Thanks to neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to reorganize and form new connections, you can build new skills, habits, and knowledge at any age. This is not just a nice idea. It is well established in neuroscience (Park and Bischof; Lövdén et al.).
If you think about it, you are learning all the time. Your brain is constantly updating based on experience, even right now as you read this sentence.
So why do people say “old dogs can’t learn new tricks”?
There is truth there, but it is often misunderstood.
As we age, certain aspects of learning such as processing speed and working memory become less efficient. That can make learning feel harder and require more repetition (Burke and Barnes). But the ability to learn itself does not go away. The brain remains capable of meaningful change across the entire lifespan.
Here is the part I think does not get talked about enough.
Focusing attention is metabolically expensive. It takes real energy. The brain already uses a large portion of the body’s energy at rest, and effortful thinking increases that demand (Raichle and Gusnard; Attwell and Laughlin).
When we are younger, we often have more cognitive bandwidth and fewer competing demands. As we get older, life gets fuller. More responsibilities, more decisions, more things pulling at our attention. So learning is not harder because we cannot do it. It can feel harder because we are asking our brains to do it on top of everything else.
This, I believe, is why being intentional matters.
If you want to learn something new, it is not about whether you are capable. You are.
It is about whether you are willing to direct your time, attention, and energy toward it.
So if there is something you have been wanting to learn but you are worried you are “too old,” you are not.
Give it your focus. Come back to it often. Make space for it when you actually have the energy to engage. And be patient with yourself.
If it feels harder than it used to, if you find yourself getting frustrated, that does not mean anything is wrong with you. It just means you might need a different pace.
Try slowing it down. Stay with it. Meet yourself exactly where you’re at (this is so important regardless of age).
The learning process may not look exactly like it did at 17, but it is absolutely possible.
Works Cited:
Attwell, David, and Simon B. Laughlin. “An Energy Budget for Signaling in the Grey Matter of the Brain.” Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism, vol. 21, no. 10, 2001, pp. 1133–1145.
Burke, Sara N., and Carol A. Barnes. “Neural Plasticity in the Ageing Brain.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience, vol. 7, no. 1, 2006, pp. 30–40.
Lövdén, Martin, et al. “Experience-Dependent Plasticity of White-Matter Microstructure Extends into Old Age.” Psychological Bulletin, vol. 136, no. 4, 2010, pp. 659–676.
Park, Denise C., and Gabriele N. Bischof. “The Aging Mind: Neuroplasticity in Response to Cognitive Training.” Annual Review of Psychology, vol. 64, 2013, pp. 491–516.
Raichle, Marcus E., and Debra A. Gusnard. “Appraising the Brain’s Energy Budget.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 99, no. 16, 2002, pp. 10237–10239