Aging as a form of progressive specialization

 

“We don’t stop playing because we get old, we get old because we stop playing.”

George Bernard Shaw

There are different perspectives on becoming old and we all have with us, our own experience of aging. I personally find it most useful to look at aging as a form of progressive specialization. A slow process through which, viable options for acting that are available to us, become more and more limited with time.

Let’s pursue this line of thinking and see where it leads us.

We are born almost a blank slate, a “tabula rasa”, with unlimited possibilities for life.

Depending on the culture we were born in, we could have learnt to speak Mandarin, Portuguese or any of the hundreds of human languages. Children growing up in multi-lingual households effortlessly pick up the different languages being spoken around them.

As children, we want to be a professional athlete, a neurosurgeon, AND an astronaut. The possibilities of who we can be, are endless.

So are the possibilities for movement. As children, we can run, crawl, skip, squat, jump, roll, flip, just to name a few. Moreover, children derive an innate pleasure from movement. Watch a three year old talk and you will observe how they express themselves with their whole body.

Our repertoire for movement increases through childhood into adolescence.  In our teenage years, our brains are still developing and we are the most open to new experiences and influences.

As we settle into adulthood, we begin to make selections based on our individual experiences. These choices may be deliberate but are most likely driven by circumstance, even random incidents. As Dr. Feldenkrais said, “We organize our life around which can do to our satisfaction, and avoid those acts where we feel we are inept.”

We try out a few things and then settle into a career. We gravitate towards a certain type of friend with whom we feel comfortable. We begin to wear certain style of clothes which we feel expresses our individuality.

Increasingly, each decision to “do” something or to “be” somebody carries within itself an implicit decision to “not do” something or “not be” somebody.

In terms of movement too, we choose chairs over sitting on the floor. Walking (or driving) over running.

Polite, restrained speech over the exuberant proclamations of our childhood.

We literally assume a certain posture, a certain way of carrying ourselves, which is as unique to us as our signature.

During middle-age, we double down on these choices. There is a certain economy of effort and satisfaction in staying with tried-and-tested habits, friends, neighborhoods, brands, pleasures and traits.

Our political views solidify as do our joints. We discard (or secretly nurture) erstwhile parts of ourselves (long hair, our love for heavy metal) which do not belong within the new schema.

Travel down this path for a number of years and we get a glimpse of what we see in the elderly:

• Frequent repetition of the same habits, routines, conversations, and political views which have become entrenched.
• The shuffling gait, stiffness in the spine and the hips and the resultant limited range of movement.

And that is the image we have in mind of what it means to be old. The variety and unending possibilities of childhood are invariably replaced by the routine and limitations of old age.

There are, of course, exceptions to the above generalization. We all know someone who has retained a youthful vigor and a certain zest for change in their later years, readily embracing the internet revolution if not the liberal agenda.

And we know older people too, who have achieved an ever-increasing proficiency in certain areas of their life, for instance their careers. This is especially true for those who are in the creative or martial arts or in the practice of working with their hands.

These exceptions however, raise the question: is it even possible for each of us to have an upward trajectory in our abilities and the quality of our experiences as we age? And if so, how and where do we start?

Before we attempt to look for an answer, let us first take a quick look at happens within our brains as we age.

The following is my retelling of part of the latest research in neuroplasticity reported by Dr. Norman Doidge in his bestselling books – “The Brain That Changes Itself” and “The Brain That Heals Itself”. I highly recommend both books.

It has been known for several decades that the sensory and motor cortexes of the human brain contain several “maps” of the body.

Different parts of the body are represented on these maps in the same topographical order, so that the layout of the body is mirrored in the brain. For instance, the part of the brain that processes the touch sensations from the feet is next to the one that receives input from the legs and so on.

These maps are different in size and shape in different people and even for the individual, they change over time, sometimes even a short period of time, depending on what we do over the course of our lives.

At birth, our brains are not fully wired in; our brain maps are mere rough sketches, undifferentiated and lacking detail, close to a tabula rasa or a blank slate.

Right after birth, our brain goes through a critical period of learning, with a rapid burst of new neural connections in response to exposure to the environment. The brain maps become more detailed, more differentiated. As a result of these experiences and these new connections, the brain itself goes through enormous changes – the brain is very “plastic” during infancy.

In fact, the infant’s brain is so plastic that its structure changes simply through exposure to new stimuli from the environment. Language development, for instance, has a critical period that begins in infancy and lasts till between eight years and puberty. This is what allows children to learn multiple languages by just being exposed to the daily conversation of their family.

Once this window of time closes, one’s ability to learn to speak a new language without an accent becomes curtailed.

In fact, for a long time, it was believed that brain plasticity was limited to childhood and once the structure of the nervous system was set, it was immutable. Recent discoveries have completely upended that view. It has now been shown that brain maps, and the brain itself, are capable of change at a fundamental level at any age.

There are however, some finer points which are important for us to go over.

As Dr. Doidge puts it in his book, “The difference between critical period plasticity and adult plasticity is that in the critical period, the brain maps can be changed just by being exposed to the world because “the learning machinery is continuously on. After the critical period, older children and adults can of course learn languages, but they really have to work to pay attention.” (Highlight mine)

Dr. Doidge also reports on the role of a protein called brain derived neurotrophic factor or BDNF:

“BDNF plays a critical role in reinforcing plastic changes made in the brain during the plastic period. During the critical period, BNDF turns on the nucleus basalis, the part of the brain that allows us to focus our attention – and keeps it on, throughout the entire critical period. Once turned on, the nucleus basalis helps us not only pay attention but remember what we are experiencing.”

