04 Feb How to improve focus as you age: sleep, recovery & your nervous system

If you’ve been beating yourself up lately because you can’t focus “like you used to”… read this:

Deep focus isn’t something you force.

It’s something you protect.

Now, what do I mean by that?

It means prioritising sleep, building recovery into the day, and learning how to down-regulate your system instead of running it in high gear all the time.

Especially as we get older…

As we age, the brain doesn’t lose its ability to focus, but it does become less energetically efficient at doing so. Cognitive control tends to peak earlier in adulthood (between 27 and 36 years) and then decline. Over time, the brain becomes more conservative with how it spends its resources.

So if you’re like me and you’re past that peak, don’t panic!

This doesn’t mean a loss of intelligence, creativity, or depth. In fact, many higher-order skills improve with age. (I do genuinely feel wiser with a richer internal life than I did in my 20s 😉)

It simply means that brute-force strategies that used to work (long hours, constant pressure, pushing through fatigue) now come with a much higher energy cost.

When you’re well-rested, regulated, and resourced, that energy cost is manageable.

But when you’re over-stressed, under-slept or under-rested, the brain starts cutting corners.

And this is where sleep, recovery, and nervous system regulation stop being “nice to haves” and start becoming performance fundamentals.

➡️ Sleep is not just about rest.

It’s when the brain restores the energy it needs for clear thinking, emotional balance, and focus. When sleep is consistently shortened or disrupted, focus is often one of the first things to suffer.

➡️ Recovery during the day matters just as much.

The brain isn’t built for continuous output. Focus naturally comes in waves. When we ignore those dips and push through with caffeine, pressure, or self-criticism, focus doesn’t improve. It deteriorates. Thinking becomes noisier, effort increases, and precision drops.

➡️ And then there’s nervous system load.

Chronic stress, constant urgency, and internal pressure quietly drain energy in the background. Even when you’re sitting still, your system may be acting as if something is wrong. That ongoing activation leaves less energy available for focus, decision-making, and creativity.

So again, if you’ve noticed your cognitive focus powers deteriorate, don’t throw in the towel just yet.

We post-peakers still have plenty to do, build, create, and accomplish.

What we need to focus on is capacity building around sleep, recovery and nervous system arousal.

• Capacity to sleep deeply.
• Capacity to intentionally shift out of stress.
• Capacity to notice early signs of overload, and actually listen to them.
• Capacity to recover (zero input, zero stimulation).
• Capacity to work with your biology rather than constantly overriding it.

This is what I’ve been building over the last 4 years, and the difference has been remarkable. 20-year-old Charlotte had stamina. 37-year-old Charlotte has strategy. I’ll take it. 😉