Are You Seeking Fulfillment and Friendship? Then Do This

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I had forgotten how to roller skate backwards.

It had been at least 40 years since I tried, but I was hellbent on relearning how to turn around and glide in reverse. The weekly amateur roller derby classes I took for six years, starting at 52, solved that problem. Even more than wearing fishnets and rhinestone hot pants every Tuesday night with a coterie of new friends, I loved skating so fast I felt I was flying.

Thousands of older women and men around the country, like me, are taking classes, courses and online webinars on everything from belly dancing and 15th-century literature to axe-throwing and chemical engineering. It’s a way to keep mind and body active, make new friends, gain skills and improve wellness and brain health.

“We are capable of taking ownership of our learning, continuing to learn, and celebrate learning so we are becoming more truly ourselves,” said Lisa Nalbone, 66, author of Harness the Power and Joy of Learning for Your Life, the first of four books in her Lifelong Learning Series.

Nalbone said that when she turned 60, she was tired from years of teaching, homeschooling and taking care of her ill mother. “I thought, 'I have got to start taking care of myself.' So I started taking a yoga class. So much of our physical body is connected to how we care for our brain.”

The positive impact learning has on your brain, your life and well-being is why healthy aging professionals say it is important to keep pushing the envelope — maybe even by learning how to make paper.

“The world opened up to me,” said Jean Donahue, 87, a former elementary school teacher, former director of Education for The Illinois Migrant Program, and former staff member of the Illinois State Board of Education for 28 years.

In retirement, Donahue said she initially took adult education classes for several years at DePaul University with her good friend Barbara Tadin, 86, and later through Triton College, where they both take literature classes now.

“I love literature; you have to find your own way, keep your mind alive. I took a class in astronomy and I loved it. So now I know a little bit about astronomy — a whole new world I knew zip about,” Donahue said. “Opportunities are more significant than the education degrees you get.”

The Senior List reports that more than 21 million men and women over 50 plan to enroll in academic classes, and one in five seniors say they have taken an academic course, either online or in person, within the last six months. Most taking the classes — 82 percent — say they enjoy learning, while 75 percent say it gives them personal fulfillment.

Since its founding in 2000, the “joy of learning” has been at the center of The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, which now sponsors non-credit programs for people over 50 at more than 125 colleges and universities.

Great Courses Plus is an online streaming service that, for a small membership fee, allows you to choose from the library of 18,000 courses that include Quantum Mechanics, Philosophy of Time and Meteorology.

Edx.org offers courses in partnership with Harvard University, Cambridge University, Boston University, Berkeley University and hundreds more colleges. You can earn a certificate or degree by taking classes in artificial intelligence, human anatomy, statistics and more.

“From a medical standpoint, life-long learning [may] help maintain a person’s cognitive health (memory and thinking) and, for many, delay the onset of cognitive decline,” said Dr. June McKoy, an adjunct professor at the University of South Carolina, who for decades has worked with older cancer patients.

In McKoy’s experience, more older women than men opt to take classes in their free time. She explained, “Our brains are able to adapt and change through neuroplasticity, a process wherein our brains form new connections between neurons (nerve cells in our brains), thus allowing for continuous brain adaptation and development throughout life. We know that new learning creates these new nerve connections in the brain and that learning new information challenges our brains to recall and apply knowledge, which strengthens memory.”

Barbara Tadin, 86, a former high school teacher and IBM systems engineer, said she enjoys her Great Books class because of who she meets. “The men and women participants make reading and learning so rich — with great discussions, different opinions, varied insights — and new friendships formed.” The friendship piece is key, as social isolation is a major health concern in older adults.

A recent study reported in Psychology Today shows that older adults with few social contacts exhibit a “loss of brain volume” that can lead to dementia.

“Learning beyond retirement can foster a sense of purpose and personal fulfillment and help adults to build new social connections,” said Dr. McKoy.

Whatever class you take doesn’t need to be an official course with a full curriculum — and homework. “There is power in all kinds of learning you are doing unconsciously all the time and you can love it, even when it is not official and credentialed on paper,” Nalbone said.

A 2021 study of adults taking line-dancing classes during the pandemic found that it alleviated their feelings of depression, decreased boredom and put them in a good mood. They reported that the class gave them “greater happiness throughout the day.”

What physically happens in your brain during learning is impetus enough to keep you signing up for more.

“I’m definitely learning new ways to relate that are healthier than ways I related to learning as a young woman,” noted author Lisa Nalbone. “Learning can be energizing and joyful.”

And you can skate your way through it.


Have any of you taken a class later in life? What was it? Let us know in the comments below.