Can you relate to this? You start the day with one set of goals, and around 6 pm it falls apart. You wake up planning eat healthy and to not drink alcohol and by the time you come home from work, you tell yourself, “ugh, I’ll start tomorrow.” You feel exhausted. You just want to stop thinking, stop criticizing yourself, stop second guessing. You want to pull the curtain on the day and shut down.

This is pure decision fatigue. After making decisions all day long—for yourself, for your team at work, for your kids, you get one question too many and hit your limit.  It might just be “what’s for dinner?” Sometimes that’s the question that breaks us. Especially if you know when you walk through the door, that you’re starting the second shift — round two of questions and family decisions that have to be made.

So, we reach for a drink. Or a gummy. Or try to disappear into mindless scrolling. None of this recharges us. But we just want to NOT have to think and NOT have to make decisions, even if just for a few minutes.

I recently got back into meditation and was thinking about how it also serves that purpose. I wish I had realized that earlier—that meditation (or prayer, or breathwork) isn’t a task where I “have to” clear my mind (leading to my feeling like I “can’t meditate” when I inevitable fail to have zero thoughts), but as a BREAK where I can sit still and NOT HAVE TO THINK AND MAKE DECISIONS. Just a little space-time break for me, where my brain becomes my safe space instead of a battleground.

If I had thought of meditation that way earlier, I would have tried it earlier and probably done it more frequently. So, if you’re feeling overwhelmed and decision fatigued at the end of the day, set aside 10 or even 5 minutes for yourself where you are just STILL. Hide in the bathroom if you have to. Just give yourself a break.