A person can make around 35,000 decisions in a given day. After a long day of making decisions, the simplest decision, such as deciding what to eat, can seem like the most daunting task when dealing with decision fatigue. Add on top of this if you are caring for others in your personal or professional life, you may be at risk for compassion fatigue. Check out the recording of our presentation on both Decision and Compassion Fatigue at the link below:
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Compassion Fatigue
The definition of compassion fatigue according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is “the physical exhaustion and emotional withdrawal experienced by those who care for sick or traumatized people over an extended period of time. Additionally, this could be apathy or indifference toward the suffering of others as the result of overexposure to tragic news stories and images and the subsequent appeals for assistance.” Folks in higher education were exposed to a lot of trauma during the COVID-19 pandemic being the only point of contact for some students in some cases. Along with this, many were experiencing their own traumas, adding to the strain they may have been feeling.
Some of the Symptoms of Compassion Fatigue include:
- Physical or Emotional Exhaustion
- Continuous involvement in other’s issues
- Feelings of helplessness or overwhelm
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Poor self-esteem
- Engaging in unhealthy coping mechanisms
- Relational Issues
- Inability to provide emotional support or empathy within one’s own personal relationships
- Detachment or isolation
- Cynicism
- Poor job performance
- Burnout
- In some cases, can mirror clinical features of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Some ways to mitigate the effects of compassion fatigue include setting personal and professional boundaries, getting support, decreasing meeting time, shifting your mindset, working to change the culture, and engaging in self-care. Here more about ways to mitigate compassion fatigue in the zoom recording listed above!
Complete the Professional Quality of Life Measure to give you insight into your own experience of compassion fatigue. You can opt-in or out of storing your data for their larger-scale database.
Decision Fatigue
Adults make on average 35,000 decisions in any given day, from what you are going to wear or eat for dinner, to larger decisions that either have great impacts on you (financial/medical/etc.) or others. As individuals make more decisions, they start to experience fatigue and may engage in mental shortcuts, including avoiding the decision or acting impulsively. Decision Fatigue can be defined in many ways, including a numbness or increased effort to make good decisions. Symptoms of decision fatigue include:
- Procrastination or avoidance
- Impulsivity (especially toward the end of the day)
- Exhaustion (physical, emotional, mental)
- Brain fog or cognitive fog
- Irritability (especially toward the end of the day)
- Feeling overwhelmed
- Experiencing high levels of regret after making a decision
- Automatic ‘no’ responses
- Decreased persistence
- Increased use of heuristics
Some ways to prevent or recover from decision fatigue is to remove some choices such as what you wear or eat, delegate where possible, engage in sufficient self-care, eat on a regular schedule, make your biggest decisions first thing when your energy is higher. To view more, check out the zoom recording listed at the beginning of this post.