Creativity and Brain Age: Why a Creative Hobby Is Linked to a Younger Brain

We know that physical activity is good for the brain. That a Mediterranean diet helps. But it turns out there is another factor, perhaps more surprising, linked to a brain that appears younger: creative engagement. A large-scale international study published in Nature Communications in October 2025 examined experts in four different creative fields and found that sustained creative engagement is linked to a younger "brain age." Most importantly: the advantage was not dependent on the type of creative activity. All fields showed the same pattern.

How Brain Age Was Measured

The study was led by researchers from the Global Brain Health Institute and Trinity College in Dublin, together with Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez and the BrainLat center in Chile. The team analyzed data from 1,472 participants from 13 countries (including Argentina, Canada, Germany, Poland, Brazil, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and others).

Instead of structural MRI scans or blood methylation tests, the study used a completely different tool: functional brain connectivity measured by M/EEG, meaning a combination of magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG). Both methods measure the electrical and magnetic activity of the brain, allowing mapping of how different regions communicate with each other.

Based on connectivity patterns, a machine learning algorithm was trained to predict age. This created a "brain clock" that compares the predicted age of the brain to the actual chronological age. A negative gap, meaning a brain that appears younger than the age on the ID card, is considered a positive sign.

The Main Finding: All Creative Activity Linked to a Younger Brain

The team analyzed experts in four creative fields and compared them to matched non-expert participants:

• Visual artists (painting and drawing)
• Tango dancers
• Musicians (instrumentalists and singers)
• Strategic gamers (StarCraft II players)

In all four fields, the experts showed a "brain age" younger than their chronological age. On average, the gap was on the order of about 5 to 7 years between experts and non-experts.

It is important to clarify: the effect size was measured in statistical terms (Cohen's d), not in exact years for each field individually. According to this measure, visual artists showed the largest effect (d of about 1.04), followed by tango dancers (about 0.77), gamers (about 0.63), and musicians (about 0.60). But the central point of the study is not which field "wins." The advantage for brain age was consistent across all fields and independent of the type of creative activity.

"Creativity emerges as a powerful factor for brain health, at a level comparable to physical activity or diet." - Dr. Agustín Ibáñez

Why Specifically Creativity?

The researchers suggest that the common denominator of all creative activities is that they challenge the brain in a complex and multi-systemic way. Creative engagement typically combines several demands simultaneously:

1. Continuous learning: ongoing improvement, not just mechanical repetition of the same action
2. Integration of brain systems: dance requires coordination, music combines hearing and motor planning, drawing connects vision to motor precision
3. Flexible decision-making: dealing with changing situations, not performing a fixed script

In the analysis of connectivity patterns, the most prominent differences between experts and non-experts were concentrated in frontoparietal hubs, areas known to be particularly vulnerable to aging. These areas are related to attention, motor coordination, and visual information processing. In other words, creativity was linked specifically to strengthening the areas that tend to deteriorate with age.

Even Short-Term Practice Showed an Effect

Part of the study was experimental and not just observational. A sub-study examined participants who underwent about 30 hours of practice in the strategy game StarCraft II, spread over several weeks (about five to ten hours per week).

Even after a relatively short period, a moderate shift towards a younger "brain age" was measured (a gap of about 3 years). However, the effect was smaller than that found in the experts who had accumulated many years of engagement. This data point is important because it is the experimental side of the study, and it suggests that even a new beginning may be linked to a measurable change.

"One of our main conclusions is that you don't need to be an expert to benefit from creativity." - Dr. Carlos Coronel

What This Does Not Mean

It is advisable to read the findings with caution. Most of the study compared long-term experts to non-experts at a single point in time. Such a comparison is a correlation, not proof of causation. It is possible that people with an inherently "younger" brain are more drawn to creative engagement and persist in it, and not just that creativity made the brain younger.

The experimental part (the StarCraft II practice) strengthens the direction of a possible link, but it involves a small sample and a short period. Therefore, the cautious phrasing is: creative engagement is linked to a brain that appears younger, and not necessarily causes this with certainty.

It is also important to remember that the measure here is "brain age" derived from M/EEG connectivity. This is a research indicator of brain health, not a medical test or a prediction for a specific disease.

What Can Be Taken from This

Even without jumping to causal conclusions, the overall picture aligns with what is already known about a healthy brain: diverse and challenging cognitive stimulation is good for the brain. A few practical and balanced points:

1. Choose a creative activity that interests you and persist in it. Dance, playing an instrument, painting, photography, writing, complex knitting, or creative gardening all combine learning and flexible decision-making.
2. Seek challenge, not routine. If the activity has become completely automatic, you can increase the difficulty level or change the style.
3. You don't need to be an expert. According to the researchers themselves, even those who start late may benefit. There is no "starting age."
4. This complements, not replaces. Creative engagement is an addition to a healthy lifestyle (movement, sleep, diet, and social connections), not a substitute for any of them.

The bottom line of the study is optimistic and simple: creativity, in its various forms, is linked to brain health, and this can be practiced at any age.