a word? Effortful? Well, it is in my brain. I'm gonna use it. It's slow, careful, and effortful. It weighs options. It considers consequences. The other is fast, automatic, instinct-driven, the kind of thinking that doesn't cost much because it doesn't think.
[00:11:45] Dr. Julia Bowlin: It just reacts. And under normal conditions, a slow system handles anything that matters. But once the system's fuel runs low, the brain doesn't stop deciding. It just quietly hands the [00:12:00] job over to the fast one, and suddenly, "Where's the milk?" doesn't get a measured response. It gets a reflex, and that reflex may not be so pretty.
[00:12:10] Dr. Julia Bowlin: And it's not only visible in a doctor's day like me, a small owner approving fifty invoices before calling a client, or a teacher making a judgment call every few minutes for six hours straight, then snapping at a question in the carpool line. On any other day, wouldn't have registered at all. But same mechanism, different job title, same process.
[00:12:36] Dr. Julia Bowlin: Here's the shift in the meaning. That handoff from our brain being careful to automatic is not a malfunction. It's economy. Our brain is doing exactly what it's built to do when a resource gets scarce. Conserve what's left and prioritize. Right? It's protecting something, [00:13:00] not failing at something And once that's visible, something small becomes possible.
[00:13:08] Dr. Julia Bowlin: Noticing when a choice suddenly feels heavier than it has any right to be, and wondering, even just briefly, how many other choices already happened before it may be out of sight before this one ever showed up Again, this isn't a flaw stitched into someone's personality. It's a pattern the brain runs when it's out of deliberate fuel, and once it's visible, it stops feeling like something to be ashamed of and starts feeling like something we need to start watching.
[00:13:44] Dr. Julia Bowlin: And here's where the mindset itself gets to shift. Not the behavior first, but the story about the behavior. What are we telling ourselves when we are like this? What do we hear other people say about us when we get like this? Because most [00:14:00] of us carry a version of some old script. It might be, "If I snap," or, "If I go quiet, if I can't make one more decision without wanting to close and slam the door and sit in the dark for five minutes, maybe there's something wrong with me.
[00:14:17] Dr. Julia Bowlin: I'm not patient enough. I'm not present enough. I'm not put together enough. I, I don't have enough." In other words, I'm failing, right? But there's another way to hold that same moment, and I want you to hear this. Really hear this. Not, "Something is wrong with me," but, "Something was asked of me over and over without much room to reset, and it just added up."
[00:14:48] Dr. Julia Bowlin: That single shift from it being a character flaw to it's just a cumulative cost. Understanding the difference there, it changes what the moment [00:15:00] is actually asking for. It's no longer asking for guilt. It's just asking to be acknowledged, and that's not the same thing as excusing it, and it's not a free pass to snap at everyone within earshot for the rest of the week.
[00:15:15] Dr. Julia Bowlin: It's simpler than that. It's just accuracy. How about we just start naming what actually happened instead of what it felt like and what it meant in the moment? And there's a quieter shift underneath that one because once the depletion is visible, once we recognize that we are just downright depleted, the internal dialogue in our brain can start to take shape.
[00:15:41] Dr. Julia Bowlin: Instead of saying to ourselves, "I need to be better than this. I'm better than this," it becomes, "Oh, I just ran out of gas. I ran out," because running out isn't a character flaw. It's just information. It's a data point. And that's the difference between managing [00:16:00] shame versus managing our mental resources.
[00:16:05] Dr. Julia Bowlin: One is exhausting, the other is just Tuesday, right? Before we move into today's unicity moment, here's something that's worth sitting with for just a beat. Think maybe somewhere in the last week, there might have been a moment in your life that's small, technically forgettable on its own, where maybe a simple choice just landed heavier than it should have.
[00:16:32] Dr. Julia Bowlin: Maybe it wasn't a hard decision. Maybe it was just an ordinary one, but maybe that decision just felt heavy, and it hit you at the wrong time. I'm gonna ask you to think what would it be like to look back at that moment, not as evidence that you were impatient or something was wrong with you or tapped out, or you'd had a bad day.
[00:16:54] Dr. Julia Bowlin: Just instead of labeling it like that, but maybe we just look at it as just a piece of [00:17:00] information. And instead of what was wrong with me, and why couldn't I handle that decision or why did it feel icky or hard or heavy? Instead say, "Hmm, how full was my tank by that moment?" Right? There's no need to answer that out loud or even fully understand it right now.
[00:17:18] Dr. Julia Bowlin: I just want you to let the question sit there for a second, doing whatever quiet work it does. All right. Before we begin the Unicity moment, I just want to offer a gentle note. What we are about to do is a guided experience, just an invitation to slow down and turn inward. You are always in control. You can open your eyes at any time, adjust your position, or just simply listen without participating.
[00:17:45] Dr. Julia Bowlin: There is nothing you have to do. Just receive what's useful, and just leave the rest. And as always, if you are driving or operating machinery, do not close your eyes. You're welcome to listen and stay present on the road or what [00:18:00] you're doing, and just save this part later if you need to, when you are able to be still.
