Hello! My master's degree is in education, and I currently work as a Learning and Development Specialist, so hopefully I can answer your question. What you expressed is very common for people who have been out of school for a while. Believe it or not, skills like reading, writing, and memorizing are a lot like lifting weights: you need to start slowly and do it consistently in order to make progress. To build your reading stamina, you should start by reading short texts for limited periods of time (e.g. set a timer for 5 minutes and read a relatively easy magazine article). Once you get used to reading for 5 minutes at a time, you can start increasing the time and the level of difficulty of the texts that you read. You can also increase your mental acuity by memorizing poems; once again, start with short, simple poems and then increase the difficulty of what you memorize. This incremental approach also works for writing: you can Google "quick writing prompts" and find short statements that you can use for literary inspiration. Afterwards, you can put on a timer for 5 minutes and write everything that comes to your mind. The key is to keep writing the whole time! When time is up, you can edit what you wrote; use a thesaurus to find erudite replacements for more commonplace words. Furthermore, starting a new hobby can also improve your ability to learn in different settings. For instance, you can start taking music lessons or playing tennis. This can help you overcome the fear of making mistakes, which is a big barrier to learning. Lastly, don't overlook the importance of a good night's sleep, which is a key factor in our ability to retain information! For more information about the importance of sleep, I highly suggest reading the work of Dr. Matthew Walker who conducts sleep research at the University of California at Berkley. I hope this helps!