Adult learning benefits include improved mental and cognitive health, greater confidence, better career opportunities, a greater social circle, and lifelong personal development. Whether you’re pursuing professional development or learning for personal interest, continuing education offers benefits throughout adult life.
Adult Learning Benefits Explained
1. Why Is Adult Learning Good for Mental Health?
Adult learning can improve mental health by giving people a greater sense of purpose, achievement, confidence, and overall well-being.
A number of studies have shown that there is a direct correlation between adult learning and better mental health, both in academic studies and in research from the likes of the UK Office of National Statistics. The benefits of getting involved with learning as an adult, in fact, have shown to include:
- a greater sense of identity
- higher ability to cope with life and to have a greater sense of purpose
- a general greater sense of overall happiness
Whether you decide to start studying a language using online lessons, decide to do an evening class in web publishing, or join a regular weekend course on gardening skills, the benefits should not be underestimated.
If you’re designing learning experiences for adults, our guide to Instructional Design Frameworks explains how to apply adult learning principles when creating effective training programs.
Whatever you learn, it can give you a sense of purpose and a sense of accomplishment.
2. Social Connections and Interpersonal Skills
Adult learning is a great opportunity to build new friendships, improve your communication skills, and reduce social isolation by connecting with others who share similar interests.
There are many ways to get out there and meet new and interesting people, and studying a topic that you find fun and interesting is certainly an easy way to meet like-minded people.
Furthermore, whether studied in a classroom or online, the chance to interact and keep mentally active is an extremely positive benefit of adult learning and education.
It can be very easy, as we get older, to isolate ourselves more and more, particularly if we lack many family members. Continuing Professional Education (CPE) and Development (CPD) certainly help people avoid social isolation.
3. Improved Confidence and Self-Esteem
Learning new skills as an adult can be wonderful for improving your confidence and self-esteem through building a sense of achievement and personal growth.
Whether it is the qualification you gain that makes you feel more worthy, or the skills themselves, it means a chance to develop positively.
Certain skills, such as those that involve having to stand and talk in front of others, can be especially good for confidence. Presentation Skills and Public Speaking Skills are especially useful to consider if building confidence is your goal.
One of our favorite organizations for learning public speaking skills in an extremely friendly environment is “Toastmasters”.
They hold workshops worldwide and membership is very affordable. Whether you want to learn public speaking for:
- a best man’s speech
- giving a eulogy at a funeral
- presentations at work
- learning speaking skills for social events
then Toastmasters is great. They run weekly meetings in cities around the world on a regular basis.
4. Crime Reduction and Lifelong Education
Lifelong learning can contribute to lower crime rates by helping people gain education, develop job skills, and become more engaged in their communities.
A quite profound finding by the British Government (and detailed in their guide on lifelong learning), points to one of the key benefits of adult learning as helping to reduce crime.
When the topic of adult learning comes up, the connection with crime reduction is often ignored and yet, education is known to help reduce crime.
This perhaps seems obvious given that, as the Prison Reform Trust in the UK states:
At its best, prison education can open up opportunities, enlighten people, broaden their horizons and build their self-confidence. It can increase their awareness of options, giving them a real choice of a life away from crime. Education can open up the legitimate means of achieving success.
Prison Reform Trust UK
5. Employment and Life Opportunities
Adult learning develops new knowledge and skills that can improve career prospects, increase employability, and create new personal opportunities.
Continuing your professional development certainly can provide you with new skills, and these, in turn, can create genuine employment and life opportunities for you.
6. An Active Mind Is a Healthier Mind
Keeping your mind active by embracing lifelong learning, can help your cognitive health and help you maintain mental sharpness as you age.
You may or may not have heard of the term ‘Cognitive Footprint’, a term that refers to our minds over our lifetime, or put another way, the lifetime of our own mind.
Some studies have suggested (although it cannot be determined with certainty) that learning is thought to ward off dementia.
Learning, in other words, is thought to slow down the deterioration of the mind.
Likewise, doing crosswords and word puzzles are thought to be good for giving our brain matter a workout of sorts and for strong learning retention skills.
In fact, adult learning can sometimes be something as simple as sitting with a dictionary and a crossword puzzle.
Doing group classes, though as a part of adult learning will give you additional benefits, such as the social interactions we discussed earlier.
7. Leading by Example and Inspiring Others
Adults who continue learning tend often to be a source of inspiration for others such as family members, colleagues, and friends, through demonstrating the benefits and value of lifelong learning.
This benefit is often combined with others, such as developing one’s own career opportunities and skills.
A recent example I personally came across of doing education to lead by example, was a neighbor who started night classes in engineering.
Simon had two very clear reasons in his mind for wanting to start the evening classes and these were to:
- Inspire his three young children
- See if he could follow his dream of being an engineer
As a taxi driver with dreams of working as an engineer, Simon would look at his children every day and wonder how he could honestly expect his children to follow their dreams when he knew that he, himself, was giving in to the fear of change and really not being what he dreamed of.
Four years ago, Simon completed his qualification in engineering and he has now moved from taxi driver to working as an engineer in Birmingham, England.
The last time I saw Simon, he remarked that if we can do it (considering he left school with no real qualifications), anyone can, and that his kids will now see that you have to follow your dreams.
Certainly, one of the key benefits of adult learning is the chance to inspire others!
Useful Resources
