The Benefits Of Learning “New Skills” Are Life-Changing

Here is why you should learn new things every day

During the pandemic, many countries went through a long lockdown period. No doubt there were many negative impacts of lockdown but there were many positives as well. One of them was that we got a lot of time to learning new things or polishing our existing skills. I had heard that we should keep learning new things daily but I realized it when I started doing it. After getting bored sitting home I thought it is better to include something new in my routine and I started with exercise and yoga. I felt nice and then I searched about the reason behind it, how learning new skills works, how our brain works when we learn something new and what are their benefits and wrote this article for you.

How our brain gets sharpen with new practices

Experts used to think that our brain develops till the time it gets mature but now it has been found that the brain continues to change and develop throughout our life. Neurons are the cells that receive and transfer the signals or messages from different parts of the body to the brain. One cell gives information to another which gives it to another and so on and passes it to the brain. With time as we get accustomed to a particular thing, it becomes normal for our neurons and the connection between two neuron cells does not remain that much stronger.

But when we learn something new the connection between the neurons becomes stronger due to which the speed of receiving and sending a signal to the brain becomes faster and the speed of response from our brain also increases.

Apart from that when we learn something new the density of myelin or white matter ( sheath around neuron’s axon prevents electrical signals inappropriate leakage) also increases which help to improve our performance in any task.

Importance of good sleep in the whole process

Well if we think that during the night our whole system except the heart gets shut down so that is not true. Our brain still works. It stores the memories and whatever new information it received yesterday. Our brain also sends this information in reverse so that the signals wire with each other more tightly. So if we get poor sleep, our brain’s ability to remember new things gets affected.

That is why it is suggested to get a good sleep and without any disturbance. You should have at least that amount of sleep after which you wake up feeling fresh in the morning, neither so less to wake up grumble nor so much to become lazier.

Several points of benefits of learning new things

As I mentioned that I started with yoga and exercise as a new task in my routine. A few days later I started realizing some changes at the physical level and personal level as well.

When I went through google on its benefits I was thinking that yes it happens to me. Here is the list of benefits to training our mind with new things:

1. It is relaxing and refreshing: No one likes monotony. That monotony in our day like waking up, having a bath, eating food, looking for our daily work, completing that work, eating lunch, having a nap after that having tea, talking to friends and family, eating dinner, watching shows or series and then going to bed and starting the cycle again from the next day, etc. makes our life boring. But when we add something new to our routine, that task gives us new energy. We wake up enthusiastic and full of zeal to get that thing done. After doing that new thing we feel like we have done something.

2. Socializing: New things never come alone. They bring many things with them. When we start doing something new we search for people who can teach us or accompany us either on social media or in our neighborhood. But one thing is we make new friends and enlarge our circle with the people of the same frequency.

We also find that our communication skills are getting better. Now we are not asking a person in front of us repeatedly what’s new, what’s new. Instead of that, we have a new topic on which we can extend our talks and make the conversation fun. For example, you are learning chess and you met your friends on some occasions, this time you’ll have a topic to say something instead of saying amm, aan ,and nothing.

3. Reduces stress: Whenever we learn something new we know that we are more focused on that task and we need to concentrate more to understand it. It takes our mind in a particular direction and we completely think about it. So it breaks the chain of our negative thoughts or bad mood for some time. We feel relaxed and it happens often that we come with an idea of how to deal with that bad situation with a calm mind. That is how it works as a stress reducer.

4. Source of earning: if we learn something new and creative that can be a source of our bread and butter, there is no harm in learning it. For example, if I learn fitness techniques properly and in the future, if I train others too then it can help with my fitness goals and also add a lump sum to my financial goals.

5. Enhances self-confidence: As our skill list gets more number skills our self-confidence automatically increases. We become less dependent on someone else. For example, I met my friend after one year and while we were talking about our ongoing life, she told me that she didn’t know much about coding before going to that institute due to which she faced so many problems in her field. She learned it and one day their head made a team. She got the chance to lead the group as she was the only member of the group having this skill.

Another example can be our command over the language. Let’s say you are in a group and you are discussing your business or something else. Everyone in the group can speak good English and they are giving their ideas one by one. Although you have better points than everyone else in the group you are hesitating to put them forward just because you are not that much fluent in English and that is why you are also feeling underconfident.

6. We can connect one thing with another: Suppose my brother works in a bakery. He has learned how to make different items and with which quantity. He knows that what can happen if he bakes something at a very low temperature and what if he uses less quantity of some precursor. If he knows everything about it then he can understand the logic of any other process of making food in less time and he can learn more and more things regarding cooking and baking in less time.

It can help us in any field from understanding something to implementing something. As we learn more we create a treasure of wonderful ideas, imagination, and a thought process for ourselves.

7. Discover your talent and passion: we can’t deny the fact that all of us go through a phase of life when we don’t understand what we are going to do in our life. Either we think we like everything and we can’t decide just one thing or we think we know nothing, there is no talent in us. We find ourselves in a dilemma where we are not able to find that what is there in us we can go ahead with. The solution is, start doing whatever you feel like and you will automatically start getting answers about what you like to do and what you don’t like to do. Sometimes you will wonder by your talent that I am more than I thought about myself.

8. Inspire your children and people around you: children grow up watching their parents. They inculcate whatever happens around them and what their parents do. When they see their parents learning new things constantly irrespective of their age they get motivated to learn constantly as well. For example, if we see our 50+ elders learning about new technologies or learning driving, swimming and exercising, and performing well then we surely think that age is just a no. and there is no age to learn something new.

These were the points explaining why we should learn something new. There are endless benefits like learning makes you happier, ameliorates your decision-making ability, makes you broad-minded, helps to break stereotypes, and many more. So don’t wait to start, just make it happen now.

What new can be learned

Now, most of you must be thinking about what we should learn or what can be the simplest thing to learn. In the answer, I can say you can start with the most common things, like how to wash your clothes, how to do dishes, how your favorite food is made, etc.

You can do your daily tasks but with a challenge. For example, if you run 5 km daily you can continue with that but with more speed. If you cook daily then you can try the same dish with different recipes.

Or in my opinion one can learn:

• Cycling
• Driving
• Important languages
• Any instrument
• Cooking
• Yoga or any form of exercise
• Any game which does not require a laptop or phone screen
• Any digital course
• Any computer language etc.

So don’t wait and get started with anything you feel like and please let me know what you are learning nowadays or going to learn :)