Challenging your brain helps keep it healthy – here's how to do it

Learning another language, playing chess, solving puzzles and going to museums, among others help stretch your brain and thinking. Photos: Freepik

"Exercise your brain,” experts advise people hoping to stave off dementia . But how? Stretching your brain might be the better description.

Do a crossword puzzle a day and you may just get good at crosswords. Instead, research increasingly shows that a variety of habits and hobbies are like a cognitive workout, building knowledge and skills that may beef up parts of the brain as we get older.