The paradox of choice (and what it means to your health)

I read an article in Adbusters many years ago about the relationship between happiness and choice. The researchers followed a group of newly arrived immigrants over a long stretch and monitored their reported level of happiness from arrival to the US, to 5 years later, 10 years later, etc. The questions they asked the respondents were related to the amount of options they felt were available to them, and how the freedom to choose either contributed to or impeded their happiness. I read it many many moons ago so I can’t recall the exact statistics, but I do remember being struck by how, at first, newly arrived immigrants were happy with the new options available to them in how they work, educate themselves, and play. But after time, choices seem excessive and can be paralyzing. Happiness increases with choice to a certain extent, and then steeply declines.

Choice is good. But not too much.

As a person who runs the other way when I see cereal isles offering seemingly identical boxes of the same damned cornflakes, this made sense for my own brain. But how much choice is too much choice? And what is too little?

We got a little 3 month experiment we didn’t ask to participate in over the last months as we sheltered inside during the Covid crisis. We went from having a seemingly endless amount of choices in where and who to meet, where to travel to, social meetings with friends, and the like (not to mention those of us that is responsible not only for our own choices but those we care for as well). And then.. we had none. Or virtually none. We could work in either the kitchen, the living room or the bedroom. We could practice yoga or exercise in the kitchen, the living room or the bedroom. We could spend time with the people we live with in the kitchen, living room or bedroom. We could eat what was in the fridge. Or the freezer.

At first, I found the limiting of my choices great… a welcome invitation to live simply and minimally. A mental detox of sorts. Around 5 weeks in, I started to get restless and bored. You feel me? Simplicity is nice, but what is that saying.. variety is the spice of life..

As a person who teaches and coaches daily routines, I should love routine, right? YES! I do! Right up the the point that routine feels choiceless, dull and stagnant. In Ayurveda speak, we call this excessive Kapha. Kapha is mainly earth quality, which as you can imagine, is dense (or grounded), stable (static and unmoving), and heavy. If your daily life before Covid was anything like my life, you probably ran around a lot. From appointment to appointment, then off to meet a friend, then yoga, then errands, yada yada. We would call this excess vata in Ayurvedaland. Too much movement to the point of instability, too much choice to the point of anxiety-producing. Symptom-wise, this can look like anxiety disorders, insomnia, chronic inflammation and even burnout.

So shifting to a period of constantly shifting, changing, choosing, moving to one marked by stability and static-ness (meaning not moving) may have felt like a welcome change. A yin to the yang… Rigggghht up until it’s not. Right up until routine looks like rut and you feel like a robot-like shell of yourself.

And so back to the Adbusters article. We like choice. We like variety. Until it is too much and it causes stress, instability, and a feeling that something better is always around the corner. Too much choice makes us unhappy, and can negatively impact our health. FOMO… you know it. Simplicity and minimalism are also good. And balancing. FOMO to joy of consciously choosing. The joy of missing out because we consciously choose what we let in and what we say no to.

Routines.. Good, bad or it depends?

Ayurveda teaches us that stable (meaning regular) daily routines around diet, exercise, meditation and quiet time reduces stress and inflammation, which builds up our immunity (called ojas ). But just in the same way that a green salad with cucumber, avocado and sprouts might be a great healthy salad, we don’t want to eat the same.damn.thing.every.damned.day -even if it is healthy - because we would miss out on a lot vitamins and minerals that a larger variety would offer.

Same same with exercise. While I am grateful to get to move for my work, my general fitness, body shape and energy level goes down if I just practice yoga every day with no variety. I feel (and look) best if I move my body in ways of varying intensity and type of exercise. Run slow and long one day, do weights another, add in a stretchy yoga practice the next, and high intensity interval training the next. Variety, but not too much, is indeed the spice of life.

So get off your yoga mat and go for a run, spice up your usual muesli with a juice or avo toast. Mix it up. But not too much! :)

Want to work with me, either privately or in a group? Head over to my website and check out my fall group options or accelerate your learnings and growings by working with me privately.