Decision Fatigue in Caregiving: Reduce Stress Today!
Do you ever feel like your brain is just done?
The endless choices in caregiving—what to cook, how to respond, when to step in—can leave you mentally drained. This exhaustion is called decision fatigue, and it’s one of the biggest burdens of dementia caregiving.
We explore why decision fatigue happens, how it affects caregivers, and the biblical and practical solutions to reduce it.
What Is Decision Fatigue?
Every day, we make 35,000 decisions—and for caregivers, that number is even higher. From small choices (what’s for dinner?) to big ones (when is it time for more care?), the constant decision-making leads to mental exhaustion, frustration, and burnout.
Signs of decision fatigue include:
❌ Irritability – Feeling easily annoyed over small things.
❌ Rushed decisions – Making choices too quickly just to get them over with.
❌ Mental fog – Feeling exhausted, even after a full night’s sleep.
The weight of these constant decisions can make caregiving overwhelming and emotionally draining—but there are ways to lighten the load.
Practical Solutions for Reducing Decision Fatigue
💡 1. Routine is Your Friend
Having a consistent daily routine reduces the number of choices you have to make. Try to:
✔️ Set regular times for meals, medications, and activities.
✔️ Keep bedtime and wake-up times the same every day.
✔️ Stick to familiar patterns to create stability for both you and your loved one.
💡 2. Limit Choices
Too many options can make decisions harder. Instead of open-ended questions like “What do you want to eat?”, try:
✔️ “Would you like soup or a sandwich?”
✔️ “Would you rather watch TV or listen to music?”
This makes it easier for both you and your loved one.
💡 3. Seek Support
You don’t have to do this alone! Ask for help before burnout sets in.
✔️ Reach out to family, friends, or church members for specific tasks.
✔️ Join a caregiver support group (like the Dementia Caregiver Support for Christians Facebook group).
✔️ Attend faith-based workshops for guidance and encouragement.
💡 4. Prioritize Self-Care
Caregivers often put themselves last, but you need to recharge too.
✔️ Schedule regular breaks (even small ones help).
✔️ Pre-plan your self-care so it actually happens.
✔️ Take a Sabbath rest—God designed rest for a reason!
💡 5. Focus on Solutions, Not Just Emotions
It’s okay to feel overwhelmed, but staying stuck in frustration won’t help. Instead, shift your mindset to problem-solving mode by:
✔️ Asking “What’s one small thing I can do to make this easier?”
✔️ Planning ahead for challenges to reduce stress later.
✔️ Seeking faith-based encouragement to guide your next steps.
Biblical Perspective: God’s Answer to Decision Fatigue
God doesn’t want us to carry the weight of caregiving alone. Here’s what Scripture reminds us:
🙏 Sabbath Rest is Essential – “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)
🙏 Eternal Perspective Matters – Focus on faithful decisions, not perfect ones. “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” (Colossians 3:2)
🙏 Delegating is Biblical – Even Moses needed help! Jethro told him: “What you are doing is not good. You and these people will wear yourselves out.” (Exodus 18:17-18)
God has provided wisdom, rest, and community to support you—you don’t have to do it all alone.
Decision fatigue is real, but it doesn’t have to define your caregiving journey. By creating routines, limiting choices, seeking support, and trusting God’s plan, you can lighten the mental load and find peace in caregiving.
Dementia Caregiver Quote:
“God has given us a way to navigate dementia caregiving without burnout and without decision fatigue. Routine is your friend. The more we can get into a routine and stick to that routine like glue, the lighter the load becomes. Prioritize self-care, seek support, and remember: faithful decisions, not perfect ones, are what matter in the light of eternity.”
Read More:
How to Transition Your Loved One with Dementia Away from Independent Medication Management
Join the FREE Dementia Caregiver Support Facebook Group today for more support:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dementiacaregiversupportforchristians
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Upstate Nonprofits Receive Funding Boost to Expand Dementia Services.
