Publish at December 05 2025 Updated December 05 2025
Boualem Sansal, after a terrible year of imprisonment in Algeria, returns to France to take part in La Grande Librairie on November 27, 2025 (1). He is 81 years old and looks ten years younger, with his joy, simplicity, optimism and determination. Is it resilience or creative writing that keeps him so young, physically and psychologically? Others, more recently, have spent twenty days in prison, pretending they could write a book in such a short space of time, but still look older than their years...
Jean-Claude Casadesus, guest on France Musique's La Matinale on November 19, 2025 (2), announces the tribute concert to be held in January 2026 at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, in honor of his 90th birthday. He will be conducting. And his projects are numerous in Europe and around the world. He is 90 and looks ten or fifteen years younger, thanks to his simplicity, his quality of diction, his clarity of thought, his memory of what he has lived through. Is it the public that gives him this energy, or is it serving music that keeps him so young?
Pierre Soulages is creating three more monumental canvases to mark his 100th birthday, for the retrospective exhibition at the Louvre in 2019. (3). In his interview, he describes his discovery of outre noir after sleeping. An incredible demonstration of creative processes: sleep, like boredom, often provides the creative spark (4). He says that death is only possible if true life exists. And "true" life for him is a life of love, art and creation.
Three examples among many that demonstrate the power of creative activity on brain function, and more precisely, on slowing down the aging process.
It's well known that creative experiences can improve both our mental and physical health, but the underlying measures and mechanisms were poorly understood until the publication of a study in October 2025 (5). A team of researchers recently published a study that demonstrates the influence of these activities on brain clocks "that detect deviations from chronological age (i.e. accelerated or delayed brain aging)"
"Using this framework, we reanalyzed previously published datasets of matched expert and non-expert participants in dance, music, visual arts and video games, as well as a pre/post-learning study ( N = 232).
We found delayed brain aging in all domains, with proportional effects. The higher the level of expertise and performance, the greater the delay in brain aging. Brain areas vulnerable to aging showed increased connectivity related to creativity, particularly in areas associated with expertise and creative experiences."
The first study involved 1472 subjects engaged in a variety of creative activities, ranging from tango to music, from visual artists to video game players. Tango players were on average seven years younger than their biological age, musicians and visual artists five to six years younger, and video game players four years younger (6) (7).
In a second study, the before-and-after effects of playing a Star Craft II video game for thirty hours were investigated.
"Even in this short-term experiment, after only 30 hours of creative training, participants' brain clocks moved backwards, showing a reduction in brain age of two to three years."
Brain plasticity seems to be at the heart of this phenomenon. For a long time, it was thought that in adulthood, the brain no longer produced new neurons, or even destroyed some without recreating any.
Pierre-Marie
Lledo, research director at the CNRS, head of the "Perception and
Memory" unit at the Institut Pasteur, and director of the "Genes,
Synapses and Cognition" laboratory, has demonstrated and regularly
communicates on cerebral plasticity, showing that what he calls "baby
neurons" have been discovered in centenarians who practiced intellectual
or artistic exercises on a daily basis. (8)
In short, creation - whether in the form of a novel, a symphony, a painting, or even a strategic video game - is much more than just a pastime. It's preventive medicine for the brain. It offers the promise of a "real" life, where subjective and biological time can be mastered.
It's up to each and every one of us to make the most of this powerful and accessible tool for living longer and dying younger.
References
1 "Boualem Sansal talks about his imprisonment - La Grande Librairie" 27/11/2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL7WlDBdp60
2 "La Matinale with Jean-Claude Casadesus, baguette tradition " https://www.radiofrance.fr/francemusique/podcasts/musique-matin/la-matinale-avec-jean-claude-casadesus-baguette-tradition-5482435
3 "Pierre Soulages: one hundred years of plenitude " https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylZGz3NuidA
4 "Igniting students' creative spark" Thot Cursus- 18/4/2023- Alexandre Roberge
https://cursus.edu/fr/27451/allumer-letincelle-creative-des-eleves
5 "Creative experiences and brain clocks" Nature - Carlos Coronel- Oliveiros & co- 3/10/2025
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-64173-9
6 "One type of activity is particularly effective at keeping your brain young" - Science Alert- 29/10/2025
https://www.sciencealert.com/one-type-of-activity-is-particularly-effective-at-keeping-your-brain-young
7 "Gamers, creative beings" Thot Cursus-2/6/2013- Alexandre Roberge
https://cursus.edu/fr/9277/les-joueurs-ces-etres-creatifs
8 "La plasticité cérébrale : c'est fantastique" - France Culture- 10/2/2020- https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/la-methode-scientifique/plasticite-cerebrale-le-cerveau-c-est-fantastique-6577579
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