“That is the wrong date.”

She was emphatic as she corrected me.

I paused. In my family, when an elder spoke, you paid attention. You listened.

There I was… visiting my aunt, a lively centenarian whose curiosity about life remains striking. Somehow, our conversation had wandered into history. I mentioned an event and offered a date I was not entirely sure of.

“That is the wrong date,” she said.

Then she gave me the correct one.

And she was right. It turned out.

I smiled. But I also observed her. Closely.

My aunt, like several elders in my family, has lived beyond 100. When you have that kind of longevity in your own family, you cannot help but watch. Not simply how long people live, but how they live.

One thing about my aunt has always struck me: she remains curious. Always.

“What have you been up to?” she would ask.

She wants to know what is happening. What am I doing? What has changed? What is new?

And perhaps there is something in those three words she so often asks me: What is new?

Beneath that question is an invitation to pursue something not only new, but challenging and worth learning.

The Brain Loves Efficiency

With time, many of us become extremely good at doing what we already know. We then live in automation mode. An all-too-familiar world.

There is a neurological reason for that.

Task training induces lifelong plasticity. Practice changes both brain activity and brain structure in young and older adults alike.[1] With familiarity, mastered tasks become increasingly automatic.

Remember when you were learning to drive.

At first, everything demanded your attention at once.

The mirrors had to be adjusted. Your hands had to be positioned correctly on the steering wheel. You had to manage the brakes and accelerator, monitor your speed, watch the traffic and read the road signs. You were watching the vehicle beside you and the one behind you.

Your brain seemed to be doing everything at once.

Now, fast forward a few years… you can sometimes arrive somewhere with little recollection of each individual action you performed along the way.

The task has become familiar. That efficiency is one of the brain’s great strengths.

But there is a catch: Being efficient at what we already know is not the same thing as challenging the brain with something we do not know.

Now Try Something It Has Not Mastered

Here is where things get interesting.

Novelty gets the brain’s attention, and learning gives the brain something it can adapt to.

Novel experiences activate dopaminergic signaling in the hippocampus, a brain structure central to learning and memory. This signaling can help newly formed memories persist.[2]

But you do not need to memorize the neurochemistry to appreciate the principle. If learning helps drive adaptation, then the practical question becomes: what are you asking your brain to learn?

Give your brain something it has not mastered yet. Learn to play the piano, study Spanish or French, or master a new dance sequence.

For my part, I took up painting. I have also been expanding my Swahili vocabulary.

When we become beginners again, automaticity is no longer enough. Attention has to increase. New information has to be encoded. And mistakes have to be detected and corrected.

With practice, the brain changes in response to the demands placed upon it.

That capacity to change and adapt is neuroplasticity.

Do you recognize that struggle you feel while learning? That awkwardness? You forget the piano chord; the Spanish word suddenly vanishes; your feet move in the wrong direction during the dance sequence… or you cannot remember which button to press!

Do not be so quick to resent it. Why?

Because your brain is being challenged to learn.

We Become Comfortable

In my clinic, I hear people in their 30s, 40s and 50s say: “My brain is not what it used to be.”

Certainly, the brain changes with age.

But aging does not mean that the brain loses its capacity to adapt. Evidence supports lifelong neuroplasticity, and older adults remain capable of acquiring new motor and other skills, even though progress may sometimes be slower than in younger people.[1]

Perhaps part of the story is simpler.

By midlife, many of us have become extraordinarily accomplished at doing what we already know how to do.

Our careers have become familiar. So have our routines and environments. We get very good at being who we already are.

It is like the bodybuilder who has been bench-pressing the same weight for a year, or the runner who has remained at the same familiar distance and pace.

The system has adapted to the challenge.

So what might happen if we occasionally choose to become beginners again and are willing to say: “I do not know how to do this. Teach me”?

There may be something neurologically valuable in that humility.

Movement Makes the Story Even More Interesting

This is also why I am particularly interested in activities that integrate thinking and movement.

Think about dancing. You have to think and move.

You may have to listen to rhythm, remember sequences, coordinate different parts of the body, maintain balance, orient yourself in space and anticipate the next movement.

The brain is not solving one problem. No. It is coordinating many problems.

Research into dance among older adults is interesting for precisely this reason. Dance combines physical activity with learning, memory, coordination and social and artistic engagement. The research literature supports dance as a safe and adaptable activity for older adults, although evidence for specific cognitive and brain-health benefits remains more limited and variable than the evidence for physical benefits.[3]

That distinction matters.

The argument is not that dancing, painting, learning Spanish or taking up the piano guarantees protection against cognitive decline.

Science does not allow us to say that.

The more defensible point is this: The brain retains the capacity to learn and adapt, and challenging it with new learning gives that plasticity something to work on.[1]

And that is an important idea in resilience.

Resilience is built partly by meeting an appropriate challenge… and adapting to it.

Back to My Aunt

My aunt is over 100 years old. Yes. But I do not claim that her curiosity explains her longevity. Aging is far too complex for that.

What I can say is that I have observed her closely. And she makes me think. She remains interested in the world. She asks questions. She wants to know what people are doing. She notices and she remembers.

And apparently… she remembers enough history to correct her physician nephew when he gets his dates wrong.

“That is the wrong date.”

Yes, Auntie. You were right.

Perhaps there is a lesson here for the rest of us.

Do not spend the second half of life doing only the things your brain already knows how to do. Challenge your mind. Keep moving your body. Learn what you do not know.

Every now and then, ask yourself the question my centenarian aunt continues to ask me: “What is new?”

Because the brain does not only need rest; it needs reasons to keep adapting.

References

1. Pauwels L, Chalavi S, Swinnen SP. Aging and brain plasticity. Aging (Albany NY). 2018;10(8):1789–1790. doi:10.18632/aging.101514.

2. Duszkiewicz AJ, McNamara CG, Takeuchi T, Genzel L. Novelty and dopaminergic modulation of memory persistence: A tale of two systems. Trends Neurosci. 2019;42(2):102–114. doi:10.1016/j.tins.2018.10.002.

3. Waugh M, Youdan G Jr, Casale C, et al. The use of dance to improve the health and wellbeing of older adults: A global scoping review of research trials. PLoS One. 2024;19(10):e0311889. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0311889.

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Author Bio
Dr. Ivan Edwards is a man who is comfortable wearing a few hats in life. A polymath, he is an ordained non-denominational minister, a medical doctor, a USAF flight surgeon (at the rank of Colonel), an entrepreneur and CEO, and a writer-poet.

His work explores healing, restoration, resilience, identity, and the strength of the human spirit shaped by faith.

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