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Puberty: The Sequel


Six months ago, my sister and I sat down to a very serious conversation about the benefits of jogging. Despite being older, I adopted the surly, adolescent approach: I rolled my eyes when she explained how calming it could be, laughed as she described the “euphoria” of hitting a personal best, and shook my head as she passionately defended the notorious ‘runner’s high’. It was all nonsense to me. Revelling in my own teenage angst had worked for me since someone pressed the big red puberty button eight years ago. Surely nothing in the world could change that.

 

Cut to this September and I’m standing out on West Sands in the North Sea breeze, kitted out in a collection of sportswear that hasn’t seen the light of day since leaving school. Surrounding me are three fellow amateurs, looking nervous but somewhat eager to begin the first of many morning saunters along the coast. Strangest of all, no one has forced us to be there. No burly sports teacher, no pushy parents are standing behind us shouting “Dig deep!” or “Go faster!” We had set our alarms, donned our leggings, and downloaded our motivating podcasts completely of our own free will. When we finished, a meagre 2K later, we were exhausted but oddly satisfied. It’s as if some of the stillness of the Fife morning had worked its way into our adolescent brains and settled there.

 

A quick search on the internet and I am inundated with twentysomething-year-olds reporting similar symptoms. They note an almost overnight change in mood, a sudden desire to swap out impulse decisions for healthy behaviour that will leave them happier in the long run. Scientists have identified this shift as evidence of the frontal lobe developing into maturity. They credit the frontal lobe as being the centre of reason, in charge of decision-making, organisation, planning, and the weighing up of short- and long-term effects. If Pixar were ever to make an Inside Out 3, the coming of this ‘second puberty’ would be activated by the big red button labelled ‘Growing Up’. A second shot at maturity, a chance to straighten out the edges without the debilitating mood swings and acne. But could the phenomenon be too good to be true?


Sadly, frontal lobe development is not without its drawbacks. Recent studies have found that the frontal lobe does not begin to mature until one reaches twenty-five, only ends in one’s early 30s, and that the process takes longer for men. Certain scientists have identified a gap as large as a decade between the maturing of the female brain and that of the male. If the studies are to be believed, they radically call into question societal expectations for young adults yet to experience the advent of this ‘second puberty’.

 

The years between fifteen and 21 are some of the most formative in a person’s life. We are expected to narrow down career options, learn to drive, sit one (often two) pivotal sets of exams, and move out of home. All of this before our prefrontal cortex has had the time to wake up, stretch, and get to maturing. Given that this chunk of the brain is the centre of rational decision-making, it makes sense that these milestones can often be overwhelming. Perhaps we just aren’t made to handle the grown-up world when we aren’t, in fact, grown up.

 

Only last year, reports of a ‘second puberty’ would warrant the same sneering response as my sister’s defence of jogging. The idea that the human brain can still be developing well into middle age sounds a little like a conspiracy theory. Yet it would be untrue to say I haven’t noticed a subtle change in myself and my friends over the past few months. The midday walks when feeling overwhelmed, the diffusing of arguments by staying calm, talking it through, being able to see each other’s sides when before we could not. It will likely be another decade before I can, with any vestige of certainty, call myself a grown-up. But perhaps, with the birth of every new frontal lobe synapse, I am coming a step closer.


Image from Wikimedia Commons

 

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