When we have to make an important decision, it is usually best to consult it first with the pillow.
Beyond being popular advice, this fact is quite scientifically based, and even more so after a recent discovery published a week ago in Journal of Neuroscience. According to the scientists responsible for the article, anxiety can lead us to make bad decisions, so there is nothing better than sleeping and calming down a bit before deciding something we can regret later.
This, in addition, is complemented by another study, published last year in Nature Neuroscience with similar results.
What do we know so far about anxiety and decision making?
As you know, anxiety is a state of restlessness, What can be punctual or result of psychological disorders like depression. This causes an imbalance in our body at different levels, leading to both physical and psychic symptoms, among which are rapid breathing, insomnia or, as we will see today, inadequate decision-making.
The area of our brain that is responsible for decision-making is the prefrontal cortex, because it is the region known for filter unnecessary information and keep the relevant information to achieve goals.
How have you discovered the relationship between anxiety and decision making?
In order to reach this conclusion, these researchers carried out an experiment with the help of a group of mice, some of whom were injected with drug that induces anxiety.
They were then made to make a series of decisions whose ultimate goal was to obtain a reward.
At first, all the mice took similar decisions, but then the process was repeated adding distractions, resulting in those who had been drugged making much more ineffective decisions.
Thus, anxiety seems to prevent the brain from focusing its attention on the decision and filtering out irrelevant distractions.
This makes sense when checking that anxiety numbed neurons in the prefrontal cortex, rendering the mice unable to discern between what was really important in obtaining the reward and external distractions.
These results could be beneficial in the search for treatments against anxiety-related disorders, since they give information about their physiological bases, providing a target on which to act.
Until that happens, if we cannot calm anxiety, the best thing to do is postpone decision-making and, as has been said all our lives, consult with the pillow.
