Use It or Lose It

If you ask my husband, he’d tell you I’ve always been a master communicator - especially when it comes to listing out chores that need to be done around the house. But I wanted to make it official. A Master of Arts in Communication degree would be the ticket!

I decided to go back to school. It had been a very long time since I’d sat in a classroom, and I wondered if I would be able to remember enough of what I’d read to pass a test, if I had the stamina to attend classes until 10 p.m. after a full day of work, and how the students in my class would react to an older adult partnering with them on projects. 

But the desire to learn something new and to cross something off of my bucket list was too strong for me to listen to the doubts in my head.

At dinner one night, I announced my plan and was met with a very practical response, “Why?” Why not? “Will it mean a raise or promotion?”  No. “It’s going to take a long time. You’ll be in your sixties when you finish.”  True, but I’ll be in my sixties either way.

And so it began. Luckily, I mentioned my plan to a friend. She too had wanted to get her degree and before I knew it, the two of us were walking to our first class. Going back to school to get an advanced degree is not for the faint-hearted, as I soon realized. Looking around at the other students, there was no question that the age gap was significant. Rather than feeling like a dinosaur, these students embraced the two older ladies with enthusiasm. It turned out that the students became friends, and I learned as much from them as I did reading the textbooks. 

Learning, at any age, has a positive impact on our brains. When we learn something new, our brains form new connections increasing the neural pathways - leading to plasticity. This is important because neuroplasticity, among other things, impacts our memories and learning ability, helps with alleviating depression, and improves focus. 

You don’t have to go back to college to experience the benefits of learning new things and increasing your brain function. Having thought-provoking conversations with others, watching documentaries, reading, listening to educational podcasts, taking up a new hobby that forces you to learn something new, undertaking craft projects, gardening, doing puzzles, playing board games and cards, and getting out to explore the world will all help.

Intuitively, we all know you have to “use it or lose it.” Science confirms it. In a research article in Psychological Science, the study provides some of the first experimental evidence that learning new things and keeping the mind engaged may be an important key to successful cognitive aging, just as folk wisdom and our own intuitions suggest. The findings show that sustained engagement in cognitively demanding, novel activities enhances memory function in older adulthood.

Learning. It’s good for our brain health. That’s not why I decided to go back to school, but it sure is nice to know I did something to slow down the aging process.

Over the course of a year and a half, after taking multiple classes each semester, including during the summer, I’d finally finished. The feeling of accomplishment was exhilarating. On the day of graduation, it didn’t just rain. It poured. Processing with my classmates through deep puddles of water with an umbrella in hand, I walked up the ramp and onto the stage to get my diploma. Not even the soaking rain could dampen my joy.