8 Reasons Why You Should Learn a New Skill Every Day

Learning a new skill helps rewire your brain. Acquiring a new skill changes your brain forever. Rewiring is a result of your brain's neurons forming new and often more complex synaptic associations.

Rewiring alters your neural pathways throaugh a process called neuroplasticity. Neurons are the functional units inside your brains. These neurons are responsible for the relaying of signals to and fro in your brain.

Repeated Learning

Neurons terminate in structures called dendrites. The more your neurons get exposed to a particular stimulus the quicker the responses. If your brain keeps on getting the same input signals, the signal relaying process becomes almost automatic; the brain doesn't even realize it's performing these repeated activities.

Storing Permanent Memories

To learn a new skill, the information must be permanently encoded in your brain's memory banks. Your brain needs some time off to process and turn temporary memories into permanent information. Sleep is the best way for your brain to internalize this incoming information. Sleep allows this organ to sort and store the learned experiences.

Memory Deprivation

Sleep deprivation is often the main cause of memory lapses. It's important to note that not all the acquired information gets stored. Most of this data gets lost along the way in a process known as memory degradation. Degradation occurs as the information travels across the synaptic junctions of millions, if not billions, of neurons.

Dopamine Rush

According to brain researchers, learning new novel experiences excites the brain. Upon taking in new experiences, your brain starts to offload the 'feel-good' neurotransmitter chemical, dopamine. The influx of dopamine in your body leaves you feeling invigorated and you feel the need to keep on learning the skill, over and over. This sweet and addictive feeling is what makes a novel experience an absolute delight.

Myelin

The rate at which neurons convey signals to and fro is determined by the myelin sheath. This is a fat deposit lining the outer layers of the neurons. The myelin gets depleted with aging and that's why it's easier for a kid to learn a new language than it is for a 70-year-old.

Here are the reasons why you should always keep your brain active by learning new things:

1. Promotes Health

Leaving your brain dormant where you don't learn new skills is a very dangerous health precedent. Numerous studies have shown that people who don't learn new things often are more likely to develop health complications like heart disease as compared to those who are always learning new things. Acquiring new skills keep your brain in shape and that makes it less prone to mental disorders like dementia and Alzheimer's.

2. Earns You Respect

Individuals who possess many unique skills earn the admiration of their peers. It’s normal to find yourself more attracted to people who're skilled in computer coding or bitcoin mining than your regular Joe friends. Being endowed with advanced skills makes you a darling with your superiors at the office as well.

3. Helps You Remain Relevant

In today's ever-changing world, we can't properly emphasize the importance of staying up to date with new and emerging skills. These skills keep you marketable as technology advances. You don't want a scenario where you're the first person to get booted at the office simply because your skills are regarded as ancient and outdated.

4. Creates New Opportunities

Having a wealth of unique skills keeps you in top demand at the job market. If you're knowledgeable, you'll always be the first one to get considered for new opportunities. If you learn how to play an instrument, or write online essays you have an opportunity to diversify your income.

Learning QuickBooks, for instance, can help you reap lots of benefits. Small business owners, everywhere, are always in dire need of employees with QuickBooks skills. If you’re a freelancer, taking QuickBooks classes can help you stand out from the sea of other similar workers. Asides, you can also use the newly-acquired QuickBooks skills to run your successful small enterprise more efficiently.

5. Promotes Confidence

Having a wide plethora of skills works miracles to build your overall self-esteem either at the workplace or in your personal relationships. Gone are the days when the most confident and attractive people were the ones with huge bulging muscles. Nowadays, you only need to know how to mine cryptocurrencies and a thousand other emerging skills to become the most popular guy.

6. Makes You a Role Model

Nowadays, kids always look up to people who have many skills. Set a perfect example for the young ones with your learning capabilities. Kids will want to emulate your success by also chasing new skills. Highly skilled people often get called into learning institutions to give lectures to the young ones as they've already succeeded.

7. Financial Empowerment

Learning a new technical skill can help turn your hobbies into money-making opportunities. For instance, you could transform your love for HD graphics into a viable career by taking free, or paid-for video editing courses. You can teach yourself how to trim and arrange videos in a couple of weeks at most.

Here’s your opportunity to learn about the software required in your journey to becoming a pro video editor. Once you’ve honed your Adobe Premiere video editing skills, you stand to rake in hundreds of extra dollars per month, in passive income, as a freelancer on platforms like Upwork.

8. It Sparks Creativity

The more you expose your brain to new learning experiences, the sharper, or more responsive it becomes. Studies have proven that, if you want to become better at a particular skill, you should take on a new skill. For instance, if you're stuck with learning a new musical instrument, why not sign up for language courses instead?

This trick serves to reinforce your earlier learning experiences and you find yourself getting better and better at the instruments.

Here are five resource hubs to help strengthen your brain and make it easier to learn new things.

Watch TED Talks

TED Talks feature some of the brightest and innovative minds on the planet. Become a fan of this informative and wildly entertaining show and you'll most certainly reshape your thinking. The talks will definitely inspire you to take on the challenge of learning a new skill.

Get Online Courses

There's a ton of amazing online hubs that you can head to and learn a variety of new skills. These include Udemy, Udacity, Bit Degree, and Coursera, among many others. These educational resource hubs give you the option of either studying for free or paying a few dollars to acquire the life-changing skills offered.

Visit Lumosity

Lumosity is a fantastic hub filled with endless cognitive games guaranteed to rewire your brain. Cognitive games help to stimulate the growth of your brain and it gets easier for you to learn, moving forward.

Play Word Puzzles

Word puzzles are ideal for growing your mental vocabulary. Install word games on your smartphones and strengthen your minds playing these crosswords whenever you’re idle, for instance, when caught up in nasty traffic.

Final Thoughts

Keep your mind sharp and healthy by always exposing it to new challenges. There are lots of rewards associated with being the most skilled person in the room. Skills give you confidence, make you likable, and, most importantly, you stand to make more money.

Learning new skills is not as hard as some paint it to be. It only requires a certain level of focus, and determination to learn how to rewire your mind and become a guitar player or speak a foreign language. Being endowed with skills will enable you to live a quality life, try it always!