phywriter.com

One of my favorite bits from Joe Versus The Volcano was the fictional fatal disease, a ‘brain cloud,’ that prompted him to leave life as a cubicle drone and go live his life for six months before jumping into a volcano to something-something. My memory after that is a little flaky, something about Meg Ryan in three different roles, Orange soda, and a really brilliant set of luggage.

Well, here comes the science. Apparently, there is a thing scientists are looking at now that deals with brain fatigue.

What types of actions exhaust executive function and affect subsequent decision-making? Until recently, researchers focused on activities that involved the exertion of self-control or the regulation of attention. For instance, it’s long been recognized that strenuous cognitive tasks—such as taking the SAT—can make it harder to focus later on. But recent results suggests that these taxing mental activities may be much broader in scope-and may even involve the very common activity of making choices itself.

I’ve struggled with something like this for most of my life. Now that I know about the whole Attention-deficit thing, I thought that was it, but this looks different. Fascinating post on executive function and decision making.