Did you know the brain is the only organ in the body that named itself? This is something I find hard to wrap my head around, and sparks so many different questions and unanswerable ones when it comes to discussing the magnificence of the brain. Never before has the human brain been studied, measured, and modified so intensely. From productivity apps to sleep trackers to focus hacks, modern life is saturated with advice on how to optimise the mind. Attention, motivation, memory, and emotional regulation are treated as systems to upgrade – problems to solve rather than experiences to understand. But beneath this scientific enthusiasm lies a quieter cost: the risk of reducing human psychology to performance alone.
Much of this movement is rooted in neuroscience. As an example, dopamine is often described as the brain’s “reward chemical,” responsible for motivation and pleasure. Social media, playing games, and instant notifications are said to overstimulate the brain, leading to addiction, distraction, and burnout. In response, optimisation culture promotes restriction – fewer screens, stricter and more confined routines, controlled stimulation – in an attempt to restore balance and redirect our circuit system within our complex brains.
While this research is valid, the way it is applied can be misleading. Dopamine is not a villain, nor is the brain a machine that malfunctions when pleasure exists. Psychological health is not achieved by eliminating stimulation but instead by learning regulation. When optimisation plateaus or becomes rigid, it can turn normal human behaviours – boredom, procrastination, distraction – into signs of failure rather than signals of unfulfilled needs.
Another hidden cost is emotional suppression disguised as control. Many optimisation strategies prioritise focus and efficiency over emotional processing. Productivity is rewarded; rest is tolerated only if it improves the outcome and replenishes energy for work later. Feelings such as sadness, anxiety, stress, or lack of emotion are framed as obstacles to overcome rather than experiences to explore. Psychology, however, suggests the opposite: emotions carry information. Ignoring them does not remove them – it displaces them.
There is also a growing tension between individuality and standardisation. Brains do not function identically to other peoples, yet we still feel the need to compare ourselves with the speed of which we learn things, or how we react to different situations. This is unrealistic, as the outcome of negative results will outweigh the positives. What improves focus for one person may increase anxiety in another. Yet optimisation culture promotes universal solutions: fixed morning routines, ideal sleep schedules, perfect attention spans – this “one size fits all” expectation is unrealistic, and does more damage for more people than we realise. When these methods fail, the blame is internalised rather than considering the unrealistic expectations made by others that don’t have the same brain processing as your own. The conclusion becomes not that the system is flawed, but that the individual is.
Perhaps the most concerning cost is the shift in how worth is measured. When cognitive efficiency becomes the goal, value is tied to output. Concentration becomes moral. Distraction becomes weakness. Rest becomes unproductive and “wasting time”. Over time, this mindset can erode self-compassion, replacing it with constant self-monitoring. The brain is no longer something to live with – it becomes something to manage.
This is not an argument against neuroscience or psychological research. Understanding the brain has led to extraordinary advances in mental health treatment, education, and wellbeing. But science loses depth when it is stripped of context. The human mind is not only chemical and electrical; it is social, emotional, and shaped by experience.
The unconquered peak is not a perfectly optimised brain. It is a well-understood one. A mind that is allowed to wander, feel, struggle, and recover – not because it improves performance, but because it is merely human and real.
In a world obsessed with efficiency, perhaps the most radical psychological choice is to stop treating the brain as a problem to fix and start treating it as a system to listen to.
