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Description: Previous evidence suggests that modifiable lifestyle factors, such as engagement in leisure activities, might slow the age-related decline of cognitive functions. Less is known, however, about which aspects of lifestyle might be particularly beneficial to healthy cognitive ageing, and whether they are associated with distinct cognitive domains (e.g. fluid and crystallized abilities) differentially. We investigated these questions in the cross-sectional Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience (Cam-CAN) data (N=708, age 18-88), using data-driven exploratory structural equation modelling, confirmatory factor analyses, and age-residualized measures of cognitive differences across the lifespan. Specifically, we assessed the relative associations of the following five lifestyle factors on age-related differences of fluid and crystallized age-adjusted abilities: education/SES, physical health, mental health, social engagement, and intellectual engagement. We found that higher education, better physical and mental health, more social engagement and a greater degree of intellectual engagement were each individually correlated with better fluid and crystallized cognitive age-adjusted abilities. A joint path model of all lifestyle factors on crystallized and fluid abilities, which allowed a simultaneous assessment of the lifestyle domains, showed that physical health, social and intellectual engagement and education/SES explained unique, complementary variance, but mental health did not make significant contributions above and beyond the other four lifestyle factors and age. The total variance explained for fluid abilities was 14% and 16% for crystallized abilities. Our results are compatible with the hypothesis that intellectually and physically challenging as well as socially engaging activities are associated with better crystallized and fluid performance across the lifespan.   Research Highlights 1. Higher education/SES, better physical and mental health, more social engagement and a greater degree of intellectual engagement are all individually associated with better cognitive health across the lifespan. 2. When all five lifestyle factors were assessed simultaneously, we found that physical health and social as well as intellectual engagement are independently associated with individual differences in cognitive health, above and beyond the effect of education/SES. Mental health makes no additional independent contributions. 3. Education/SES, physical health, intellectual engagement and social engagement show similar patterns with crystallized and fluid cognitive age-adjusted abilities, suggesting that the associations between lifestyle engagement and cognition are global rather than cognitive-domain specific. 4. Age-corrected residuals as a proxy of cognitive health across the lifespan may be a useful tool for future cross-sectional studies comparing different age groups.