I'm 70 and my doctor told me the best thing I could do for my brain wasn't a supplement or a puzzle — it was to learn something that humiliates me regularly, so I started piano at 68 and my memory has never been better

When I told my doctor I was worried about my memory at my annual checkup two years ago, she leaned back in her chair and said something that stopped me cold. "Forget the supplements. Forget the crossword puzzles. If you really want to protect your brain, find something that makes you feel like a complete beginner again. Something that humiliates you regularly."

I laughed nervously, assuming she was joking. She wasn't.

"The brain thrives on struggle," she continued, pulling up research on her computer screen. "When we're comfortable, when we're experts, our neural pathways are like well-worn grooves. But when we're terrible at something? That's when the magic happens."

Two weeks later, I found myself sitting in front of a piano for the first time since I was twelve, when my mother finally let me quit after four years of tortured lessons. At sixty-eight years old, I couldn't even remember where middle C was.

The peculiar gift of being terrible

Have you ever watched a child learn to tie their shoes? The concentration on their face, the tongue poking out slightly, the complete absorption in the task? That's what I looked like trying to play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" those first few weeks. My fingers felt like sausages. My left hand seemed to belong to someone else entirely. The metronome might as well have been speaking ancient Greek.

During my third lesson, my teacher, who couldn't have been older than thirty, gently suggested I practice clapping rhythms while walking. "It helps with coordination," she said with the patience of someone who'd clearly dealt with beginners like me before. I wanted to tell her I'd taught Shakespeare for three decades, that I had a master's degree, that I could diagram the most complex sentences. Instead, I went home and clapped quarter notes while pacing my living room, feeling ridiculous and alive in equal measure.

The humiliation my doctor prescribed came in waves. There was the day I played at my first recital, surrounded by children a tenth of my age who performed Chopin while I stumbled through a simplified version of "Ode to Joy." There was the afternoon I spent twenty minutes trying to play eight measures correctly, only to realize I'd been reading the wrong clef entirely. There was every single time I sat down to practice scales and heard sounds that would make my old cat leave the room in protest.

But here's what I didn't expect: with each small humiliation came a strange lightness. When you're terrible at something, you have nowhere to go but up. Every tiny improvement feels monumental. The day I played both hands together for a full minute without stopping, I called my daughter with the enthusiasm usually reserved for grandchildren's accomplishments.

What struggle does to an aging brain

Six months into my piano journey, I noticed something odd. I could remember where I'd put my reading glasses. Phone numbers that had always required checking stuck in my mind. The names of new neighbors, which typically took me months to cement, came easily. My memory, which I'd gone to the doctor about in the first place, seemed to be sharpening.

The research backs this up in fascinating ways. When we learn new skills, especially complex ones that involve multiple systems like reading music, coordinating hands, listening, and adjusting in real time, our brains form new neural connections at any age. The key isn't just learning something new, though. It's learning something difficult enough that we regularly fail.

Think about it: when was the last time you were genuinely bad at something? As adults, we tend to stick to what we know. We read genres we enjoy, cook meals we've mastered, have conversations about topics where we feel confident. We build lives that showcase our expertise and minimize our incompetence. It's comfortable, but it's also a kind of neural death by comfort.

The piano forced me out of every comfort zone I had. Reading music used parts of my brain that had been dormant since childhood. Coordinating my hands required concentration that made my forehead sweat. Learning to hear intervals, to understand chord progressions, to feel rhythm in my body rather than just my mind, all of it was foreign territory.

The unexpected side effects of starting over

What nobody tells you about learning something new at seventy is how it changes your relationship with time. When I was teaching, decades could blur together. The rhythm of school years, the familiar cycle of texts and tests, made time feel both endless and impossibly quick. But these two years of piano have been different. Each month has been distinct, marked by specific struggles and breakthroughs.

I remember exactly what I was working on last March (Bach's Prelude in C, simplified version), and how different it felt from April (when I finally understood syncopation). Time became textured again, full of before and after moments. Before I could play with both hands. After I learned to use the pedal. Before I understood minor keys. After they made me cry.

The social aspect surprised me too. In one of my previous posts about finding community after retirement, I wrote about the importance of putting yourself in new situations. Piano gave me that in spades. There's a different kind of camaraderie among adult beginners. We share the particular vulnerability of being visibly incompetent in a world that usually demands we have everything figured out.

At my teacher's studio recital last month, I sat with a forty-five-year-old banker learning cello and a sixty-year-old nurse taking up violin. We commiserated about sore fingers and the impossibility of sight-reading. We laughed about practicing in hotel rooms and the looks our families gave us during particularly screechy sessions. We were all successful people in our own fields, choosing to be beginners together.

Final thoughts

My doctor was right about the humiliation, though I'd reframe it now. It's not really about being humiliated, but about being humble. About remembering what it feels like to not know something, to struggle with basics, to celebrate small victories that would seem insignificant to anyone else.

At seventy, my memory is sharper than it was at sixty-eight. I can play a Mozart sonata (slowly, imperfectly, but fully). My brain feels more alive, more plastic, more capable of surprise. But perhaps most importantly, I've remembered something I'd forgotten: the joy of being terrible at something and choosing to continue anyway.

If you're worried about your aging brain, maybe crosswords aren't the answer. Maybe it's time to find your own piano, whatever that might be. Something that makes you feel foolish and frustrated and absolutely, brilliantly alive.