To Help With Covid-19 Decision Fatigue, Set a ‘Risk Budget’
It’s a smart way to help you focus on the activities you value most
The Covid-19 decision fatigue is real, and as cities continue to reopen (cue menacing churn in my stomach whenever I hear the phrase “indoor dining”), many of us are still struggling to find ways to reconcile the things we want to do — sports! socializing! museums! school! — with our strong desire to keep ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities as safe as possible. For Forge, science writer Kayt Sukel, author of The Art of Risk: The New Science of Courage, Caution, & Chance, offers a helpful way to approach these conflicting impulses (courtesy of Leana Wen, MD, an emergency physician and public health professor at George Washington University): Set a “risk budget.” It’s a way to cap the amount of risk you’re taking overall so you can ensure you’re “spending” risk on things that are most valuable to you and not wasting it on activities you can live without. Read more about it — along with a helpful, research-backed way to reframe questions about risk — here:
And for more on how our brains navigate risk-related decision making, read Elemental staff writer (and resident neuroscientist) Dana Smith’s story here:
