Arcana Mentis Hidden Knowledge of the Mind

Brain optimization

By Casey Hale · Updated

This room is about the attention, memory, will, and imagination you already have, and small, steady ways to use them well on an ordinary day.

What brain optimization means on this site

On Arcana Mentis, brain optimization means steady, everyday practice with the mind you have right now. It covers four abilities you use from the moment you wake up: paying attention, remembering, keeping a promise to yourself, and picturing what comes next.

In ads, the word “optimization” usually arrives with a pill, a score, or a promise that age will step aside. This room makes none of those promises. Practice can’t make you younger, raise your IQ, or guarantee that you’ll never lose a name again. Its aim is smaller: making the abilities you already have easier to reach on a Tuesday afternoon, when the phone is ringing and the grocery list is somewhere in the car.

It works a bit like keeping a garden path clear: you walk the path you have often enough that the weeds never take it back. What you repeat gets easier to find. What you picture ahead of time feels less frightening when it arrives. Each small job you finish reminds you that you can still finish jobs, and that reminder makes the next one easier to start.

If your memory worries you, if words fail you in a new way, or if your days blur past ordinary tiredness, talk with your doctor. You can keep practicing alongside that care. Several of the everyday habits further down this page appear on the National Institute on Aging’s list of ways to look after thinking and memory, so the practice and the doctor’s advice tend to point the same way.

Why your mind can feel slower than it used to

You open the cupboard and stand there, one hand on the door, trying to remember whether you came for the honey or the tea bags. A crossword clue you’d have filled in at once five years ago now needs three passes. A novel you loved has to be read twice before the page holds still, and you put it back on the shelf feeling a little foolish.

Most of the time, a slower mind has ordinary causes, and several of them can change. Sleep that breaks up in the night leaves the next morning thin. Grief uses up attention all day long, even in the hours when you aren’t crying. Worry does the same work in the background, like a radio left on in another room. A low mood can make thinking feel slow and heavy, and doctors take that kind of slowness seriously because it often eases when the mood is treated.

Some causes live in the body. When hearing has faded, every conversation turns into hard work, and words that never arrived clearly leave nothing for memory to keep. Some medicines, or a mix of them, can make a head feel cloudy. So can a thyroid problem, a low level of vitamin B12, an infection, too little water, or too much alcohol. A doctor can check for many of these with ordinary tests, and several of them can be treated.

The shape of your days matters too. When work ends, when the kids move out, or when a spouse dies, the number of voices calling on your attention can drop fast. Attention that goes unused tends to get jumpy first and then dull. Late nights on a phone break what’s left into short pieces. A mind with fewer reasons to stay on one task will wander more, and that part is well within reach of practice.

Some slowing also comes with the years. Many people find that recall takes longer after 60 or so, that learning a new phone takes more tries, and that following two conversations at once in a loud restaurant gets harder. Those changes are common, and they usually leave the knowledge you’ve built over a lifetime in place. The harder question is how to tell an ordinary slip from a change your doctor should hear about.

Which memory changes are common, and which to tell a doctor about

Forgetting a name and remembering it later, misplacing your glasses now and then, and walking into a room only to lose the reason are common at any age. They tend to happen more often as the years go on. Changes that are new, that keep getting worse, or that get in the way of daily life are worth a visit to your doctor, even if they seem small.

Tell your doctor if you notice any of these:

  • You ask the same question several times in one conversation.
  • You get lost on a street or a drive you’ve known for years.
  • A recipe you’ve made for decades, or the monthly bills, has become hard to follow.
  • Words leave you in a new way and don’t come back, or you mix up the names of everyday objects.
  • You feel confused about the day, the season, or where you are.
  • People close to you have noticed changes in your mood, your judgment, or the way you act.

Say what you’ve noticed in your own words, with an example or two. “Last month I got lost driving home from my sister’s, a drive I’ve made for 20 years.” If someone close to you has noticed changes, ask them to come along to the appointment. A doctor can look for causes that can be treated, and some of the most common causes of a cloudy head are on that list.

