Study says doing this one thing can reduce the odds of dementia by more than 30%

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Study says doing this one thing can reduce the odds of dementia by more than 30%

Music is a mighty multitasker: It can soothe your soul, boost your mood, power up your workouts, and more. Listening to tunes could even reduce your chances of developing dementia, according to a new study in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

Building on existing research

The knowledge that music is stimulating for the brain isn’t exactly new. “Neuroimaging studies have shown that listening to music activates multiple neural networks at once, and earlier research suggested it could help support cognitive areas like memory and processing speed,” says lead study author Joanne Ryan, Ph.D., a professor of epidemiology and the head of the Biological Neuropsychiatry & Dementia Unit at Monash University’s School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine in Melbourne, Australia.

While past research has pointed to music’s ability to have a positive effect on cognition, the Australian scientists noticed that existing scientific research was held back by small sample sizes, selection bias, and a lack of focus on adults who were initially cognitively healthy. “Previous research almost always treated music as a treatment rather than as potential preventative strategy, and most clinical studies focused on patients who already had established cognitive decline,” Ryan says. “It was unclear whether music could prevent or delay decline in healthy older adults.”

By tracking nearly 11,000 initially healthy older individuals and their music listening habits over several years, Ryan and her colleagues have been able to provide some of the most robust, population-level evidence to date that music could be beneficial for brain health. “What makes this study so strong is the size and the quality of the data collected over a long period,” says Ryan.

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What the researchers did

This group of researchers specifically wanted to know whether partaking in music-related leisure activities was associated with a decreased risk of dementia, cognitive impairment, and overall better cognitive well-being (maintaining good cognitive function as well as quality of life) in cognitively healthy older adults.

To find out, they looked at data from 10,893 Australian adults who were 70 years and older and who, at the study’s recruitment, didn’t have dementia. This data was taken from both the ASPirin in Reducing Events in the Elderly (ASPREE) study and the ASPREE Longitudinal Study of Older Persons (ALSOP) substudy.

Cognitive function assessments, including word recall and how well they could receive information, were given to participants over the course of seven years, and after year three, they received surveys with two music-related questions. These questions asked how often they “listened to the radio or music” and “played a musical instrument, including (using their) voice,” and how often they listened to music: never, rarely (less than once a month), sometimes (1–3 times a month), often (once a week or more), or always (most days).

What the study found

The study showed that older adults who always listened to music had a 39% lower risk of dementia compared with those who never, rarely, or sometimes listened. On top of that, they had higher scores in global cognition and episodic memory.

Researchers also found those who always listened to music had a 17% decreased risk of cognitive impairment with no dementia (CIND), defined as having a substantial decline in cognitive function that doesn’t meet the criteria for dementia.

The scientists also looked at whether playing an instrument, including singing, could offer similar protection. The answer is yes, it can. Individuals who always or often played an instrument had a 35% lower risk of dementia while people who were music listeners and also played an instrument had a 33% reduced risk of dementia and a 22% decreased risk of CIND.

According to Ryan, the most illuminating finding was that simply listening to music appeared just as protective for the brain as playing an instrument. “The assumption has been that actively playing an instrument would provide greater cognitive benefit because it’s more mentally challenging and requires a higher level of concentration and effort, while listening is merely a passive background habit,” she notes. “Yet, our study challenged this notion.”

She says part of this might boil down to cognitive effort. “For someone who has played an instrument for decades, the physical act becomes second nature and might actually require less active mental energy than we assume,” explains Ryan. “On the other hand, listening can engage emotional, memory, and auditory networks across the entire brain.”

Another unexpected finding? The music engagement benefits were stronger in those with a higher education. “We do think, though, it could be related to cognitive reserve, where early-life education helps build better protection mechanisms in the brain, and music can help boost these,” says Ryan. There’s also a possibility that highly educated individuals might listen to music more actively, such as engaging with highly complex genres, or combine it with other mentally demanding habits, she supposes.

“With global populations aging and dementia representing a massive public health challenge, finding ways to maintain cognitive health in later life has never been more urgent, especially since there is currently no cure,” says Ryan, stressing the need for this type of research.

This study is really just the starting point. “Because it’s an observational study, the holy grail for future research is to run randomized controlled trials so we can prove that music directly and actively protects the brain,” says Ryan.

She adds that the researchers also want to understand the “fine print” of listening: Does the genre of music matter? How many minutes a day is the sweet spot? And is active listening better than passive background music? Do the benefits of listening to music begin earlier, perhaps when a person is in their 50s or 60s rather than 70s?

All in all, picking up a daily music-listening habit in middle age, or when first noticing mild memory slips, could help build a stronger “cognitive reserve” early on, potentially delaying the onset of dementia symptoms by years, believes Ryan. “It’s a low-cost, enjoyable, high-reward practical strategy that’s generally widely accessible to everyone, and anyone can adopt it,” she says.e 

My two bar nights of live music and social connections there are what is going to prevnet dementia, there will be no condemnation of the alcohol consumed there.