[00:18:05] Dr. Julia Bowlin: So whenever it feels right, I just want you, invite you to let your eyes close if you're ready, or soften your gaze if that's more comfortable. And I'd like you to bring your attention to your shoulders first, just noticing them however they are without needing to change anything. There may be tension sitting there, and that's fine.
[00:18:28] Dr. Julia Bowlin: You're simply noticing it. And nice big breath. Just let your attention drift down through your arms to your hands, however they're resting. And now to your brow Don't change it. Just watch it move in And out [00:19:00] Like something that's been happening all day, all along quietly, just in the background of a very full day And imagine a place that feels still.
[00:19:16] Dr. Julia Bowlin: Maybe there's water nearby, a lake, a shoreline, something slow-moving
[00:19:28] Dr. Julia Bowlin: Maybe it's just open air and quiet ground
[00:19:35] Dr. Julia Bowlin: The temperature there is comfortable to you, neither warm nor too cold. And there might be some sounds in the background. Water, wind, birds, or nothing at all except the kind of quiet that has a texture to it
[00:19:59] Dr. Julia Bowlin: [00:20:00] This is a place with nothing to figure out No administrative tasks, no calls to return, no small voice asking a question that needs to be answered. Just this place and your breath, and nothing else is required of you
[00:20:27] Dr. Julia Bowlin: In this place, you have nothing to decide. Not because decisions don't matter, but because here, there simply aren't any waiting for you You might imagine setting something down here. Not a decision, just the weight of having made so many. Setting down all those decisions in the past, the way a bag gets to set down by a door.[00:21:00]
[00:21:00] Dr. Julia Bowlin: You're not throwing it, you're not discarding it, you're just setting down the weight of decisions just for now, because it's allowed to rest here too
[00:21:16] Dr. Julia Bowlin: Nothing has to be resolved. Nothing has to be understood right this second This is simply a place
[00:21:30] Dr. Julia Bowlin: Where your tank gets to sit still and refill at its own pace with no one watching and nothing to prove This lightness, this emptiness, this stillness doesn't have to stay behind in this moment. You can bring it with you. And here's a simple way to carry it. [00:22:00] As you feel that weightlessness now, gently press your thumb and your forefinger together.
[00:22:09] Dr. Julia Bowlin: Just a light touch, nothing forced, and hold it for a breath or two Let that light touch link itself to this feeling right now, this calm, simple, still, unencumbered moment. And breathe this moment in while gently pressing your thumb and forefingers together
[00:22:43] Dr. Julia Bowlin: This is an anchor that you can use in the future. In the hallway between tasks, in the parking lot before walking into a building, or in your garage before walking [00:23:00] into the house. Anytime your tank feels low, the same small press of your thumb and forefinger together can call this feeling back, this calmness, the stillness, the lightness easily, quietly, without even needing to close your eyes or to go anywhere
[00:23:31] Dr. Julia Bowlin: And whatever rose during that moment with you, whether it's an image, a feeling, or nothing at all, none of it needs to be interpreted right now. It can just be there unexamined, the way clouds don't need explaining to be watched. And slowly, gently bring your attention back to your breath, back to the weight of your body, wherever it's [00:24:00] resting, back to the sounds of the room or the car or wherever you're hearing this.
[00:24:06] Dr. Julia Bowlin: And if it feels good, let your fingers and toes do a little movement. And whenever it feels right, let your eyes gently open, carrying this pace back into the room with you. And whatever that place was, real or imagined, remembered or invented in the moment, it's available to you again, not just the stillness, but the middle of the noise, in the smallest possible pause between one decision and the next, just a press of a thumb and a finger away.
[00:24:44] Dr. Julia Bowlin: So maybe this episode was never really about labs or invoices or lesson plans. It was really about what happens when our mind gets asked to choose over and over without much room to reset, and how [00:25:00] ordinary that is. Not a flaw, not a bad day, just a resource running low, showing up wherever it's easiest to spot.
[00:25:11] Dr. Julia Bowlin: And if some version of that backdoor moment sounds familiar, the short fuse, the sudden, "I don't care," the choice that lands heavier than it should have, that's not something to carry shame about. That's just what a full tank running on empty sounds like. Next time, we're staying with the same territory, but I'm gonna shift the lens a little bit, looking at what it means when the mind feels full, not failing, and why capacity and character are two very different things.
[00:25:48] Dr. Julia Bowlin: And if this one landed with you, I would genuinely love to hear about it. Find me on Instagram or over at my website at juliabowlinmd.com, and let's keep this conversation [00:26:00] going. Thank you for spending time with me, and until next time, may you be happy, be healthy, and be fulfilled.
[00:26:13] Outro: Thank you for listening to Mindset Medicine with your host, Dr. Julia Bowlin. To learn more about Mindset Medicine, go to www.juliabowlinmd.com and connect with Dr. Julia to find out how our team can help you today. Join us again next week for more expert tips, tools, and strategies to become healthier, wealthier, and wiser in your personal and professional life.
