How to Train the Aging Brain, a very interesting article in today’s New York Times, highlights a new understanding of how the middle-aged brain works.  As it turns out, many long-held beliefs have been proven untrue; for instance, our brains do not lose 40% of our brain cells as we grow older.  Instead, we retain much of what we have learned, the brain just squirrels it away, where existing neuron pathways make it a bit harder to recall at a moment’s notice.  Given the right stimulation, however, that information will pop right back into our conscious minds.

[I]f you are primed with sounds that are close to those you’re trying to remember — say someone talks about cherry pits as you try to recall Brad Pitt’s name — suddenly the lost name will pop into mind. The similarity in sounds can jump-start a limp brain connection. (It also sometimes works to silently run through the alphabet until landing on the first letter of the wayward word.)

Interesting, no?  I’ve personally noticed that my mind works more in this way as I get older – specifically, I’ve noticed that I increasingly tend to make associations or see similarities between things that many other people do not.  I thought I was just going crazy, perhaps developing late-onset schizophrenia at my advanced age. Turns out I’m OK.  (It’s the rest of the world that’s crazy. :)

There’s more good news – as you get older, you get quicker & smarter. The trick is finding ways to keep brain connections in good condition and to grow more of them.

So how do we old folks go about building these new connections? Turns out it’s not that hard. It can be as simple as just mixing up your daily routine by taking a new route to work.

Such stretching is exactly what scientists say best keeps a brain in tune: get out of the comfort zone to push and nourish your brain. Do anything from learning a foreign language to taking a different route to work.

“As adults we have these well-trodden paths in our synapses,” Dr. Taylor says. “We have to crack the cognitive egg and scramble it up. And if you learn something this way, when you think of it again you’ll have an overlay of complexity you didn’t have before — and help your brain keep developing as well.”

But don’t stop there – you should also continue (or start) to challenge your own existing belief system.  Examine the basis for your closely held beliefs, and think critically about how new or differing ideas mesh or clash.  In other words, you need to challenge your perception of the world.

Educators say that, for adults, one way to nudge neurons in the right direction is to challenge the very assumptions they have worked so hard to accumulate while young. With a brain already full of well-connected pathways, adult learners should “jiggle their synapses a bit” by confronting thoughts that are contrary to their own, says Dr. Taylor, who is 66.

Teaching new facts should not be the focus of adult education, she says. Instead, continued brain development and a richer form of learning may require that you “bump up against people and ideas” that are different. In a history class, that might mean reading multiple viewpoints, and then prying open brain networks by reflecting on how what was learned has changed your view of the world.

“There’s a place for information,” Dr. Taylor says. “We need to know stuff. But we need to move beyond that and challenge our perception of the world. If you always hang around with those you agree with and read things that agree with what you already know, you’re not going to wrestle with your established brain connections.

…

Jack Mezirow, a professor emeritus at Columbia Teachers College, has proposed that adults learn best if presented with what he calls a “disorienting dilemma,” or something that “helps you critically reflect on the assumptions you’ve acquired.”

Dr. Mezirow developed this concept 30 years ago after he studied women who had gone back to school. The women took this bold step only after having many conversations that helped them “challenge their own ingrained perceptions of that time when women could not do what men could do.”

Such new discovery, Dr. Mezirow says, is the “essential thing in adult learning.”

“As adults we have all those brain pathways built up, and we need to look at our insights critically,” he says. “This is the best way for adults to learn. And if we do it, we can remain sharp.”

Hear that? It bears repeating.  And bolding: Teaching new facts should not be the focus of adult education. Instead, you should focus on challenging the very basis for your closely-held ideals and preconceptions.  Doing so will make you smarter in two ways – of course, you learn the new idea, the new viewpoint, the new theory. But more importantly, when you critically consider how new ideas mesh or conflict with your own, your brain physically changes – it builds new pathways, easing access to your squirreled-away information.