For a while there everyone was doing crosswords to stave off Alzheimer’s, but cur- rent research says they don’t help with overall cognition or memory. They’re fun, so feel free to continue, but to really boost your brain, you should solve real-world problems. For example, instead of just writing down your grocery list, create a mental picture of the grocery store and organize your list according to what aisle you’ll start with and which you’ll end with. Or you could alphabetize all the groceries or memorize the list or something similar. The point is to do something that wakes up your brain. The problem is that many of the activities we do throughout the day are repetitive—we drive to the same grocery store to buy the same foods to cook in the same recipes. So by engaging your brain more, you’ll help boost cognition.