BDNF also helps close down the critical period once the process of strengthening key connections has been completed. During our teenage years, there is a large pruning of neural connections as the brain decides what connections to keep and which to let go. We notice the resultant maturity in teenagers once this process is complete but it comes at a cost.

“Once the main neuronal connections are laid down, there is a need for stability and hence less plasticity in the system. When BDNF is released in sufficient quantities, it turns off the nucleus basalis and ends that magical epoch of effortless learning. Henceforth, the nucleus can be activated only when something important, surprising, or novel occurs, or if we make the effort to pay close attention.” (Highlight mine).

The magical ability to learn effortlessly is gone and we must henceforth “pay” attention to learn.

Note too, the importance of novelty – we will return to it later – but for now, let’s stay with the question of what should an adult wanting to acquire a new language do?

“Neurons that fire together, wire together” is a well-known saying in neuroscience.  Old patterns, reinforced by years of habit, have strong connections in the brain. That is one of the reasons old habits are hard to break.

In the context of speech, our native language, spoken since birth till now, occupies prime real estate in the auditory cortex. The neural connections of the incumbent language are strong and numerous and the new language must compete at a big disadvantage.

On the flip side, parts of the brain which are unutilized due to lack of stimulus, are quickly enlisted by other functions. For example the occipital lobe, which normally processes visual input, quickly takes over processing tactile information in the blind. There is continuous competition for our mental real estate, providing the basis for another equally well known saying: “Use it or lose it.”

This use-it-or-lose-it competition also explains how our brain maps keep changing throughout our lives.

What are the implications for the adult trying to learn a new language? It means that the process must be assisted by adding an artificial constraint: to speak only in the new language,  giving it enough time to establish itself in the brain, without competition from the native language..

I have personally experienced this by accident. I studied French for 3 years while attending college in India without making much progress. It was only later, when I moved to the francophone country Gabon in Africa, where no one spoke any English, that I became fluent in the language in just under 3 months.

We will speak more about the creative use of constraints to improve learning in a different context later, but for now, we have covered enough ground to be able to attempt to answer to the questions we raised earlier:

Is there a way to reverse this process of progressive specialization? Is it possible for each of us to have an upward trajectory in our abilities and the quality of our experiences as we age? And if so, how and where do we start?

While there is no way (yet) to reverse aging, we can indeed continue to improve our abilities in many fields even as we age.

The key for adults, as we have seen, lies in developing novel options through attention and learning. There are more ways than one to accomplish this and Dr. Doidge’s books cover several, including the Feldenkrais Method®, which can change and improve the functioning of the adult brain.

In fact, you can begin to access the remarkable plasticity of the brain through almost any activity that introduces novelty into your routine and engages your attention. This could include, for instance, starting a new hobby or movement practice, learning a new language, or merely changing the route of your daily walk and paying attention to your surroundings.

For the purpose of this article, however, I will stay with the Feldenkrais Method® and its benefits in the context of aging. 

In that regard, I agree with Margaret Mead, the famous anthropologist who said, “The Feldenkrais Method is the most sophisticated and effective method that I have seen for the prevention and reversal of deterioration of function.”

All lessons in the Feldenkrais Method® are addressed to the nervous system. Dr. Feldenkrais was very clear about this and reportedly said, “What I’m after isn’t flexible bodies, but flexible brains.”

Lessons in the Feldenkrais Method are designed to provide input to the nervous system under ideal conditions for learning. Instead of being goal oriented, the emphasis is on being playful, curious and exploratory, allowing learning to happen as it does in children, through play.

Movements in the lesson are done slowly, with attention, thus allowing for the possibility of changing the brain maps and improving function in adults. They are also done with the least amount of effort and maximum sensitivity to provide a clear signal to the brain. Moreover, the movements are gentle and easy to do, so everyone can do them.

Repetition is avoided during lessons and novelty is preserved. The emphasis in every lesson is on finding different ways to do the same movement. Moreover, we do the same movement in different orientations. This process of finding new ways of doing the same thing is central in acquiring new skills, reclaiming old freedoms and continuing to grow in our abilities. Creativity, after all, can also be defined as finding new patterns within what already exists. 

Dr. Feldenkrais was very skilled in the use of constraints to enhance learning and generate options and many lessons include some form of constraint. As we have seen earlier, constraints can be a useful tool in allowing new patterns to emerge and take hold in the brain.

The emphasis is on slow improvement. Just like aging is a slow process, with the changes being imperceptible in real time, improvements in function mostly happen over a period of time. Large, dramatic changes are not easily integrated by the brain and hence are discarded, but small changes over a period of time have a much higher probability of sticking.

The human body functions like a large complex dynamic system, comprised of several sub-systems. As with all large, self-sustaining systems, if you successfully improve one part, you also improve the functioning of the entire system as a whole.

Thus you may feel more balanced on your feet after doing a “chest” lesson. Similarly, improvements in being able to sense, feel and move translate into improvements in attention, concentration, ease, comfort and a sense of well-being and competence over time.

I hope you enjoyed exploring this view on aging with me. In the next article, we will look at the link between movement and the nervous system.