Learning Slows Down with Age

There are three possible reasons why the ability to learn a language decreases at 18.

• Social changes: At 18, late teens typically graduate high school and may no longer have the time, opportunity or learning environment to study a second language.
• Interference: The rules of a first language may interfere with the ability to learn a second language.
• Continuing brain development: Changes in the brain that continue during the late teens and early 20s may make learning harder.

There are many examples of people who pick up a language later in life. Our ability to learn new vocabulary appears to remain constant, but most of us will not be able to master grammar like a native speaker.

There's no age at which humans are performing at peak on all cognitive tasks - our various cognitive functions peak at different times and past a certain age it might make more sense to view adult intelligence not through the lens of youthful general processing speed and reasoning, but through the lens of expertise, wisdom, and purpose.

Small, incremental adjustments in difficulty are almost certain to push your level up. The downside with progressive habits is that they are harder to sustain.

Paying attention seems to be linked to effort, since deliberate control of attention take effort.

Focus is only hard if we're trying to focus. If our attention is held automatically, focus is not an effort.

Effort could be seen as the opposite of something we do automatically. Effort then is what happens when we try to override an automatic pattern.

As time passes, there is a build-up of toxins in the brain that correlate to the aging process of cognitive decline. Although this is a natural part of growing older, many factors can exacerbate it. Stress, neurotoxins such as alcohol and lack of (quality and quantity) sleep can speed up the process.

The key to resilient aging is improving neurogenesis, the birth of new neurons. 

This activity occurs in the hippocampus, the part of the brain that lays down memories. And we respond to and store new experiences every day, and cement them during sleep. The more we can experience new activities, people, places, and emotions, the more likely we are to encourage neurogenesis.

Deep engagement with learning makes the experience more valuable and easier to remember.

You can take notes about the material to ask questions later or even send questions by email or ask for an appointment.

Continuing education is vital to maintain your career growth. Lifelong learners view their education as a portfolio with several components.

If you want to earn more, consider learning sales and marketing skills. Those skills are useful even for non-sales jobs.

Cognitive activities like crossword puzzles, reading or playing music may delay memory decline among people who eventually developed dementia.

It happens when a person is in a situation where they are anxious that they may conform to a negative stereotype aimed at his or her social group.

Positive stereotypes, or success on previous memory tasks, can help combat this negativity. 

• Straightforward refutation of the old idea. This complete refutation is atypical. More likely the new knowledge doesn’t contradict the old one, but it may modify it in some way.
• The new knowledge revises a simpler picture by filling it with more complex details. This is similar to adding new knowledge, although because the older, simpler view of the issue has been overwritten with more detail, there is some unlearning going on.

• Physical;
• Cognitive - when memory and other abilities decline;
• Psycho-social:  includes things like well-being, happiness, quality of life, control of emotions, socialization.

Successful aging mainly refers to better well-being, greater happiness, and not just arriving at old age, but thriving and even flourishing.

• Calorie restriction. 
• Physical activity. 
• Keeping your brain active: do something that is somewhat challenging. Not too stressful, but somewhat challenging. 
• An appropriate degree of socializing. 
• Attitude and behavior: resilience, optimism, compassion, doing things for others, volunteering activities.
• Other strategies like meditation for reducing stress.  

There are two problems you can encounter when you're trying to learn something.

1. You have a clear understanding of what you'd like to do and how you're going to do it, but you're unable to implement the approach you've chosen. Slow things down so you can pay more attention to every aspect of the problem.
2. Speed learning is effective when you're not sure what the ideal should be and need more information to work it out. A good example of speed leading to move closer to quality is in entrepreneurial fields. Many fail because they picked the wrong problem to solve and wasted too much time trying to solve it.

The balance between going faster and doing it right depends on what you're trying to achieve.

• Faster feedback means more information to find out your key challenges and possible solutions.
• Slower helps you focus on a strategy you've chosen, allowing you to execute it correctly.