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Using mental white space as part of your anti-aging strategy
Most retirement plans focus on money. Holistic plans incorporate legal, tax, and health risks. The very best plans integrate visualizations of best outcomes through a financial lens while accounting for the risks.
But I’m increasingly thinking that the planning doesn’t intentionally include enough boredom.
Not because I aspire to spend my later years staring at walls or counting birds in the backyard. Quite the opposite. The older I get, the more convinced I become that real boredom— uninterrupted mental white space—may be one of the most valuable assets we can carry into the second half of life.
That thought struck me recently when I was at Worth magazine’s Living Well event, attending a panel: “The Always-Connected Mind: Tech, Mental Health, and Family Resilience.”
The discussion featured Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, the psychologist known for his work on the mental-health consequences of excessive technology use, alongside family resilience expert Dr. Dale Atkins and moderator Caroline Bienfang. The conversation was largely focused on children, teenagers, and parents trying to raise emotionally healthy kids in an always-connected world.
Those concerns are real and important. But as I listened, I found myself drifting toward different questions: What happens when today’s always-connected children become tomorrow’s older adults? And more specifically, what happens to those of us who are already there?
Throughout the discussion, Kardaras returned repeatedly to the ways technology influences attention, emotional regulation, relationships, and behavior.
Even though the panel was discussing parenting and technology, I couldn’t stop thinking about aging, cognitive resilience, and the disappearance of mental white space. The underlying issue seemed universal: modern technology is filling every available gap in human experience. Every pause. Every quiet moment. Every opportunity for reflection. The result is that many of us now move through life without ever being alone with our own thoughts.
Johann Hari explores a remarkably similar concern in Stolen Focus, the 2022 bestseller that I still refer back to.
Hari argues that our growing inability to concentrate is not simply a personal weakness. It is the predictable result of living inside systems designed to monetize attention. The more fragmented we become, the more profitable we are. Both Hari and Kardaras arrive at the troubling conclusion that uninterrupted attention has become increasingly rare.
Hello boredom, my old friend
For years, we have attacked boredom as a problem that must be filled with external stimuli. We scroll in the waiting room, listen to podcasts while we walk, and fill quiet evenings with streaming, gaming, and screens. Technology has led us to an age of never a dull moment, but in the process has left us without a moment to think. We’ve become extraordinary at eliminating empty space.
The irony is that empty space was never empty. Mental white space is where the brain performs some of its most important work:
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Experiences get organized.
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Memories settle.
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Creativity emerges.
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Emotional processing happens.
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Perspective develops.
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Wisdom begins.
Yet modern life encourages us to escape those moments almost instantly. Every spare second is now vulnerable to occupation. While that may feel harmless in the moment, I’m beginning to wonder about the long-term consequences.
Attention is the asset we’re not tracking
The general longevity conversation today is dominated by biomarkers, exercise protocols, supplements, sleep optimization, and wearable devices. Those things do matter, but aging well isn’t just about living longer. It’s about trying to be intentional with our choices as we age.
And if the equation is Intentionality × Attention = Improved Outcomes, yet Attention decreases toward zero, the impact is obvious.
I wrote a few weeks ago about Decision Liquidity, and I think this idea pulls on the same thread: remaining mentally and emotionally capable of inhabiting a longer life.
But what about another question that rarely gets asked: Can you comfortably spend time alone with your own mind?
That question becomes increasingly important as we age and life naturally introduces more white space. Careers slow down. Children move out. Retirement arrives. Schedules become less crowded. The external noise decreases, and the internal world becomes louder.
If we’ve spent decades training ourselves to escape every moment of quiet, what happens when life inevitably offers us more of it?
The boredom retirement plan
I recognize these patterns because I live them. I reach for my phone during moments that once would have belonged to thought. I consume information faster than I can integrate it. I tell myself I’m “learning” when sometimes I’m simply stimulating.
Technology has made me more productive than ever. It has also made distraction effortless.
That’s why I keep coming back to what I now think of as the boredom retirement plan, a cognitive retirement strategy to complement a financial one. It’s a deliberate practice of preserving the mental capacities that make aging worthwhile:
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Taking walks without headphones.
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Driving without constant input.
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Reading for extended periods.
It’s about allowing boredom to exist long enough for something deeper to emerge. (Maybe David Puddy was on to something on his flight home from Norway.)
None of these habits feel revolutionary. But perhaps that’s precisely why they matter. The modern attention economy has convinced us that every moment must be filled. The boredom retirement plan suggests the opposite. Some moments should remain empty. Because emptiness creates room for reflection, creativity, memory, gratitude, and wisdom.
And if Kardaras and Hari are right, mental white space is becoming one of the scarcest resources in modern life.
That means boredom may no longer be something to avoid but something to invest in like a mental portfolio. Because the retirement plan that matters most might not be the one that protects our money. It might be the one that protects our minds.
Related: “I’m Just Trying to Remember to Eat Lunch”: The Long-Term Care Lesson That Changed My Life