HOW CAN YOU USE YOUR BRAIN TO MAKE BETTER DECISIONS?
- Marcela Emilia Silva do Valle Pereira Ma Emilia
- 35 minutes ago
- 5 min read
🧠 How can you use your brain to make better decisions?
Every day we make decisions. From the simplest ones, like choosing what to eat for breakfast, to the most complex, like changing jobs or investing in a project. But do we always make the best decisions? Neuroscience shows that the brain has specific mechanisms for decision-making — and that knowing these mechanisms can help you choose better.
🔬 The brain in decision-making
The process of deciding involves different brain areas. The limbic system, which includes structures such as the amygdala, is responsible for quick and emotional responses. It seeks immediate pleasure and avoids situations of pain. The prefrontal cortex, in turn, is the region linked to reason: it analyzes risks, plans, and regulates impulses. Dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with reward, strongly influences our short-term choices.
The decision-making process itself involves identifying reward stimuli that attract, as well as aversive stimuli that repel, so that long- and short-term outcomes are taken into account for the most appropriate choice.
Our decisions, then, are influenced by emotion, reason, internal stimuli, and external stimuli. However, this happening inside the brain invokes memories and feelings that are mostly processed unconsciously.
According to Daniel Kahneman’s concept, we are always functioning on “autopilot,” that is, choosing the option we are already used to making. However, decision-making still involves the unconscious and the conscious, or System 1 and System 2, or 95% non-verbal and 5% verbal, respectively.
In this case, the prefrontal cortex is directly linked to conscious choices, as it occurs slowly, in a controlled way, demands energy, is governed by rules, and besides accepting only one choice at a time, it is more flexible in changing its opinion. The limbic system, on the other hand, is linked to unconscious decisions, to System 1, as it can multitask, is fast, has low energy demand, and its choices are those of “autopilot,” by association with previous ones, since it depends on habit and is emotionally influenced.
📌 Practical example: when you accept a flash discount without thinking twice, it is the amygdala together with dopamine pushing you toward the purchase.
👉 Recommended reading: Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman
😣 Stress x Decision-Making
Stress affects decision-making capacity. It affects it in a way that choices become riskier, perhaps even worse. This is because stress breaks the traditional communication path between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala, and increases the strength of the connections between the amygdala, striatum, and orbitofrontal cortex, which decreases self-control and the ability to analyze long-term consequences.
At controlled levels, acute (momentary) stress can even improve decision-making, as it reduces choices more quickly, and because in situations of danger, of fight or flight, it accelerates reflexes. But if stress is chronic, it will wear down the prefrontal cortex, impairing memory, attention, and leading to impulsive decisions. This happens because the amygdala was activated in some way that perceived a threat, pressure, and therefore triggers this stress axis: adrenaline + cortisol.
In this stress system, it is necessary to practice self-control, first knowing that it is the prefrontal cortex that calculates risks, pros and cons, plans, and holds back impulses, keeping a cool head. Thus, for accurate decision-making, taking into account external factors, that which generates stimuli that affect the internal (e.g., culture, social group), and internal factors, that which concerns our personality (e.g., lifestyle, occupation), emotional control, or emotional intelligence makes all the difference. A brain under control ensures that reason remains dominant and decisions become more conscious and rational.
Although the amygdala is related to the quick and inconsequential response that hinders rational analysis of the environment, it is also this circuit that is necessary for emergencies, since the brain prioritizes survival instead of cold analysis.
📌 Practical example: in a robbery situation, stress hijacks the amygdala and makes the choice of fight or flight; now in a business decision where you have to decide which supplier to choose, controlled stress allows you to think and evaluate the options with the necessary rationality.
👉 Recommended reading: The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less – Barry Schwartz
⚖️ Emotion x Reason
Science calls this process the “dual system” or dual process theory. On one side, we have the fast, intuitive, and emotional system. On the other, the slow, analytical, and rational system. Thinking too much does not always lead to the best choice — often intuition works well for everyday decisions.
But when the subject involves risks or long-term consequences, it is the rational system that must be activated, allowing more thoughtful choices.
However, without emotion, no decision. Research on patients who had lesions in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (as in Antonio Damasio’s studies) shows that without the emotional response patients were able to understand the facts of the situation, but could not choose. That is, in addition to confirming the importance of the prefrontal cortex in the decision-making system, it showed how in the brain emotion and reason do not function in separate boxes – they work together, only with different weights, depending on the situation.
The situation then will dictate the correct weight so that reason and emotion are balanced for the right decision to be made: fight or flight, or rest and digest. With too much emotion, reason is hijacked with fear, stress, or anger overpowering and hijacking the amygdala, reducing prefrontal activity and leading to more impulsive decisions. With too much reason, there is no emotional choice, reducing access to memory and to impulses of individual taste without the influence of external stimuli.
Balance is the key. Deciding well is to use emotion as a compass of value and reason as brake and calculator. Emotion gives color and urgency to the choice, reason organizes and sustains – the brain only truly decides when the two meet.
📌 Practical example: choosing what to have for lunch can be intuitive, but deciding whether or not to accept a new job offer requires detailed analysis.
👉 Recommended reading: Article on dual process theory
🎯 Neuroscience-based strategies for better decisions
The good news is that there are ways to train the brain to make smarter decisions.The first and universal is that when faced with many options of choice there is an increase in anxiety, a decrease in pain tolerance, increased cognitive dissonance, regret, and procrastination. So, avoid this trap.
Some of them:
Breathe and take your time – deep breathing helps regulate the amygdala and gives space for the prefrontal cortex to take control.
List pros and cons – when you have time to decide, writing helps the brain better visualize the options.
Use the “tomorrow technique” – imagine how you will feel in the future with today’s decision.
Learn from past decisions – analyzing what worked and what did not reinforces memories and improves future choices.
📌 Practical example: before accepting a job offer, breathe, write down the main points, and imagine yourself living that choice six months from now. This helps the brain balance emotion and reason.
👉 Recommended reading: Harvard Business Review – How to Improve Your Decision-Making
🌟 Conclusion
Deciding well is not a gift, it is a process that can be trained. When you understand how the brain balances emotion and reason, it is possible to better control emotional traps, reduce impulsiveness, and build more conscious choices.
In the end, using neuroscience to make decisions does not mean eliminating emotion, but learning to balance it with reason so that your choices are smarter — today and in the future.
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