That Neuroscience Guy - The Neuroscience of Making Better Decisions

Episode Date: February 5, 2023

Previously, we discussed the neuroscience behind the dumber decisions we make. While it's fun to talk about what happens when things go wrong, how can we use neuroscience to make things go right? Today's episode of That Neuroscience Guy discusses the neuroscience behind making better decisions. 

Hi, my name is Olof Kregolsen, and I'm a neuroscientist at the University of Victoria. And in my spare time, I'm that neuroscience guy. Welcome to the podcast. You know, in earlier seasons, we talked about, you know, the neuroscience of how people make decisions. We talked about it in terms of impulse shopping and just the basic sort of logical analytical processes that are there. You know, recently I talked about, you know, why we do the dumb things we do. How can we, you know, why do we make poor decisions? And then one of you, one of the listeners reached out to me and said, well, you've told us why we screw it up when we make decisions. Well, how can we make better decisions? You know,

what does neuroscience tell us that allows us to make the best decisions possible? So on today's podcast, the checklist, the neuroscience of how to make great decisions. Now, I don't want to do a ton of review because I've talked about this before, but let's go over the basics. At the simplest level, your brain, when it's making decision, is computing what we call an expected value. It's figuring out how much a choice is worth to you and the probability of getting that choice. Now, I talked about that when we made bad decisions and how we could fail in that. Well, how do we flip this and how do we make good decisions? Well, when you're computing these expected values, what's choice A worth you and what's choice B worth you, you have to really reflect on your thoughts about value. You have to sit down

and really assess that, you know, this choice. Let's say you're deciding to go to law school versus medical school. You have to really think to yourself, you know, I have an estimate of value for law school. What am I basing that estimate on? You know, information that I've researched, what friends have told me, you know, maybe you've watched Suits one too many times and you think that's the way lawyers live their lives. And same for going to medical school and being a doctor. You know, you might equate being a doctor to having lots of money, but not every doctor I know is rich.

So you have to really think of the value of the choice. And if we think of something simpler, like what do you want to order in for dinner tonight? Do you want to get a good curry or do you want to order pizza? Again, there's a cost value. One might cost more than the other, but there's its actual net worth to you. And values are incredibly hard to estimate. But if you want to make better decisions, you have to really reflect on the value of the choices in front of you.

What's even harder is reflecting on the probability. Now, some things are pretty easy. You know, if you decide to go to law school, you probably get to go to law school, but maybe you don't. You know, there is a probability with this. If you study for a couple of years of your life and you write the LSATs and you just don't do well, you might not go to law school. Whereas if you had have made a different choice for your degree, maybe just gone into business, the probability of successfully graduating with a business degree might be higher. And, you know, let's think of other decisions. You know, like let's say you want to break up with a partner. Well, there's a probability that you'll be happier if you break up with the partner,

and there's a probability that you won't be. And these probabilities are incredibly hard to estimate. So all you can really do is reflect upon experience, look back at your life, and really think, do I have these values estimated correctly? And we'll talk a bit more about this later in this little checklist guide to making better decisions. And at the same time, you have to really reflect on the probabilities and make sure that you're not overestimating the probability or underestimating the probability. So step one on the checklist, check your value calculations. Whenever you're

about to make an important decision or any decision, check your value calculations. Whenever you're about to make an important decision or any decision, check your value calculations. Make sure you've assessed the value of each choice correctly. Now, step two on the checklist. How else can you improve your decision making? Well, check your decision type. Now, I've said that there's two principal types of decisions. There are gut hunch or system one decisions, and there are analytical or system two decisions. And again, when we talked about making poor decisions, we kind of looked at this idea that you might go with your gut hunch when you should really think about it, or sometimes you might overthink about it when you should probably go with your gut hunch. Well, the reverse is true for making good decisions.

When you make a decision, you know, hey, I'm going to go out tonight, you know, you have to really think to yourself, is this a well thought out choice? You know, have I done my homework? Have I completed whatever work stuff I need to get done? You know, do I need to be rested for tomorrow? You know, is going out a gut hunch?

So you really have to review why you're making the decision. So one way to think about this is if you very quickly arrive at the decision with little to no thought, it's probably a gut hunch decision. And I'm not saying you should ignore that, but you should take time and step back and count to 10 and go through an analytical process. You know, write down the pros and cons of the choice. Think to yourself, well, hey, you know, is this really the best way I can do things? And then, at the same time, is my gut hunch a bad idea? Sometimes your gut hunch is right. You know, the gut hunch about how you feel about someone or, you know, a choice.