Some signs can’t wait for an appointment. Call 911 right away if any of these come on suddenly: confusion, numbness or weakness on one side of the body, trouble speaking or understanding speech, trouble seeing, dizziness or loss of balance, or a severe headache. Those can be signs of a stroke, and fast treatment matters. Note the time the signs started, and call even if they seem to fade while you’re deciding.

Who finds their way here

When the evenings feel dull after a loss

Some people arrive because the house got still. After a spouse dies or the last child moves across the country, fewer voices call on your attention, and the evenings stretch long. A book that used to open easily needs reading twice. A name hangs on the tip of your tongue, and the embarrassment shows up before the name does. Practice here starts small: one page with the lamp on, one memory from the day said out loud, or one picture of tomorrow morning held for a minute. If the heaviness feels like more than dullness, the depression room and the loneliness room may fit better, and you can read them alongside this one.

A new city, a new phone, and broken-up nights

A move to a new city spends attention on every corner: the route to the pharmacy, the new faces at the library, the fear of looking lost in the parking lot. A new phone or a new television remote can do the same work at home. Late nights on a screen break what’s left into pieces too short to become a thought. A slower evening looks at the phone at night, and the loneliness room has a page about a new city and the people you haven’t met yet.

After an illness, a surgery, or a new medicine

Plenty of people notice their thinking feels slower for a while after a hospital stay, an operation, or a new prescription. Tell your doctor about it, with dates if you have them, since some of those changes have causes that can be treated. Keep taking any prescribed medicine as prescribed while you ask. The practices in this room can go alongside that care, and after an illness looks at the wider work of getting your days back.

Scattered, busy, and tired of it

Some people come here early in their working lives, with a phone that buzzes all day, a job that pulls in five directions, and a growing sense that they can’t finish an article anymore. If you’re wondering whether “trying harder” is what your doctor meant, or whether a medicine is part of the fog, ask your doctor directly. Practice can go alongside your care, and any prescribed medicine stays as prescribed until you and your doctor decide otherwise.

You might match none of these pictures and still feel at home here. Maybe your mind gets pulled in a dozen directions by noon. Maybe you’ve broken so many promises to yourself that you’ve stopped making them, or your imagination mostly rehearses disasters at 2 a.m. The four practices below were written with weeks like that in mind.

How to practice attention

Start with attention, because memory, will, and imagination all lean on it. The practice is simple to describe: choose a short stretch of time, give it one job, and bring your mind back each time it wanders, without a lecture.

Pick a stretch you already have in your day, so you don’t need a new appointment. Waiting for the kettle works well, and so does reading one column of a letter, drying the dishes, or walking to the corner and back. For that stretch, the job is the only job. Listen to the water start to tick in the kettle, follow the words down the page, or feel the weight of each plate in the towel. When your mind bolts toward a worry or the phone, notice where it went, name it in one word if that helps (“bills,” “phone,” “Tuesday”), and bring it back.

Each return is one repetition, the way each lift counts at the gym. Minds wander, and nobody’s attention holds still for long, so a kettle that took 20 returns gave you 20 repetitions and a cup of tea. The return is the whole exercise, and you can’t do it wrong as long as you keep coming back.

Begin with one stretch a day for a week, and keep it short, two to five minutes. If that feels easy, add a second stretch at a different hour, such as the first page of the newspaper after lunch. After a couple of weeks you may notice the returns come a little sooner, or that you catch the wander before your hand reaches the phone. Some days it won’t feel that way at all, and those days still count.

A few small changes make attention easier to give. Put the phone in another room for the stretch, or face down with the sound off. Do one task at a time where you can, since jumping between two jobs makes both of them slower. If a room is noisy, move to a calmer one before you blame your focus. The meditation room offers a gentler version, where attention settles with no task at all, and five minutes in a chair walks you through one.

How to practice memory

The most useful memory practice is to notice your day on purpose and to give your memory a few good habits to lean on. Neither one turns back the clock, but both make ordinary forgetting happen less often and feel less frightening when it does.

Try this in the evening, after supper or while the dishes drain. Recall three true details from the day: a color you saw, a sentence someone said, and a task your hands finished. “The woman at the bank wore a red scarf. The mail carrier said, ‘See you Thursday.’ I watered the tomatoes.” Say them out loud once. Nobody keeps score, and no answer is wrong. Over a few weeks you may start noticing details during the day, because part of you knows the evening will ask.