Transcript
Introduction to Decision Fatigue
[0:00] Do you ever feel like your brain is just done? Like the endless decisions that you have to make when caregiving, what to cook, how to respond, when to step in, that all of these decisions are wearing you down. That is decision fatigue and it is a real thing. But what if I told you that God has given us a way to navigate dementia caregiving without burnout and without decision fatigue? Let’s talk about how to lighten this load while you are in your caregiving journey. Hey, Christian Care Companion. Welcome to Dementia Caregiver’s Support for Christians, the podcast where I teach Bible-believing Christians, how to think differently about dementia caregiving. If you are a Christian spouse, the adult child, or a family member of a person living with dementia, and you want more clarity, less stress, and you want to provide better care, this podcast is for you.
[1:11] Here we will provide you with practical solutions, hope and encouragement, and all through a biblical lens. Have you guys joined me for my free monthly workshop yet? These monthly workshops are my gift to you. This next one is coming up on March, and in this we are going to look at three ways that you can make your journey easier. I guarantee you, you will leave feeling empowered.
[1:42] You will leave with the first, best, next step that you have for your caregiving journey. And it is in a wonderful new platform that is unlike anything else you’ve ever been in related to online course or online platform or online presentation, webinar. It is not at all like it. It is interactive. Like we can communicate during this workshop so go ahead register the link is in the show notes you can find it also at thinkdifferentdementia.com forward slash wsl and i really really hope that you come it’s two hours i promise you you can register you can sign up for the replay afterwards and even the replay is interactive. I do them on a Saturday specifically because I know and recognize many family caregivers are still working. Did you know that the statistic says that about 35 hours a week or 60% of family caregivers still work over 30 hours a week? That’s the actual statistic. That is why I give you this gift on a Saturday. If you haven’t been to this workshop, we talk about three ways to make things easier for you as a family caregiver, specifically as a Christian family caregiver.
Understanding the Burden of Caregiving
[3:11] So today’s episode, I’m really excited about because this is something that I have personal experience with, and that is what is the burden of dementia caregiving really? And what I finally concluded a week or two ago, precipitating this recording, is decision fatigue because I’m at a season in my life where I’m helping my mom through some medical things going on and I have all of these decisions that I need to make. And I finally recognized I wasn’t tired because of the physical act of helping. I’m having to drive to my mom and dad’s house more frequently right now because of helping my mom. She’s lost 30 pounds in a year and 10 pounds in a month and has a lot of medical things going on. Additional tests, going back and forth to the doctor, all of the things, right? I’m a family caregiver just like you. And so I was reflecting on this in relation to some of my community members who I was listening to what they were expressing to me. And then it made me stop and think about what is decision fatigue?
[4:40] Well, decision fatigue is literally mental exhaustion from making thousands of tiny micro constant decisions with and for yourself or other people. And it can cause relentless pressure. It’s that feeling of it’s never stopping all of these decisions. And what it results in is mental fatigue, which contributes then to physical fatigue.
[5:11] Did you know that a typical person, you and I under normal circumstances, make about 35,000 decisions each and every day. 35,000. We are not even aware that we are making all those decisions. But when you are a family caregiver and you’re in this journey where you’re going through something a little bit more acute or it is right there and then, that is when we’re actually making more decisions than a typical person. Several years ago when my daughter was getting married, She and I had a little bit of friction, as is common with moms and daughters as daughters are getting married. And I just remember thinking to myself, I love her dearly. She’s actually a partner in my business. I’m like, Suzette, just make the decision. And she couldn’t make the decision. And I didn’t want to make the decision. It wasn’t my wedding, right? So decision fatigue is definitely something that I don’t think we talk about enough related to caregiving. So what are some signs of decision fatigue? Well, the first one is irritability, right? Easily frustrated or annoyed over minor things.
[6:26] For example, what’s for dinner? So I love my husband dearly, and he is extremely supportive of me and my parents and our journey right now. And he’s always wanting to honor me and give me the opportunity to help make decisions. And for that, I’m extremely grateful. But what’s been fascinating is I’m like, Louie, I don’t want to decide what’s for dinner. Just tell me what I’m going to eat. I don’t want to make another decision. And so being irritable can be a sign of decision fatigue. A second sign of decision fatigue is making rushed and not measured or wise decisions because we don’t want to think about it. We don’t want to make a decision, so we just kind of rush through it. And that can be dangerous if you’re not making good and wise and solid decisions because you’re making so many decisions that you cannot actually think it through, right? And then the third sign that you might have decision fatigue is feeling like you’re in a mental fog all the time, that you cannot concentrate.