You know, I really want to do this might be the right choice. Even, you know, a medical doctor making a diagnosis, the gut hunch might be the right thing to do, but you have to check it analytically. So step two on the decision-making checklist, check your decision type. Make sure that if you're making a gut hunch decision, you at least give a little bit of analytical thought to it. And if you're deep admired in an analytical decision process, you know, review what your gut hunch says. Okay, step three on the checklist, check your emotions. All right, now there's two ways you have to do this. So this is actually two sort of, it could be part three and four of the checklist, a 3A and a 3B, any way you want to do it. But when you check your emotions, first you have to check

your emotions about the decision itself. If you think back to what I said at the start, you're estimating values when you make decisions. Well, your emotional system biases those values. All right, that's what it does. It biases values. That takes us right back to the very first episode of my podcast, Impulse Shopping, the emotional system biasing values. So when you're making a decision, system biasing values. So when you're making a decision, you have to check your emotions and you have to say to yourself, well, hey, are my emotions biasing this decision? Am I letting my amygdala run wild and play with values? Now this is closely related. So checking the emotion of the decision would be 3A, but you have to check your emotions about your own personal state. You know, are you just in an overall emotional state? So you have to think about sleep. Have

you slept enough? You know, we've talked about this before, but if you don't get sufficient sleep, your amygdala becomes essentially hyperactive and you're more likely to let emotions bias decisions. This is true, of course, for exercise. If you haven't been exercising regularly, you don't have enough blood flow, and there's a chance your emotional state is off. So one thing you can do, you know, if you're going to make a good decision is get in a bit of exercise. And I'll come back to that in a second. There's, of course, diet. Diet has a massive influence on brain health. We've talked about that a lot. But in terms of your state of your decision-making, if you're going to make important

decisions, you have to think, is my diet influencing this? Hydration, another one. Are you properly hydrated? If you're not hydrated, then your decision state might be off. And of course, there's personal factors. What's going on in your life? Did you just have a fight with a significant other? You know, did your kids just upset you or annoy you? Are you having problems at work? So you have to review your emotional state because your emotional state will bias the decision-making process. So the checklist on how to use neuroscience to make better decisions. Check your value calculations. And to add a bit of neuroanatomy in, this is reviewing the math that's going on in the prefrontal cortex where you're estimating values and you're estimating probabilities. Now you're

relying on other brain regions to get some of that information, but at the end of the day, this is your prefrontal cortex reviewing these value choices. So step one on the checklist, your prefrontal cortex reviewing these value choices. So step one on the checklist, check your value calculations. Step two, check your decision type. All right. In terms of neuroanatomy, we know that those system one gut hunch decisions are coming from midbrain processes that are basically just acting on a sort of stimulus response model. If this happens, I do this. And the prefrontal cortex, of course, is governing those analytical decisions where you're, you know, reviewing the values and the probabilities. So the prefrontal cortex and the midbrain in a bit of a tug of war,

and that's step two, check your decision type. And of course, step three on the checklist, check your emotions. Relative to the decision itself, are your emotions biasing the decision? And then your overall state. And this, of course, is the emotional parts of the brain, primarily the amygdala, but also the insular cortex and some other brain regions. And these brain regions bias our decisions. Now, on that note, this goes back to brain health a little bit too. So in terms of assessing your state, if you want to be in an optimal state for making decisions, so you want

to put yourself like, this is where I want to be, get a good night's sleep. There's nothing that you could do worse for making good decisions than to not sleep well the night before. Make sure you exercise. Let's say you have an important meeting at work after lunch. Go for a walk at lunchtime. As opposed to reviewing the files or whatever information you need, get in a little bit of exercise. It's going to improve your decision-making process. Diet.

If you've got to make some important decisions tomorrow, eat healthy today. Having a good diet biases brain health in a positive manner and will make you more likely to make better decisions. Hydrate. Make sure you drink your water eight cups a day or more. Again, hydration promotes good brain health, which promotes better decision making. And of course, review the personal things in your life. Sometimes this is beyond your control, but if you're going through, you know, an emotionally traumatic home life or work life,

you know, factor that in and think, you know, maybe it's not the day for me to make these decisions. Maybe I need to take a day, calm down, cool off, you know, do some of those healthy things and you'll be in a better state to make better decisions. So there you go. The neuroscience of making good decisions, the checklist by that neuroscience guy. One, check your value calculations. Two, check your decision type. And three, check your emotions. You do those three things and you're more likely to make better decisions. All right. That's all I've got for the podcast this week. Remember, you can support us on Patreon. If you're not familiar with it, I say this almost every week, you basically sign up, you need a credit card, you pledge a couple of dollars a week, a month, it's up to you. Every dollar counts and it goes to graduate students in

the Kregolson Lab. There's our Etsy store. We haven't updated the t-shirt designs for a while. I'm working on one or two. And when I find a couple of minutes, I'll throw up some more. But again, you know, all of the profit we make on those goes to graduate students in my lab. So you're supporting neuroscience research. This podcast, like the one before it or episode, I guess, came from a recommendation from you, the listeners. So follow me on Twitter at that Neurosci guy. I don't tweet as much as I should, but I definitely check my messages and that's the best way to get ahold of me. If you want to share your idea about what would be a good episode or a good neuroscience bite. And of course, please subscribe to the podcast. It really helps. And thank you so much for listening. My name is Oluf Kregolsen and I'm that neuroscience guy. I'll see you on much for listening my name is old Craig Olson and

I'm that neuroscience guy I'll see you on Wednesday for another neuroscience bite