When you’re a new driver, you can’t have a conversation. The radio should be off limits. Anything out of the ordinary – from weather to traffic – is too much of a distraction.
That’s because when our brains are learning a new skill, they are working far harder than when the skill is mastered. Scientists can measure electrical brain energy the difference between an experienced driver and a new driver is extreme.
This is why it’s good to learn new skills regularly – to get our brains really firing again. And to remind it self how it feels to concentrate that hard, so we can hold empathy for others who are trying to master a new skill. With that empathy, we can try to build situations that are conducive to this exhausting experience.
I know that in the rehearsals I conduct, my students are regularly working very hard to master new skills and information. I can see the concentration on their faces as they work, and I picture the electricity flying across their brain. It won’t always be this hard, as they slowly build new neural connections and the electricity subsides. But for now, I remember learning to drive or to juggle or to cook a tricky new recipe or to speak Swedish or to play MarioKart and I understand how they feel.