The brain reaches full maturity around 25. Some parts of the brain stop developing long before then but the pre-frontal cortex is an exceptionally slow developer. It’s responsible for cognitive control: self-regulation both internally and externally.
Basically if you don’t learn behavioural regulation by the age of 25, it’s going to be harder to unlearn those habits afterwards. This is often seen in people who constantly make poor life choices and don’t seem to be able to stop, or people with poor emotional control.
While you can point to neurological changes to signal “adulthood”, in my experience, a true shift to what is identifiable as adulthood occurs somewhere between 28-32 years of age.
In my experience, around 18 / 20 you’re fresh out of the trainwreck of puberty and you’re pretty much a mess of a proto-adult, but at least a fairly clean slate to learn how to become a fully rounded one. You only truly get there in any practical sense of the word a few years later - so around 25 maybe. Of course, the older you get, the more you realize you were quite naive at 25 too. But at least you’re “fully there” at 25 so-to-speak.
Women go through that maturing process sooner than men I believe. I’m speaking from a man’s perspective.
What makes 26 a full adult?
The brain reaches full maturity around 25. Some parts of the brain stop developing long before then but the pre-frontal cortex is an exceptionally slow developer. It’s responsible for cognitive control: self-regulation both internally and externally.
Basically if you don’t learn behavioural regulation by the age of 25, it’s going to be harder to unlearn those habits afterwards. This is often seen in people who constantly make poor life choices and don’t seem to be able to stop, or people with poor emotional control.
While you can point to neurological changes to signal “adulthood”, in my experience, a true shift to what is identifiable as adulthood occurs somewhere between 28-32 years of age.
“full maturity brain” is not really a thing tho.
Can you expand on that tho?
I’m not them, but here’s a paper about it
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6128435/
Maybe it’s that you’ve gone through the alphabet? 26 would be Z years old, at 36 you’d be AJ years old. If you calculate your age in letters that is…
In my experience, around 18 / 20 you’re fresh out of the trainwreck of puberty and you’re pretty much a mess of a proto-adult, but at least a fairly clean slate to learn how to become a fully rounded one. You only truly get there in any practical sense of the word a few years later - so around 25 maybe. Of course, the older you get, the more you realize you were quite naive at 25 too. But at least you’re “fully there” at 25 so-to-speak.
Women go through that maturing process sooner than men I believe. I’m speaking from a man’s perspective.