[7:34] That you just feel foggy. You’re tired all the time, even though, and this was the interesting thing for me, even though you’re sleeping well. So you sleep the full night, but you wake up the next morning and you’re still
Signs of Decision Fatigue
[7:48] tired, you can’t concentrate, and you still feel foggy. Those can be signs of decision fatigue. So what are some practical, boots-to-the-ground, nuts-and-bolts type of solutions to mental fatigue or decision fatigue? The first thing, and this is so important both for you as a family caregiver, but more importantly for the person that you are helping. And I contend this is one of the reasons why sometimes, and I’m not a proponent, I’m not saying that we should do this and I will do everything in my ability to help people stay out of a facility, but this is sometimes one of the reasons why facility-based care works for certain people. It’s because of this very practical solution, and that is routine.
[8:46] Routine is your friend. What do I mean by that? Well, I mean we go to bed the same time every day. We get up the same time every day. If you listen to one of my previous episodes over the last week or so, we had a episode 228 where I was talking to Irene because her routine with her husband got out of whack because he would go to bed and then she would stay up late because that was the only time she had to do other things, right? But what happens then, she’s tired the next day, then she doesn’t want to get him up, and then his routine is out of whack. Routine is your friend. If you are a family caregiver of somebody living with dementia, the more we can get into a routine and stick to that routine like glue, get up at the same time, eat at the same time, take your medicine at the same time, take your shower at the same time. Routine takes away a lot of the decisions you have to make on a day-to-day basis. The second practical solution is limit your choices.
Practical Solutions for Caregivers
[9:52] So for example, I remember Deb, one day I came to her house and I asked her, actually it wasn’t Deb, it was another client of mine, also lived in Greenwood. And she said to me, well, she asks her parents, what do they want for breakfast every single morning? And I said to her, I said, so if they tell you bacon and eggs and, you know, the big old fancy thing, are you going to do it? And she’s like, yes. And I’m like, do you want to do it? And she’s like, no. I’m like, then don’t give them that choice. Limited choices, two choices. Do you want soup or do you want a sandwich. Only two choices. Not a la carte. Not whatever’s in the house. Not what do you want to eat. Not an open-ended question. Limited choices.
[10:37] Two choices. The third practical solution, and this is something I say over and over and over again in these podcast episodes, is seek support. What does that look like? It could be a free Facebook group. It could be reaching out to the deacons at your church. It could be having a friend as a lifeline and saying, hey, I really need you to come sit with my mom so I can take a break, right?
[11:03] Seek and ask for support. People are willing to help you. They just don’t know what to do. So I know it’s a decision and we’re talking about decision fatigue. But if you come up with the list ahead of time, then when you’re tired and have decision fatigue, you can just implement the plan. So it’s pre-planned. And actually, this ties into our later point. You’re pre-planning your support. I have a client right now in my group community whose dad was in the hospital. And I was talking to her and this whole decision fatigue thing came out in our coaching call. And she texted me the next day and said, decision fatigue is a real thing. And so we kind of unpacked it. And I said to her, I’m like, you have to get away this weekend. I said, you have to find somebody who can step in and give you a break because she has been in the hospital with her dad and her mom the whole entire time. There’s some siblings. So we actually set up a plan and she is supposed to go
Prioritizing Self-Care
[12:10] away for the weekend so that she doesn’t have to make a decision. Then that ties nicely into the fourth practical solution, which is prioritizing self-care. Yes, you are important too.
[12:25] No, you cannot do everything yourself. Yes, you need to plan ahead to prioritize your self-care. And if you haven’t listened to the episode 229.
[12:38] Which was just a couple of days ago where we talked about what is the most important in dementia caregiving, saving time, effort, or money, I’d invite you to go listen to that episode because it was a great episode for us to really look at what it is that we can and cannot do and how should we approach this as a solution so you can prioritize your self-care. And then lastly, this is something that I found as I was researching for this specific podcast. The research shows, and it’s ironic because I just actually read a book talking about this, But that solution-oriented problem solving is more effective than emotion-focused problem solving or emotion-focused problems.
