This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. A few years ago, Emily Bolchettis was fresh out of space in her life.

She was overseeing an enormous research project. Her son was just a few months old and barely sleeping.

And she had the opportunity to write a book. If Emily's life had been a hotel, it would have had a no vacancy sign out front.

And that's when I decided, you know what, I also need to become a drummer.

I needed something that was just for myself. I needed to explicitly and intentionally carve

out time to let my own brain do the thing that it wanted to do just for me.

Emily decided she'd learn to play a single song.

I wanted to play one rock tune on drums, but really learn how to nail it.

That might seem like a modest goal, but besides being short on time, Emily had another thing

working against her. Playing drums is like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same

time. You have to strike different drums at the right moment and use one foot to hit a pedal.

Such coordination was not Emily Strongsuit.

I'm very uncoordinated.

I have been my entire life.

In the fourth grade, I was on a basketball team,

and I pushed my own teammate out of bounds when she was carrying the basketball

because I tripped on my own feet.

I wasn't invited back to the next season of play.

So coordination wasn't my forte.

She chose the song Your Love by the English band The Outfield,

And recorded herself while she practiced.

Her early efforts sounded a bit like the person in the audience who claps on the wrong beat.

...