Most people can’t imagine brushing their teeth with their nondominant hand, let alone signing a check, styling their hair, or throwing a perfect spiral. We have our go-to side—the hand that makes the coffee, turns the keys, scrolls through TikTok—and the other hand, which is more of a backup dancer in the grand choreography of daily life. But then there are the ambidextrous people. Or at least, that’s what we call them. People who toss the ball just as easily with their left as they do with their right. Who write, paint, or play instruments with a casual disregard for handedness. It’s an alluring idea, the ability to switch hands at will, as if it were a hidden superpower or the mark of a creative genius. But what does it really mean to be ambidextrous? Is it trainable, genetic, or just a misunderstood party trick? And why does it spark such fascination?
The word “ambidextrous” has long carried a mystique—part biological anomaly, part artistic brag. But real ambidexterity, defined as the ability to perform tasks with equal proficiency using either hand, is extremely rare. According to neuroscientist Alicia Walf, PhD, only about one percent of the population can claim true ambidexterity. That’s not just being able to toss a softball or butter toast with your off-hand. It’s full motor fluency: writing, drawing, typing, threading a needle—all with the same control and finesse, regardless of which hand is in charge. Most people who think they’re ambidextrous aren’t. What they really are is something more common—and arguably more interesting: mixed-handed.
Mixed-handedness is when someone uses different hands for different tasks, and often those choices are shaped by environment or necessity more than innate wiring. Maybe you write with your right hand but eat with your left. Maybe you grew up in a household that nudged you toward your right hand even though your left felt more natural. Maybe you broke a bone and had to adapt. Or maybe, like legendary musician Paul McCartney, you learned to play guitar right-handed because every instrument in the bar circuit was strung for righties. Whatever the origin story, mixed-handedness tells us something about adaptation. Unlike pure ambidexterity, which seems to be neurologically baked in, mixed-handedness is often trained—or at least molded—by circumstance.
What makes this even more compelling is the brain science behind it. Our brains are divided into two hemispheres, each responsible for different types of processing. In most people, the left hemisphere controls language and fine motor skills and is dominant over the right hand. In left-handed people, it’s often the right hemisphere that takes the lead. But the brains of ambidextrous people? They show far less asymmetry. There’s less division of labor between hemispheres, more cross-communication, and more bilateral processing. This whole-brain engagement is part of what fuels the myth that ambidextrous people are more creative or intellectually gifted. But that’s just it—it’s a myth.
Research has found no consistent evidence that ambidextrous people are more imaginative, artistic, or high-performing than others. As Walf notes, complex tasks like creative problem-solving already rely on both hemispheres working together in harmony. You don’t need to juggle paintbrushes in both hands to activate that. And while it’s tempting to associate hand-switching fluency with exceptionalism, it may be more accurate to view it as a different kind of wiring—not necessarily a superior one.
Still, the cultural pull is strong. Ambidexterity feels like a metaphor for flexibility, duality, even modern multitasking. And in some cases, it has practical upsides. For athletes, being able to switch sides can provide a tactical advantage. In baseball, switch-hitters like Mickey Mantle could adapt to pitchers mid-game. In basketball, players like LeBron James—who writes left-handed but shoots right—add versatility to their play. And in daily life, being mixed-handed can come in clutch. Break your dominant hand? You’re already halfway there.
Famous mixed-handers include Jimi Hendrix, who played guitar left-handed but did other tasks with his right; Maroon 5’s Adam Levine, who writes right but does most things lefty; and even Renaissance man Leonardo da Vinci, who reportedly could write in mirror script with both hands. That’s not flair. That’s fluency.
But even as mixed-handedness becomes more recognized, its rarer cousin—true ambidexterity—remains elusive. You can’t really train your way into it. You can improve your skill with your non-dominant hand, but that doesn’t make you ambidextrous. It just means you’re practicing, adapting, flexing a lesser-used muscle. And despite what TikTok trends might tell you, brushing your teeth with your left hand for a week won’t unlock some secret neural passageway to brilliance. Neuroplasticity is real, but it’s not a party trick.
There’s also a quieter, more sobering layer to the story. Some studies have linked mixed-handedness with certain mental health conditions, including PTSD and schizophrenia. In a 2023 review published in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, researchers noted that people who are mixed-handed may have higher susceptibility to post-traumatic stress, potentially due to the way their brains are wired for emotional processing. A 2024 study echoed a similar pattern, finding increased rates of mixed-handedness among individuals with schizophrenia. The takeaway here isn’t that being mixed-handed causes mental illness. It’s that brain asymmetry—or a lack thereof—can sometimes correlate with certain vulnerabilities in how the brain regulates emotion and perception. As psychologist Clare Porac explains, “You’re not schizophrenic because you’re mixed-handed. You’re mixed-handed because you’re schizophrenic.” It’s a difference in expression, not in cause.
So where does that leave the rest of us—firmly right-handed or left-handed people who occasionally dream of cross-dominance? Can we still benefit from training our off-hand? Some say yes, especially after injury or for certain sports. Others argue that the brain’s lateralization exists for a reason, and messing with it for novelty’s sake isn’t necessarily useful. Even Walf, the neuroscientist, is cautious about overstating the benefits of hand-switching. “We assume there have been changes in brain plasticity, so we might think this training is good for the brain,” she says. “But it might actually be advantageous for the brain to be lateralized—sharing the same hemisphere for similar tasks and engaging the other hemisphere for different tasks.”
In other words, there may be beauty in imbalance. Efficiency, even. The body is a system, not a symmetrical showcase. And just because both hands look the same doesn’t mean they’re meant to do the same thing.
That said, the fascination with ambidextrous people isn’t going away anytime soon. It taps into something deeper—our desire for balance, for superhuman versatility, for the ability to pivot, mirror, adapt. In an era where flexibility is fetishized, ambidexterity becomes more than a motor skill. It becomes a metaphor.
But maybe the most interesting thing about this whole discussion isn’t whether someone can tie their shoelaces with either hand. It’s the broader question it reveals about how we think of talent, adaptation, and identity. Ambidextrous people challenge the binary. They exist outside the left-right divide that organizes so much of our physical world. They remind us that the body—and the brain—aren’t always so neatly labeled.
Mixed-handedness, in particular, tells a story of resilience and adjustment. Of people who had to train themselves into versatility, whether due to culture, necessity, or sheer stubbornness. It’s not about perfection. It’s about possibility. And in a way, that feels even more human than a rare gift of symmetry.
So the next time you see someone switch hands effortlessly, know that it might not be a sign of genius—or madness. It might just be a sign of practice. A hint that they had to adjust somewhere along the way. Or that they’re living proof that the body, like the brain, is always learning, adapting, finding new ways to move through the world—even when the dominant path isn’t available.
There’s something freeing about that. You don’t have to be ambidextrous to admire it. You just have to be willing to mix things up once in a while. Use your other hand. See what it reveals—not just about coordination, but about capacity. About what it means to flex, to try, to learn something awkward and uncomfortable until it becomes your new normal.
Maybe we’ll never write like da Vinci or play like Hendrix. But maybe we don’t need to. Maybe being a little mixed-up is exactly what makes us capable of more than we imagined.
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