Learning a new skill can rewire your brain within hours. But to keep those circuits strong, you may need to think back to a time when you knew nothing
Learning is what your brain does naturally. In fact, it has been doing it every waking minute since about a month before you were born. It is the process by which you acquire and store useful (and useless) information and skills. Can you make it more efficient?
The answer lies in what happens physically as we learn. As it processes information, the brain makes and breaks connections, growing and strengthening the synapses that connect neurons to their neighbours, or shrinking them back. When we are actively learning, the making of new connections outweighs the breaking of old ones. Studies in rats have shown that this rewiring process can happen very quickly – within hours ...
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