RESEARCH REVIEW: The Science of Doing Hard Things
Difficult, unfamiliar, a little uncomfortable — the ingredients to grow your brain. Here's what the research says about the brain, the importance of challenge, and the impact on longevity.
INTRO: Most of us are quietly wired to avoid difficulty. We reach for the familiar playlist, the same five recipes, the hobby we already know we're good at. Comfort feels like rest — and sometimes it is. But when it comes to your brain, comfort is not where the growth happens. Challenge is.
Your brain is built to rise to a real challenge, at any age. The discomfort you feel when something is genuinely hard isn't a sign you're failing. It's often the exact sensation of your brain adapting – which is frustrating, but worth the grit.
WHY HARD THINGS WORK: Before we get to the study, it helps to know what's happening under the hood when you take on something difficult.
BDNF — your brain's "fertilizer." Brain-derived neurotrophic factor is a protein that helps neurons grow, connect, and survive. Effortful learning and physical activity are both linked to higher BDNF, which supports the new neural connections behind memory and lasting cognitive health.
The regions that thrive on effort. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) helps you push through difficulty and discomfort — and "superagers" (people who live 80+) tend to be sharper and have a thicker, more active ACC on brain scans. The hippocampus, your memory center, also significantly strengthens with effortful new learning.
Confidence is built, not found. Every time you follow through on a hard thing you promised yourself, you give your brain evidence that you're capable. Confidence isn't something you wait to feel before starting — it's the result of doing. And remember, the brain thrives off repetition. If you repeat keeping promises to yourself, you’re more likely to continue doing it in the future.
There's a foundational idea from cognitive aging researcher Dr. Denise Park: it isn't enough to simply stay busy. The activity has to be unfamiliar and mentally challenging to move the needle. Easy and familiar keeps you comfortable; new and hard is what builds.
STUDY: The Impact of Learning Multiple Real-World Skills on Cognitive Abilities and Functional Independence in Healthy Older Adults by Leanos et al., 2023.
Let's walk through what they did, what they found, and — most importantly — how to read a study like this with a clear, critical eye.
POPULATION (who): Across two studies out of the University of California, Riverside, healthy older adults ages 58 to 94 took part. These were everyday adults, mostly retired, curious enough to try something new. None of them had a diagnosed cognitive impairment.
METHODS (how): Instead of learning one new hobby, participants learned at least three brand-new, difficult skills at the same time — chosen from Spanish, painting or drawing, iPad use, music composition, and photography. They kept this up for about 12 to 15 weeks, putting in roughly 15 hours a week including homework. Classes were paired with weekly "coffee talk" sessions on growth mindset, neuroplasticity, and scientific literacy. Throughout, researchers measured three core cognitive abilities:
Working memory — holding and using information in the moment
Cognitive control — focus, attention, and mental flexibility
Episodic memory — remembering events and experiences
The skills were chosen specifically because they were new to each participant. The whole point was to recreate the kind of intense, unfamiliar learning we do naturally as children and young adults — and rarely return to later in life. I think this is such an interesting idea – that if we kept learning at the same rate as children, our cognitive abilities are truly untapped.
OUTCOMES (results): The gains showed up faster than you might expect. By the midpoint of the program — only about 6 weeks through — participants had significantly improved their working memory, cognitive control, and episodic memory. Strikingly, their midpoint performance looked similar to a separate sample of middle-aged adults roughly 30 years younger.
Two other patterns stood out. The more hours participants put in, the more their working memory improved — effort tracked with reward. And a comparison group that didn't take the classes didn't show the same broad gains. The takeaway the researchers leaned toward: learning multiple hard, unfamiliar skills at once may offer broad cognitive benefits, not just narrow practice at one task.
READING RESEARCH & CRITICAL THINKING: Now for the grain of salt — because a hopeful finding deserves an honest look, and learning to read research this way is one of the most protective skills you can build.
A few things worth knowing about this study:
These were small feasibility studies. Only six and eighteen participants completed the two studies, so they're early proof-of-concept, not the final word. Small samples make it harder to be confident the results would hold in a much larger group.
There wasn't a strong comparison group. In the larger study, participants were mostly compared against their own earlier scores rather than a separate group doing nothing. That means we can't fully rule out practice effects (getting better at the tests) or the simple boost of being in an encouraging program.
Technically, we don’t know what the “magic ingredient” is. Was it the multiple skills? The novelty? The social, growth-minded environment with supportive instructors? The researchers are honest that they can't yet say which part did the heavy lifting — so claims that the number of skills specifically caused the gains go a step beyond the evidence.
It was a motivated, self-selected group. People who sign up to learn three hard skills at an advanced age and stick with 15 hours a week are, by definition, a determined bunch. The results reflect those who saw it through.
None of this makes the findings wrong. It makes them an encouraging early signal rather than a final verdict — and the most consistent thread running through it isn't any single technique. It's genuine challenge, sustained over time.
TAKEAWAYS: Strip away the fine details and research terminology, and you're left with something simple and genuinely encouraging:
It's never too late to start. Adults from their late 50s into their 90s improved — reaching scores like adults decades younger.
Reach for unfamiliar and hard. Easy and familiar keeps you comfortable; new and difficult is what builds. Stacking a few genuine challenges may stretch you even further.
More effort, more reward. Gains tracked with the hours and consistency people put in — not with any single magic activity.
Change can show up faster than you think. Measurable gains appeared by the program's halfway point and kept going.
DAILY PRACTICE: The possibilities are endless, and the rule of thumb is simple: pick something genuinely new, a little hard, and a bit outside your comfort zone. A few ideas to do something hard on purpose:
Learning a new language (and actually speaking it)
Picking up an instrument from scratch
Drawing, painting, or photography — building a real skill, not just dabbling
Taking a class in a subject you know nothing about
Learning a complex new dance, recipe technique, or craft (woodworking, knitting, pottery)
Challenging puzzles that make you think differently, not just ones you've mastered
Teaching yourself a hands-on skill like coding, chess strategy, or a new sport
FINAL REFLECTION: We shouldn’t be avoiding hard. Sure, it’s frustrating, but it’s the feeling of growth in progress. Your brain keeps its ability to adapt and build far longer than most of us were taught to believe — and the willingness to be a beginner again, at any age, may be one of the best things you can do for it. Pick one hard thing and let yourself be new at it – and then pick another ;)
Curious where your own brain health stands, or how to build a routine that actually fits your life? I offer one-on-one cognitive coaching and a free discovery call — a relaxed, no-pressure conversation about your goals. Book yours here, and keep an eye out for our Lincoln and Omaha community workshops coming summer 2026.
Study referenced: Leanos, S., Kürüm, E., Strickland-Hughes, C. M., Ditta, A. S., Nguyen, G., Felix, M., Yum, H., Rebok, G. W., & Wu, R. (2023). The Impact of Learning Multiple Real-World Skills on Cognitive Abilities and Functional Independence in Healthy Older Adults. The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 78(8), 1305–1317.
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