Satisfy Your Curiosity
What’s the key to successful aging? Well, the good news is there isn’t just one. Humans are wired to seek novelty, which helps keep life interesting and the brain happy. Advertisers certainly capitalize on this innate trait by hawking the latest and greatest in everything from hair products to cryptocurrency investing. You can exploit this inherent desire for the new, too. Endeavor to learn something new. In the process, you can gain personal satisfaction, a sense of accomplishment, and a heightened well-being. Whether it’s researching your ancestry, studying the classical art of ancient Greece, or taking a knife-skills course at a culinary school, learning something new can be quite entertaining, and it can help you age better.
“Engaging in lifelong learning can improve brain health, stimulate curiosity, and enhance social connections,” adds Alan Castel, PhD, Professor of Psychology at UCLA and author of Better with Age: The Psychology of Successful Aging.
Why Newness Matters
For toddlers, everything is new and exciting; and there is certainly a lot to learn as a young human. There’s walking, talking, tying shoelaces, and these days, learning to use digital devices. Many tasks must be coordinated and incorporated at the same time. That is different from the lives of many older adults, in whom complacency can rule over curiosity, and where there are fewer challenges and less enriching and cognitively-stimulating experiences—unless you seek them out.
Even though older adults have different cognitive and neurological profiles compared to toddlers, research suggests that older adults may benefit from aspects of the rich learning environment typical of younger age groups. This includes learning multiple skills simultaneously in an encouraging environment.
Insights on Simultaneous Learning
Researchers from the University of California, Riverside, wanted to know how older adults would fare learning multiple real-world skills simultaneously. They designed two studies with 15 and 27 older adults, respectively, that required them to learn at least three new skills concurrently for three months. Participants completed cognitive and functional assessments before, during, and after the intervention in both studies.
In the first study, participants learned Spanish, painting, and how to use an iPad for 15 weeks. In the second study, participants were assigned to learn three out of five skills (Spanish, drawing, how to use an iPad, music composition, and photography) for 12 weeks. On average, participants spent about 14 hours per week on study-related tasks (six hours in the classroom plus eighthours on assignments per week). Overall, the results from Study 1 and Study 2 showed a general trend of increased cognitive abilities across a broad range. For example, by Week 6 (midpoint), intervention participants from Study 2 significantly increased their working memory, cognitive control, and episodic memory from baseline. The midpoint performance for those older participants was similar to performance of a separate sample of middle-aged adults 30 years younger. The study was published in The Journals of Gerontology in July 2020.
A Resilient Mindset
While there are some age-related changes in the abilities to quickly recall and remember things, older adults’ minds are more resilient than it may seem. In a study published in Scientific Reports last year, researchers compared verbal working memory between healthy older adults (average age 66) to young people (average age 22) by testing their ability to discern if pronouns were being used correctly. As it turned out, there were no differences in accuracy or processing speed between the older and younger adults. What was different was how the brain processed some of the information. Researchers reported that older adults recruited different brain regions to compensate for declining memory resources. It’s an example of neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to change and adapt throughout life.
Inspiring Continuing Education
Like many universities and colleges nationwide, UCLA offers opportunities for older adults to take college-level courses. The UCLA Senior Scholars invites older adults (50+) to audit regular courses with college students. Both attend lectures and follow along with class readings, but the Senior Scholars don’t have the pressure of turning in homework or taking exams.
“The Senior Scholars program allows for rich interactions with people of all ages and can be a very stimulating experience that can keep us sharp and encourage one to ask good questions that lead to more learning,” says Castel. “Being around younger people can be invigorating, and older people can share relevant life experience and knowledge that can benefit the younger students.”
For more information about the program, go to this website: https:// tinyurl.com/UCLASeniorScholars.
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