My lifetime of crushing failure? Turns out it’s an anti-dementia superpower

April 4, 2026 — 4:00am

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The trick to avoiding dementia, according to a new book, is to take up an activity in which you have shown no previous ability. This is according to the US professor Dr Tommy Wood in his book, The Stimulated Mind: Future-Proof Your Brain from Dementia and Stay Sharp at Any Age.

Wood says, for instance, that the already skilled musician will get little out of practising on their instrument. It is the amateur whose brain will “get more stimulus”.

Suddenly, all my failures in life are rendered as positives. Thank God I’ve spent my life being hopeless at most things. Now comes the payback. I have an anti-dementia superpower that is not available to others.

With music, I’m onto an absolute winner. How I pity those friends who were superb on guitar or piano, winning admiring glances from all those around them, while people like me stared at their shoes. Oh, it’s not like I didn’t try. For three long years, I attended a weekly lesson at Spiro’s Motel, Northbourne Avenue, Canberra, where I was taught in the small, cluttered office by the........

© Brisbane Times