I recently saw a snippet on Youtube about a neurologist talking about how the adult human brain (after 25 years old) becomes fully developed and will focus on tasks that are essential to survival. When attempting to learn something new (e.g. new language) is considered irrelevant to survival, the tasks will “become” more unpleasant and difficult and there will be more friction to learn. The neurologist draws on the concept of brain plasticity, and how there are two things that could make it better: intense focus and urgency.
—
I did some research.
DEFINITION:
Neuroplasticity, also known as neural plasticity or brain plasticity, is a process that involves adaptive structural and functional changes to the brain (definition via reference 1). Neuroplasticity explains how we learn by absorbing and analyzing information as we go through life and allows us to adapt to new environments and new situations (reference 2).
It is popularly believed by neurologist that the prefrontal coretex stops developing at 25 years old (reference 3) which corroborates what the Youtube snippet says. While buzzwords like “rewiring your brain” flies around the internet, it all really is about understanding the science behind our brains, and how it is an organism that is primed for survival, organisation, recognition, and maximal efficiency.
—
This thought was very interesting, so I shared this with a friend.
My friend raised a good point influencing the brain in a different manner: the lack of motivation may be the brain’s way of tricking you into thinking the task at hand is harder than supposed, because it is keeping count and has decided the task at hand has no purpose behind it.Your brain may be naturally deterring you from what it deems as the “furthest path to success and comfort” based on past experiences.
He thinks if we set our goals with a timeline, and choose all our learning experiences that serve our goals, it will naturally tie into our survival instinct and urgency. In fact, all the learning and tasks will be “useful” and what may seem like an inconvenient task naturally becomes part of “what I do” or “what I need to do to get where I want”. He observes how certain actions seem natural to some but is absolute hell for others, and compares it to the difference of having a goal and not.
—
I would go a step further to say that in fact, our actions are reflective of our goals. We may not even know what concrete goal it is, but our actions are a reflection of what we truly think and value. It shows us (or betrays!) our deepest desires.
—
For younger readers, I suppose the advice is to: hurry and learn more and learn good habits before 25!
But for those who love learning or still want to learn more – they say it’s never too late to learn, and it is true. Now we understand the brain more, we have more tools than ever – setting goals, applying intence focus and urgency to it – and we can get where we want to be!
References:
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK557811/
- https://health.clevelandclinic.org/neuroplasticity
- https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentTypeID=1&ContentID=3051
- https://www.growthengineering.co.uk/brain-plasticity/ –>note, this is a growth-mindset learning site, as such it may be over-optimistic about adult learning capabilities.