One piece of advice my mom preached to my brother and me, “Never stop learning. Learn something new everyday.” She was on to something. Thanks, Mom.
“The brain craves novelty,” says Tracey Shors, PhD, a distinguished professor of psychology and neuroscience at Rutgers University, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. And it doesn’t get it from a sudoku or brain-training app, which recruits the same skills repeatedly. “It’s like exercising one muscle—that one gets stronger, but your overall fitness doesn’t change,” says Langbaum. She and Shors agree it’s best to pick up interests that command your full attention and keep developing your skills, like playing a new instrument or learning a foreign language.