Experts Say This Common Hobby Will Boost Brain Power At Any Age. Here's Why.

Yahoo

23-07-2025

A new study found that playing an instrument could be super beneficial for your brain health.
The results suggest the brain processes of older folks who play instruments actually act similar to those seen in younger people.
Two doctors break down the study and what it means for you. Hint: It's never too late!
If eating whole foods, getting good sleep, regular exercise are already in rotation in your longevity arsenal, consider taking up a new instrument.
Research that was recently published in the journal PLOS Biology found that the brains of older musicians actually work a lot like younger people's brains. So, should you pull out your dusty old recorder from elementary school to reap all those longevity benefits? Well, neurologists say there's definitely credence to the link between music and good brain health as you age. Here's why that is.
Meet the experts: Clifford Segil, DO, is a neurologist at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, CA; Amit Sachdev, MD, MS, is the medical director in the Department of Neurology at Michigan State University.
What did the study find?
The study, which was published in PLOS Biology, studied the brains of 74 people with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure their brain activity. Some of the participants were older musicians, others were older folks who didn't play an instrument, and the rest were young non-musicians. Each was asked to identify syllables that were masked by sounds, mimicking a noisy environment. (Why? Well, as we get older, it's usually harder to perceive and process information, including hearing things in loud areas.)
The researchers discovered that the brains of older musicians were better able to process speech in the noisy situations compared to older non-musicians. Specifically, their brains mimicked those of younger non-musicians in how they perceived noise.
The researchers concluded that people who played instruments had more 'cognitive reserve' that allowed them to better process sounds in a noisy environment.
Why is playing an instrument associated with better brain health?
The answer to this is not entirely clear. 'In general, advanced education is associated with a diminished risk of decline with memory later in life,' says Amit Sachdev, MD, MS, medical director in the Department of Neurology at Michigan State University. 'We do know that to learn new languages and skills, robust new connections between brain regions must be established. We think that this density of connections help make a brain resilient.'
It also takes a lot of brain power to create songs, points out Clifford Segil, DO, a neurologist at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica. 'The processes in the brain that allow musicians to make music with mixed harmonies, rhythms, and sounds is complex and requires multiple brain region activations to do,' he says. By regularly flexing that skill, you ultimately build up a stronger brain, he explains.
If I don't play an instrument, is it too late to start?
Nope. Neurologists say you can pick up an instrument any time and still reap the benefits. 'It is never too late to start playing an instrument or singing if we are talking about brain health,' Dr. Segil says. 'The ability to translate a sheet of music into something requires activation of the visual parts or your brain, the auditory parts of the brain, and the association areas of your brain. These can be trained at age 13 or 73 and are healthy your brain at either age.'
By the way, Dr. Segil says you don't have to be Taylor Swift or Beyonce to make this flex work for you. "The beautiful brain health reality is playing out of tune or off still will likely increase brain functional connectivity," he says. "Your brain won't know if you are carrying the tune well or bad and will still benefit from making music."
What are the other cognitive benefits of playing an instrument?
There are actually a ton of cognitive benefits to playing an instrument that go well beyond the longevity-related ones. 'Playing an instrument requires eye hand coordination, eye and ear coordination, and higher processing when adding rhythms to this process,' Dr. Segil says. This means that multiple parts of your brain need to be activated at once to make music—and that's healthy for your brain, he says.
Plus, the ability to read music is similar to the ability to read in another language, per Dr. Segil, and reading music or a second language "requires different brain pathway activation than reading in your primary language and therefore is good for brain health.'
But of course, Dr. Sachdev warns that you shouldn't force yourself to learn to play an instrument if it's not your thing. 'The most important thing to remember is that you want to pursue it to support your mental health and wellness,' he says. 'It needs to be fun.' Dr. Sachdev points out that you can also just do your brain a solid by socializing with people. And if you happen to do a hobby together with them, even better. 'Pursue your passions, new or old, with a group of like-minded folks,' he says.
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