Neuro Post-it 1
A new series of neuroscientific digestible insights! Written in collaboration with Cesca Centini.
Did you know your brain loves juggling multiple passions?
Switching between hobbies isn’t just fun—it rewires your brain’s plasticity for flexibility, creativity, and growth. From music to art to sports, every new skill strengthens your neural connections, improves problem-solving, and keeps life exciting. Your brain thrives on exploration.
By engaging in multiple hobbies and dedicating blocks of time to each in regular intervals, neurons, particularly in the cortical regions of the brain, naturally strengthen and form new synaptic connections between each other.
This neuroplasticity that occurs when you balance and switch between multiple hobbies—particularly the more creative ones like playing music or drawing—not only makes you better at them over time, but it also translates to an increase in cognitive flexibility with enhanced attention span, decision-making, abstract thinking, and problem-solving skills. Together, this can make you a much more active and creative thinker who is more capable of approaching challenges in life.
Every passion feeds another:
Creativity sharpens problem-solving.
Music trains focus and rhythm.
Movement boosts dopamine and mental clarity.
Together, they create a synergy that enhances everything you do!
However, here’s how to make it work:
Set priorities: You can do it all, but not at once, and the best way to do that is to seasonally rotate hobbies to keep things fresh. You don’t want to overwhelm yourself with one hobby as this could cause burnout and make you lose interest in the hobby over time. Rotating hobbies allows you to learn and develop new skills, which gradually builds new neural connections in different parts of your brain over time. Spend a month on one hobby, switch to another one, and then rotate again to keep your brain active and creative.
Batch time: Dedicate blocks of time to one passion, particularly if you have a lot of them. Consistency is key here: it’s much more effective and rewarding to spend half an hour per day each week than four hours in just one day per week. By dedicating a certain number of hours per week or month to focus on a particular hobby, you can begin to realize improvements and achieve new heights. This can also foster a sense of responsibility and better time management skills in the long run.
Embrace imperfection: You don’t have to master everything—just enjoy the learning process! The point is to discover meaning and joy in your hobbies. When you are able to explore multiple hobbies and do exciting things that you find rewarding without trying to perfect them, that is the key to becoming a better learner. Ultimately, it’s all about enjoying the process without stressing yourself out.
The goal of this series is to break down neuroscientific concepts into bite-sized and digestible insights—just like you would braindump them down on a post-it to remember!
Co-written with