Challenging your brain helps keep it healthy. Here's how to do it

WASHINGTON (AP) — “Exercise your brain,” experts advise people hoping to stave off dementia. One recent study linked a lower risk of Alzheimer's disease and cognitive decline to lifelong learning, meaning intellectually stimulating experiences — reading and writing, learning another language, playing chess, solving puzzles, going to museums — from childhood into retirement. If you didn’t embrace what Zammit calls cognitively enriching activities early in life, it’s not too late to get started.