For keys, glasses, and the phone, pick one landing spot and use it every time, such as a bowl by the door or a hook in the hall. Say it out loud as you set them down: “Keys in the bowl.” It feels silly for about a week, and after that it saves a great deal of searching. The National Institute on Aging suggests habits like this one, along with a calendar on the wall and a notebook for appointments and phone numbers.

Names are the first details to slip for many people. When you meet someone, say the name back right away (“Nice to meet you, Ruth”), and use it once more before the conversation ends. If you can, link the name to a picture, like Ruth with a ruby ring or the Gordons who live on Gordon Street. When a name won’t come, let it go and keep talking. It often turns up later, at the sink or in the car, once you’ve stopped chasing it.

Write down what tomorrow can’t lose: the appointment, the phone number, the new neighbor’s name, the place you hid the spare key. A note on paper is a courtesy to your future self, and plenty of people with excellent memories keep a calendar on the fridge. If remembering has started to frighten you, or the evening exercise leaves you upset, set it aside for now and talk with your doctor. Memory after 70 has more on names, stories, and what to say at the appointment.

How to practice will

Will, as this room uses the word, is the ability to keep a small promise to yourself after the feeling behind it has faded. You build it by making promises small enough to keep on a bad day, and then keeping them.

Most broken promises were too big from the start. “I’ll get back in shape” has no hour, no place, and no first step, so it falls apart before breakfast. “I’ll walk to the mailbox and back after lunch” has all three. So do “I’ll turn the lamp on at six,” “I’ll put my shoes by the door tonight,” and “I’ll text Carol before the news comes on.”

Keep one promise a day for a week, and put a check mark on the calendar each time you do. Watch the check marks rather than your mood. Some days you’ll keep the promise while feeling nothing at all, and that’s will doing its work, since the feeling left and your hands did the job anyway. After a week, make the next promise a little larger, or add a second one at a different time of day.

When you break one, shrink the next. If the walk didn’t happen, tomorrow’s promise is shoes on and one step out the door. Scolding yourself costs energy you’ll need for the next try, and the inner voice that says “you never finish anything” usually has less to say once the calendar shows otherwise. The mind control room looks at that inner voice in more detail, and its practices are for your own mind only.

How to practice imagination

Imagination works best here as a rehearsal room for your own life. Before a hard hour, you picture it going in a way you can live with, in enough detail that your body has been there once before you arrive.

Before a hard phone call, picture yourself saying one true sentence and then stopping. “I’d like to talk about Mom’s care, and I don’t need an answer today.” Picture the other person’s likely reply, and picture yourself staying calm through it. Half a minute is enough. Before a doctor’s visit, picture yourself handing over your list and asking the question you’re most afraid to ask. Before a lonely evening, picture the cup, the chair, the lamp, and the book, so the hour has a plan before dread fills it in.

If your imagination mostly rehearses disasters, you’re in large company, because worry is imagination pointed at the worst outcome again and again. You don’t have to fight it head-on. When you catch a disaster rehearsal, finish it with what you’d do next. “If the car won’t start, I’ll call my neighbor, and then I’ll call the garage.” A worry with a next step attached is usually easier to put down than a worry left hanging.

When you want to aim imagination and will at a real goal, the manifestation room ties a wish to one practical step, and one plain aim shows how to choose it.

Everyday habits that support thinking and memory

The habits with the best support for a clear head are ordinary ones: sleep, movement, time with people, care for your hearing and eyes, a check of your medicines with your doctor, and going easy on alcohol. The National Institute on Aging lists most of them, and none of them costs much.

Sleep comes first. A short or broken night shows up the next morning as fog, slow words, and a short temper, at any age. If your nights are breaking down, talk with your doctor before you reach for a sleep aid, including the ones sold over the counter, since some of them leave a cloudy head the next day. Foggy mornings has more on slow starts and what to tell your doctor about them.

Moving your body helps your mind as well. Researchers who study aging generally find that regular physical activity supports thinking along with the heart. A walk around the block after lunch counts, and so do gardening, dancing in the kitchen, and a chair exercise class at the senior center. If you’ve been unwell, ask your doctor what kind of activity is safe for you.

