As I blew out the candles on my 22nd birthday cake two weeks ago, I felt part of my youth blowing away and the onslaught of maturity setting in. Now I know everyone needs to grow up a little bit as they get older, and I feel like I'm embracing my new-found maturity. And now when I occasionally go to dinner and make a trip to Blockbuster for a completely satisfying Friday or Saturday (sometimes both) night, I wonder why the heck I ever did some of the stupid stuff me and all my friends did in high school and early college. Why did it seem like a good idea to let somebody do donuts in my Mustang on a baseball field at 2 in the morning? Or throw a party at my parent's house, when I knew I would get caught (I was that kid that got caught for EVERYTHING)? I'm thankful I never got into any real trouble or make any lasting mistakes in my younger days (wow, I feel like my grandma right now), but I do wonder why.
In CNN's Dr. Gupta's blog I came across a possible answer to teenagers occasional lack of sanity: brain development. After the age of 13, the brain in a young outwardly looks like someone in his or her late 20s; however, inwardly, it does not process information as well. The part of the brain that makes decisions is not fully developed until the early to mid 20s (Does this mean I have a few more freebie bad decisions ahead of me until I hit 25 lol) Since this part of the brain is not fully developed, it can't handle stress and decision-making as well as an adult. This part can overload, which can lead to judgments an adult brain might not make (I can't see my mom doing donuts in her SUV on the baseball field at 2 a.m.). According to the blog, scientists say good judgment comes and goes until the brain completely develops.
Luckily for me and millions of others who survived their teen years, we never made rash decisions with far-reaching consequences. However, teenagers brain immaturity could contribute to problems with long-term effects such as heavy
drinking, smoking, doing drugs, having unprotected sex and even thinking of suicide. Because the teenage brain is a complex "mish-mash" of anxiety and confusion, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh are now trying to map how the teen brain functions in hopes of pinpointing some of the irregularities so they can prevent some of these potentially damaging behaviors from ever taking place.
I should tell my mom about this. Maybe she'll forgive for that time in high school when she found a bottle cap in the chandelier from my friends inventive drinking game.
Link to: http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/blogs/paging.dr.gupta/2007/11/do-teenagers-think-rationally.html
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Hi:
I came across your post while searching for people who are "fit" and who are over 30...
Your post matched my search somehow...
I wanted to let you know that your mindset does not change much after 22--you just gain wisdom and maturity.
You won't "see" yourself differently, but you will find those "younger" kids look so much younger at xx age than you remember...
Age is relative. See Dara Torres who is swimming in the Olympics at age 41. Matt Damon is 38 this year, and I am pushing 41--away as hard as I can.. ;)
Life is what you make of it, and I advise everyone to question "facts" and research everything for themselves. Was slavery the reason for the Civil War? No. Don't think so? The Emancipation Proclamation ended slavery ONLY in those states that succeeded from the United States--it did not free slaves in the "Border States" or in the Union states (where slavery was legal in a few of those states). It took the 13th Amendment, passed in 1865 (December) to end slavery in the Union.
Slavery was one of those rights the southern states wanted to discuss and regulate rather than letting a strong federal government take that "power" away from them..
Are there more than one "race?" Or, is there one race--the human race? Maybe it depends on how the term is defined...
So much of what we learn in school is decided for us. The subject matter, the manner in which it is taught, the emphasis on who is/was important, etc.
We don't question these things until we have "time" to think about them and get other perspectives--maybe we just browse different sites when we get older.
This may all seem "deep" thinking, but I hope we all find depth rather than focusing on "those drinking games" that might have taken up some of our time during our youth.
I wish you well in your journey through life, and I hope that you start getting your brain into the game quicker than most.
Post a Comment