Learning new things

Why they are learning a new language and playing an instrument?

      I am 19 years old, and that is the age that many people say we should try to experience as much as we can. Many students try to get part time job, join a club or just try to fall in love with someone for the first time...As the matter of fact, I am trying too, but I think there is one thing that is more interesting than all of these things above is learning new things. But what kind of new things should I learn? After a while thinking I decided to learn a new language and learn how to play an instrument. They all brought to me not only fancy but also crazy experience that I want to share right now.

I'm sure that you wonder why I had that decision. One thing that appears clearly in my head when I think about learning a new language and playing an instrument is that it is super cool. I remember that since I was very little, I have admired so much people who could talk to foreigners. If you could talk to them, you could make friends, share and learn many things about the other countries. One time, when I was in primary school, there were tons of foreigners who travelled across my house and they came to me and said something that I couldn't understand. They looked so confused like they needed help, but I couldn't know how to. Then I felt so sad and I talked to myself that I would try to learn new languages as much as I could. And now I decide to learn Korean because there are more and more of them come to our country. And about playing an instrument, whenever I saw a person who plays instrument I think he or she is so talented and much more beautiful and cool than usual. There was a boy who could play guitar and sing along it in my class. Everybody feels very excited when he performs something. And I want to be like him and then I decide to learn playing guitar too. It's also because it seems like the easiest instrument to play in the world.

The second reason that I choose these 2 things to learn to get more experience is that they have many benefits for my study. The most interesting thing I've just discovered is how learning a new language and playing an instrument helps our brain. I actually heard many times about that but I didn't ever know how powerful they are in assisting our brain in study. I found a Ted-Ed named 'the benefits of bilingual brain' says about this, and it is so interesting. They said that learning foreign language motivates the left hemisphere which is more dominant in analytical and logical process in your brain and the right hemisphere which is more dominant in emotional and social process connect with each other more easily. And then your brain would work in both creative and logical ways. Besides, they said that bilingual brain could delay the onset of diseases like Alzheimer's dementia by 5 years. Learning new language also help our brain in strengthening a part of brain that is in charge of executive function, problem solving, switching between tasks and more concentrating with filtering out irrelevant information.... I have to admit that thisTed-Ed is really helpful and it makes me more confident in my decision. So what about playing instrument? How it helps our brain? I also watched another Ted-Ed talked about it. You could search in Youtube with the title: 'How playing an instrument benefits your brain' of Anita Collins. He claimed that when we play an instrument, there are fireworks go off all over the brain although outsides we look so calm and focus. It means that playing an instrument engages almost all areas in the brain, it wakes them up. And of course more work better than one. Additionally, playing an instrument could increase the volume and activity of the bridge between two hemispheres, from that messages could be delivered faster and through more diverse routes. That lead to the result of we can improve problems solving skill, get to high levels of executive function, connect tasks including planning, organizing, and concentrating... It sounds like the benefits of playing an instrument and learning a new language are pretty similar. Playing an instrument even has a more effective benefit than learning a new language is it motive memory function. We could create, store or retrieve information more quickly, easily and efficiently after we play an instrument.

As you can see, these two things are not just simply something to entertain. When you feel stress, you can bring a guitar and play a favorite song. Turn out, you are not just killing stress, but you are also doing something incredibly good for your brain. Every time I look for new idea, the first thing I do is playing guitar, then I feel really comfortable and work out a lot. They said in these Ted-Ed talks that doing these two things doesn't make us smarter but it makes our brain healthier, more complex and actively engaged. And that's exactly what I want when I gain new experience.