Conversation works your attention and memory at the same time: you follow along, you hold on to what was said a minute ago, and you find your words. Time with other people seems to help the mind, and long stretches alone tend to wear it down. One phone call a day is a good start. If the phone has stopped ringing, wanting a friend at 70 has ideas for finding people again.

Get your hearing and eyes checked if it’s been a while. A conversation you only half hear is hard to remember, and reading glasses two prescriptions old turn every page into a strain. Hearing aids and new glasses can make a real difference in how sharp you feel.

Put every medicine you take in a bag and bring it to your next appointment, including vitamins, supplements, and pills from the drugstore shelf. Ask whether any of them could affect your thinking. Pharmacists can answer that question too. Keep taking each prescribed medicine as prescribed while you ask, and change nothing without the doctor who prescribed it.

Alcohol tends to hit harder as the years go on, so a glass of wine that once did nothing can leave a fog the next morning. If you drink, notice how your head feels the day after, and mention it to your doctor. You’ll also see pills, drinks, and brain-training apps sold with big promises about memory. Many have little good evidence behind them, and some supplements can mix badly with prescribed medicine, so ask your doctor or pharmacist before you try one. A crossword or a game of cards with friends is a fine pleasure, and it’s best enjoyed for the pleasure.

What a good week can look like

Progress with attention and memory is usually small and uneven, so it helps to know what you’re looking for. A good week might mean the kettle stretch happened on five mornings out of seven. You might have recalled three details on most evenings, and caught yourself noticing the red scarf while you were still standing at the bank counter. A promise or two got kept, with check marks to show for it. Maybe you finally made the call about a hearing test.

A good week also includes a foggy morning or two, a name that didn’t come, and an evening the phone won. Those don’t cancel the rest. If you keep the calendar of check marks, the good days stay written down where you can see them, which helps on the day your mind insists nothing has changed.

When practice doesn’t seem to help

Sometimes none of this makes a dent. You start the kettle stretch and your mind is gone before the water ticks. The three details won’t come, or the promise breaks every day for a week. On those weeks, make the practice smaller: one minute instead of five, one detail instead of three, and a promise you could keep from bed.

If weeks go by and your thinking feels the same or worse, take that to your doctor as information. Fog that won’t lift can come from sleep trouble, a low mood, a medicine, or a health problem that needs care, and a doctor can sort through those with you. The practices in this room are meant to go alongside that care. If a low mood is part of the picture, heavy mornings in the depression room may help with the first hour of the day.

Brain optimization
On Arcana Mentis, brain optimization means practicing the attention, memory, will, and imagination you already have.

Related rooms

Mind control is next door, and it covers the way you talk to yourself. Meditation lets your attention settle without a task to do. When you want to aim imagination and will at a real goal, manifestation ties the goal to one practical step. If the bigger ache is that your days no longer feel like yours, try getting your life back, which includes a page about a retirement morning.

A small next step

This evening, before the screen gets hold of you, keep one promise you can finish in 10 minutes. Read a page, recall three details from the day, or picture tomorrow’s first hour and then let it go. Notice which of the four abilities showed up for you, and put a check mark on the calendar before bed.

If this is your season

Each of these longer pages looks at one kind of day.

  • Foggy mornings: when your head won’t clear right away, what to try in the first half hour, and when to see a doctor.
  • Memory after 70: names and stories that slip, everyday memory habits, and what’s worth telling a doctor.
  • A slower evening: when a screen takes over the night, and how to get some of the evening back.

Learn more from trusted sources

These public health agencies explain the medical side of memory, sleep, and emergency signs in more detail than this site does.

More in this room

These pages on Arcana Mentis go further into the questions this room raises.

Every shorter page is listed in the library, and the map has the other rooms.

If you need care

If confusion, weakness on one side of the body, or trouble speaking comes on suddenly, call 911. When your memory or thinking has changed in a way that worries you, make an appointment with your doctor and bring a few examples. If you’re in crisis in the United States, call or text 988. Outside the United States, call your local emergency number or a local crisis line. If you’re already in care, keep taking any prescribed medicine as prescribed, and keep your plan as it is until your doctor changes it with you.

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