It turns out that tennis might be one of the best things you can do to protect your brain from dementia as you age. For this episode of Two Percent, I sit down with neuroscientist Dr. Tommy Wood, author of The Stimulated Mind, to explain why sports that make you think while you move are amazing for your brain. The list includes tennis, pickleball, martial arts, and even strongman competitions.
We get into why the world's most physically active elders in an Amazonian tribe have some of the lowest dementia rates ever measured. We also cover what "open-skill" sports actually do to your brain on an MRI scan, and how modern exercise got so boring the moment we split the body from the mind. Then I open the mailbag for an AMA. I share how to stay fit while traveling and I name the single best exercise if you could only pick one. Finally, I settle a debate that has haunted me since college: what is the actual difference between a sport and a game?