'Learning Agility' for the (Aging) Brain

I walked into the living room the other day and stood there for a moment, looking around, as I realized I had no idea why I was there. My son looked up from the couch at me standing there blankly and said in his best Siri impression, “Dad.exe has crashed. Rebooting system. Please wait.” He’s a funny kid.

Maybe this has happened to you now and then—I find it happening more often after 50.  It’s natural, normal…and very frustrating, along with, “Where did I leave my keys?” (in coat pocket), and “Nice to…meet you? Or maybe, see you again? Ah heck, what’s your name?”

The good news is that we can slow, or even reverse, age-related cognitive decline. The best thing to do, according to Dr. John Medina in the book Brain Rules for Aging Well, is to learn a new, challenging skill. Learning a musical instrument or a new language appears to have a dramatic impact, but really anything that forces your brain to stretch, to think differently, to develop new pathways in your neural network, will do the trick. And, there are a couple things you can do that can help you improve your “learning agility,” or the ability to learn more quickly and easily, at any age.

The first is to build the skill of focused attention. Most people think that remembering something is basically a function of “retrieval,” as in, I know it’s in my head, but I need to be able to get it out on-demand. This is the experience of, “It’s on the tip of my tongue….” But when learning something new, the first step is actually “encoding”—you have to get it into your head to begin with. And to do that, you have to pay attention. 

I've failed at this many times myself. I have to confess, there were times in classes or more recently at conferences, when I knew full well that I needed to take in the lecturer's content, but I allowed my mind to wander (to that hard conversation yesterday, or to the big project coming up tomorrow). Sometimes there's a moment when I realize that my mind had been wandering the entire time. But by then, it's too late. There is no hope of retrieving that lecture, because it never made it into my head at the start.

Fortunately, it is possible to train the “attentional network” of the brain. This is the part that directs your focus, notices when it is on something different than what you want, and redirects it back to whatever you have decided deserves your attention. This is precisely the “mental muscle” you train with mindful practices such as focusing on the breath. Turns out, the act of noticing your mind has wandered in a given moment, observing where it has gone, and intentionally bringing it back to your breath, is strengthening that capacity for other situations, just like a workout at the gym prepares you for when you have to lift that heavy box. Think of it as “functional training” for your mind. Notice, observe, redirect. One rep down.

Another helpful “meta-skill” to develop is a “growth mindset.” This is the belief that you can learn new things, that hard work pays off, that failure is a great teacher, and feedback can lead to improvement. This can keep you going when the learning process gets frustrating or discouraging.

I encourage you to try it out. Take on a new skill. Learn a new language, learn to kayak, pick up a guitar, or study computer programming. I myself have tried to model being a “lifelong learner.” I learned to ski at 47, earned a blue belt in Jiu Jitsu at 50, and now have taken up country swing dancing at age 51. I’m a musician, so figured dancing would come pretty easily—until I tried to coordinate my upper and lower body in ways that are very different from Jiu Jitsu (it turns out). I quickly got frustrated when I would position my hands a certain way to turn my partner, only to have my instructor point out that my feet had just stopped. They were doing their own thing and completely ignoring my request that they play along, too.

So what to do? I find that (with effort), I really do notice when my mind wanders, and that I can gently, kindly, bring it back to the activity at hand. I notice that when I make a mistake, I have the opportunity to be grateful for the feedback, and do it again, a little better every time. And when my mind starts a narrative like, “This is too difficult,” or, “I’m not good at this; I’m too old,” I try especially hard to notice the negative bias with interest and replace it with something like, “Learning new things is rewarding,” or even, “Feel that neural network stretch!” 

See you on the dance floor, once I finish rebooting.