Never Stop Learning: Building Brain Resilience Through Lifelong Education
If you love reading, doing puzzles, or trying new hobbies, here’s some great news: all of those activities benefit your brain health. Research shows that education and lifelong learning help the brain build “cognitive reserve” – extra mental resilience that helps you stay sharp as you age. While formal education early in life gives you a boost, it’s never too late to strengthen your brain by staying curious and engaged.
In this article, we’ll explore why education and mental stimulation matter for cognitive health, how they may reduce dementia risk, and simple ways you can challenge your brain at any age.
But it's important to remember, this is only one of many modifiable behavioral risk factors for Alzheimer's and dementia.
If you'd like a personalized plan, daily activities and support to help address all of your most pressing risks, sign up for a 2 week free trial of Mindr. Better brain health starts today.
Why Education Matters for Brain Health
Your brain is like a muscle – the more you use it, the stronger and more adaptable it becomes. Formal education in early life appears to give the brain a head start by helping it form rich networks of neural connections. As you learn new things and solve problems as an adult, your brain continues to adapt and rewire itself by making additional connections between neurons to meet new demands. These extra connections can act as a buffer when age-related changes or disease affect the brain. A brain with more connections and neural pathways has an easier time detouring around damage and continuing to function than one with fewer connections.
The 2024 Lancet Commission on dementia reports that limited education is one of the top modifiable risk factors for dementia. In fact, they estimate that about 7% of dementia cases worldwide might be preventable with more years of schooling in childhood and early adulthood. That’s millions of people who could potentially avoid memory loss later in life.
But it doesn’t stop with early life. Engaging the brain through continued learning, social activities, and challenges throughout adulthood appears to help build and maintain that protective reserve.
Lifelong Learning: It’s Never Too Late
You may be wondering: if you didn’t have many years of formal education, is it too late to benefit? Absolutely not. Scientists emphasize that the brain remains flexible – able to grow new connections and pathways – throughout life. This flexibility, also called brain plasticity, allows the brain to adapt, reorganize and change when exposed to new challenges. An example of the power of brain plasticity is seen in sustained occupational therapy allowing recovering stroke patients to make dramatic improvements despite severe damage to the brain.
Studies suggest that adults who challenge themselves with new skills, hobbies, or mentally engaging activities have a lower risk of cognitive decline than those who don’t. Even everyday activities like reading, writing, attending lectures, or learning to use new technology can strengthen brain resilience. The more core cognitive processes (like working memory, attention, decision-making, and reasoning) the activity includes, the better. For example, when you make a new recipe for dinner, you exercise decision making to determine which recipe to make, working memory to remember which ingredient you went to the pantry to retrieve, attention to focus on cooking instead of straightening the pantry, and reasoning to understand why you can’t leave the baking powder out of the muffins.
Formal brain training like what you might experience in scientifically proven brain games or in occupational therapy can also have a positive impact on how well your brain works. One landmark study, the FINGER trial, found that a lifestyle program combining exercise, nutrition, social engagement, and brain training led to a 25% improvement in cognitive performance compared to usual care. Continued learning, brain training and challenging mental activity were key parts of that success. Not all brain games are created equal though - make sure you select one which is based on brain science, not on maximizing ad revenue.
Brain-Friendly Actions You Can Take
Here are practical, research-backed ways to keep your brain active and engaged:
Stay mentally active: Exerting mental effort on a daily basis helps keep you sharp. If you are still working and have a challenging job which requires you to solve problems, staying mentally active will require less intentional effort. If you are retired, you could volunteer regularly, play high-quality science-backed brain games, challenge yourself with a hobby or read about topics which interest you. If getting out is hard, start with crossword puzzles or jigsaw puzzles. If you enjoy reading, pick up a new genre of book or read the newspaper instead of watching the news on TV.
Learn something new: Learning requires your brain to make new connections and to draw on things you already know to make sense of new information, which strengthens existing connections within your brain. You could enroll in non-credit adult education at a local college or take community classes in topics you are interested in. Ask a friend to join you for an even bigger impact on your brain health. If mobility is a challenge or there aren’t any classes near you, try online courses (many are free!). Bonus points if you have to learn how to use new technology to take the class. You could even pick up a musical instrument or learn the basics of a new language.
Encourage the next generation. If you have children or grandchildren, nurture their curiosity and get involved in their education. Reading together, helping with schoolwork, asking questions about what they are learning and encouraging their questions all help build their future cognitive reserve. You’ll learn a few new tricks along the way too - or maybe remember something you learned when you were a kid but haven’t used in years. If you don’t have younger family members, consider volunteering at your local school or becoming a mentor to a young person who could use some guidance.