[13:29] Looking for a solution. So what on earth do I mean about that? Well, one of my biggest pet peeves is, and please hear me carefully, I do not mean that Facebook groups are not valuable. It is a it depends valuable. A free big dementia Alzheimer’s Facebook group can be valuable. However, it has to be curated carefully. If you go into a large Facebook group with 40, 50, 60,000, and guys, I have a free Facebook group. It’s called Dementia Caregiver Support for Christians. I don’t talk about it a lot, but you can find it on Facebook. But if you go into these huge, huge Facebook groups, and this is primarily one of the reasons I actually started my company called Think Different Dementia, because I saw these people going into these huge communities and being anonymous and doing what I call verbal vomit.
[14:31] Like everything, everything negative to say about dementia, about caregiving, about their situation. Well, the research has actually shown, The research shows that when we do that, when we do not come at a problem from a solution-oriented perspective, but an emotional-only focused perspective, what we get when we do the emotional-focused perspective is actually exactly the opposite of what we want. We think we’re getting support, but what actually ends up happening is the research shows that you will have more stress and you will feel more isolated. Whereas if you come into a community or a group, which I do have a group program, and this is single-handedly the thing I work at the most in that group program, is allowing people to express their emotions but immediately pivoting and turning it into finding a solution to the problem. When you come to caregiving and dementia and decision fatigue from a solution-oriented perspective, you increase resilience and you increase control. So practical solutions, routine is your friend, limit the choices.
[15:51] Seek support, prioritize your self-care, and find solution-oriented problem-solving,
Biblical Principles for Decision Fatigue
[15:57] not emotionally focused solutions because it makes a difference. All right, and lastly, let us look at some biblical solutions, some biblical principles. The first thing that can help you with decision fatigue is realizing and recognizing and including this in the pattern of your life is a Sabbath day rest. That is God’s remedy for us for decision fatigue. It should be a part of our routine to praise God, to attend worship.
[16:35] To stop the day-to-day on the Sabbath and rest, and recognize that God is still in control even through our dementia caregiving journey. So if you are experiencing decision fatigue, I invite you to really reflect on are you taking a Sabbath day rest in your journey? And what do you need to put in place in order for you to do that? So that’s the first of the biblical principles for today. The second is live in the light of eternity, right? Make faithful decisions, not perfect decisions. We are here, we are born, and we are created, and we are never dying souls now. And when you live through the light of eternity, some of these decisions that we make, that we feel like we need to make, these hundreds of decisions.
[17:31] They end up paling in comparison to eternity. So live in the light of eternity. And then lastly for today is delegating as a sign of stewardship. So we all know the story in the Bible of Jethro and Moses, where Jethro told Moses, what you are doing is not good. And that is when elders were chosen from the people and helped Moses to make decisions. That was the role for those men being selected was to help take that decision fatigue, all of those decisions off of Moses by himself. Now, if you go back and listen to episode 227, which is also recent, we talked about how to prioritize in dementia caregiving
Recap and Final Thoughts
[18:24] the 4D method to decrease or reduce stress. So a quick little episode on decision fatigue, what really is one of the biggest burdens of dementia and dementia caregiving. Decision fatigue is real. What are some signs of it? Irritability, rushing your decisions, and mental fog. We talked about practical solutions, routine, limited choices.
[18:49] Seeking solutions, prioritizing your self-care, and looking for solution-oriented problem solving. If you’re not a part of my free Facebook group called Dementia Caregiver Support for Christians, I invite you to join. If you haven’t yet, been to my free workshop, I invite you to join. It is two hours. It’s entirely free and it is interactive and you will walk away knowing exactly what your next step should be. You’ll have clarity about what dementia caregiving truly is and it’ll help you to frame and take away some of this decision fatigue. So I really hope you join me. The link is thinkdifferentdementia.com and it’s forward slash WSL. Come join me, come hang out there. And then I’m excited. I’m excited to see you guys. I’m excited for you to join the community. If you’re not ready to come to the workshop, go to the Facebook group. I hang out there a little bit. And as I try to end all of my episodes, may the Lord bless you and keep you. And I will see you guys in the next episode.
