Our brain constantly learns as long as we encourage it to do so. However, the human lifestyle does not support continuous learning. Only recently the European Union introduced çontinuous learning’ as a value that pursues human dignity, human rights, labor rights, etc.
The employers’ interest in the continuous training of employees?
Employers offer only limited learning opportunities, that usually take place in the same field in which the employee already works. The employer intends to keep the employees in the same place of work for as long as possible because this saves him from the efforts of hiring and teaching the new employees the work routines. Therefore, employers organize periodic courses or webinars, without giving them too much importance.
Why do employees have to support continuous training?
The employee is initially interested in the salary but later conforms to the labor market. It is that, if the employee had the possibility of training in fields of personal interest, he could gain even more interest in these fields, respectively knowledge and certifications, which would facilitate employment in another field.
So, somewhat naturally, from the moment of employment, most of us no longer enjoy continuous learning, unless we decide to invest in it.
For this reason, and because our work usually involves a daily routine, our brain starts to gradually lose its learning skills, and forget how to use some information assimilation mechanisms. For this reason, we get tired very quickly when we read, or when we look for some information online, or whenever we are exposed to something new, or to things that we haven’t interacted with for a long time.
Factors triggering the fast aging of the brain
According to an interdisciplinary study from April 2023, the factors that accelerate the aging of the brain are:
- Consuming large amounts of processed food;
- High consumption of sweets and alcohol;
- Reduced physical activity;
- Reduced intellectual activity;
- Excessive exposure to sounds;
- Not enough sleep;
- Exposure to ready-processed information instead of searching and thinking by ourselves;
- Fear of novelty, whether it is learning something intellectual or learning a physical action;
- Loneliness and lack of socialization;
- Lack of, or too few relaxing activities;
- Harmful habits: alcohol consumption, smoking, drugs, etc.
Also, the study shows that obese people with a sedentary lifestyle are more prone to rapid brain aging, precisely because they face most of the above factors.
How to prevent rapid aging of the brain
The aforementioned study includes 102 participants. It records their brain markers at the beginning of the study and at the end of it. During the study, for 18 months the participants followed a Mediterranean diet and did exercise. The results showed that they have lost significative amount of weight and the brain markers changed.
In this way, the researchers found out that among the factors that help prevent the rapid aging of the brain are:
- Mediterranean diet;
- Exercise (either finding a hobby or self-imposed exercise).
- No processed foods in the diet;
- Drinking water and natural drinks (preferably not very sweet);
- Building a daily learning routine (reading something you are passionate about; doing a puzzle; solving sudoku, etc.).
