We talk about continuous learning and how it is important to be a professional soldier, sailor or
aviator, regardless of trade. We have been told to read journals and books either directly related to
what we do or unrelated material, so as to give us breadth of knowledge. The intent is to improve us
as overall leaders and as technicians.
But is there another reason for this extra effort, which is so often done on personal time, after
working hours? Is there something else behind it that will benefit us long after we have left our
chosen vocation? And should we continue that effort once we remove the uniform for good?
The short answer is yes! Studying something new and continuing to learn throughout our lives leads
to better brain health, particularly as we age, and it can even help you deal with challenges in the
here and now.
Let me give you an example of the role that brain functioning plays in our overall health. As a child,
Samuel Gray suffered a traumatic brain injury. It did not seem to affect him at the time but as an
adult he increasingly experienced brain fog, short-term memory loss, and depression, among other
debilitating challenges, on a daily basis.
When he finally sought treatment as an adult (33 years later), his therapy was quite different from
what most of us would expect. It included physical exercise: where he balanced on the flat side of a
Bosu ball while naming a fruit for every other letter of the alphabet, going backwards through the
alphabet and, simultaneously, tossing a football back and forth with his trainer.
The point of this complex, seemingly crazy exercise, was to force him to rewire his brain so that he
was using the correct areas for word retrieval and memory, tasks with which he greatly struggled.
His injury had caused him, over time, to remap his brain so that he was using the same region for
both word retrieval and balance, causing a conflict and degrading his ability to function in both
activities. With these new exercises, he rewired/remapped his brain so that it better dealt with each
function – he was able to build new neural pathways that led him out of the dark forest of brain fog
and back into the sunny meadow of robust functioning.
There are many more stories of people who have lived with chronic pain for years and with the help
of doctors and therapists with a strong understanding of neuroplasticity, they were able to heal to
the point of being pain-free and drug-free and living healthy, happy lives.
So what exactly is neuroplasticity and how does it work? It is defined as the “the brain’s ability to
reorganise itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. Neuroplasticity allows the
neurons (nerve cells) in the brain to compensate for injury and disease and to adjust their activities
in response to new situations or changes in their environment. For example, if one hemisphere of
the brain is damaged, the intact hemisphere may take over some of its functions. The brain
compensates for damage by reorganising and forming new connections between intact neurons.“
But neuroplasticity applies to much more than just injury and brain damage. Our brains are amazing
organs that change and adapt throughout our lives, allowing us to excel and become resilient, high
performing warriors. There is however a caveat; one of the elements of neuroplasticity is a ‘use it or
lose it’ aspect. That is why you see so many ‘brain games’ on the market and particularly as we age,
we are encouraged to stay active and mentally engaged. New research has also refined this ‘use it or
lose it’ for us: of those who healed from brain trauma, they had one thing in common and that was
the need to expend ‘effort’. Just as we saw with Samuel Gray and his multi-point exercise.
This need for effort has been further substantiated by other studies demonstrating that the type of
activity is important. Doing something unfamiliar and mentally challenging yields the best results. In
particular, activities need to utilise working memory, long-term memory and other high-level
cognitive processes.
One prime example of this is language-learning which leverages working memory, long-term
memory, inductive reasoning, sound discrimination, and rule learning, amongst other cognitive
requirements. In one study, 26 older adults (59 – 79 years old) were enrolled in a four-month second
language course. At the end of the course, results showed a significant improvement in global
cognition as compared to a control group that made no changes during the four months.
Neuroplasticity was definitely at play here as studying a new language requires the use of extensive
neural networks and neural reprogramming.
Thus, as is clearly shown, continuous and challenging learning is vital to our professional and
leadership abilities in the here and now, as well as to our long-term brain health for the next phases
of our life. Given the demonstrated positive outcomes of many studies, I challenge you to find an
activity that pushes you out of your comfort zone and expands on your healthy neural networks.
Life-long learning needs to be part of your personal mantra!
As the proverb says: Forza e coraggio che la vita ̬ un passaggio, amici РStrength and courage as life is a passage, friends.
About the author: Lisa Elliott has 30+ years in the Canadian Army, starting as a private, digging trenches, and now in the officer ranks, fighting paperwork. She is passionate about figuring out how our brains detract from or contribute to our success and how to use this knowledge as a leadership tool.