Stay curious: Feed your natural curiosity by visiting museums or cultural centers, joining a book club or discussion group, and exploring new hobbies like cooking, painting, or photography. Open yourself up to new ideas and ways of thinking by traveling or even exploring your local community in new ways. If you aren’t up for something new, try practicing mindfulness. Paying more attention and being curious can help make everyday experiences feel new again.
Mix it up: Just like with diet and exercise, variety matters. Social activities, creative pursuits, and challenging problem-solving all stimulate the brain in different ways. Add some variety to your activities and add new hobbies when you aren’t feeling challenged and engaged by your old standbys.
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Making Connections
Protecting yourself from cognitive decline is more than just brain games and hobbies. The 2024 Lancet Commission on dementia found that 45% of dementia cases could be prevented by managing 14 modifiable risk factors. Staying mentally active is just one part of the healthy lifestyle which has been shown to support brain health. Balancing your brain games with exercise, a healthy diet, managing cardiovascular and metabolic conditions and quitting smoking is where you can make a real difference in your future.
Focusing on learning new things easily allows you to check the box on many other risk factors with social engagement leading the pack. Taking a class or joining a club related to a new hobby can boost your social engagement. Volunteering with a new organization or mentoring a younger coworker are also great ways to meet new people or connect with current friends in a new way.
If you choose to learn how to cook new foods, you can choose recipes which follow the MIND diet, reducing your risk for obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol - all significant risk factors for dementia. Active hobbies like sports, yoga or tai chi can help you meet your movement goals, reduce stress and protect you from cardiovascular diseases.
By choosing your learning opportunities and hobbies carefully, you can have a huge impact on your risk factors and have fun at the same time.
The Bottom Line
Dementia is not an inevitable part of aging. By keeping your brain active and engaged, you’re stacking the odds in favor of sharper thinking and richer experiences later in life. Whether you’re learning a new skill, sharing a story with a child, or simply staying curious, you’re giving your brain a workout that truly pays off.
What challenges the brain, changes the brain. So keep reading, keep learning, keep questioning. The steps you take now – big or small – are powerful investments in your future. Your brain will thank you for years to come.
What’s Next
Sometimes trying something new or even deciding what challenge you want to take on next can feel overwhelming. There are so many options! But you don’t have to do this alone. Mindr can help! With Mindr, you will have access to all of these success boosting tools:
An easy to follow personalized cognitive engagement plan that fits your life
Additional personalized plans for your most pressing risk factors
Daily guidance and reminders so you know exactly what to do each day
Frequent assessments and tracking so you can see your progress
A human in the loop to support and encourage you
Many studies, including the U.S. POINTER trial, a study of lifestyle changes conducted by the Alzheimer’s Association, have shown that coaching support and structured intervention plans give people a statistically significant edge over those who are self-guided.
You wouldn’t still be reading this if having a healthy brain wasn’t important to you. The lifestyle changes that will get you there are within your reach. You have the will, we’ll show you the way - one day at a time. You can do this and we can help.
References
Baker, L. D., Espeland, M. A., Whitmer, R. A., et al. (2025). Structured vs self-guided multidomain lifestyle interventions for global cognitive function: The US POINTER randomized clinical trial. JAMA, 334(8), 681–691. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2025.12923
Cleveland Clinic. (2023). Brainwork: The Power of Neuroplasticity. https://health.clevelandclinic.org/neuroplasticity
Faubion, Stephanie. (2022). Brain-Building: How to grow your cognitive reserve. Mayo Clinic Press. https://mcpress.mayoclinic.org/healthy-brain/brain-building-how-to-grow-your-cognitive-reserve/
Kleim, Jeffery, Jones, Teresa. (2008). Principles of Experience-Dependent Neural Plasticity: Implications for Rehabilitation After Brain Damage. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research. 51(1) S224-S239. https://doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2008/018)
Livingston, G., et al. (2024). Dementia prevention, intervention, and care: 2024 report of the Lancet standing Commission. The Lancet, 404(10452), 572–628. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(24)01296-0
Ngandu, T., Lehtisalo, J., Solomon, A., et al. (2015). A 2-year multidomain intervention of diet, exercise, cognitive training, and vascular risk monitoring versus control to prevent cognitive decline in at-risk elderly people (FINGER): A randomized controlled trial. The Lancet, 385(9984), 2255–2263. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)60461-5
Park, D. C., & Bischof, G. N. (2013). The aging mind: Neuroplasticity in response to cognitive training. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 15(1), 109–119. https://doi.org/10.31887/DCNS.2013.15.1/dpark
