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IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO REGENERATE YOUR BRAIN

A review of Brain Longevity, by Dharma Singh Khalsa, M.D., with Cameron Stauth.

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Brain Longevity
1997

by Dharma Singh Khalsa, M.D., with Cameron Stauth
Warner Books

Soft cover, 454 pages


It can be terrifying. It seems like only yesterday you could remember even the trivia you’d rather forget, and now, though you are hardly over 50, you seem to forget all sorts of important details. Phrases such as “what’s-his-name” become a part of your daily vocabulary. Could it be—so early in life—the beginning of Alzheimer’s disease?

Not likely, Dr. Khalsa reassures his readers. It’s probably the burnout caused by long exposure to excess cortisol, our main “stress hormone.” Probably the main contribution of this excellent and multi-faceted book is the presentation of Khalsa’s central thesis: the mental decline that seems to set in during our 50’s and 60’s is not an inevitable part of aging, but is very largely due to chronic cortisol overload. Lower your stress, lower your cortisol levels and it is likely that your brain can regenerate its powers to learn and remember.

The deadly downward spiral

It took Khalsa many years to discover the “cortisol connection.” He was puzzled by the strong relationship between stress (such as chronic pain) and cognitive dysfunction that he observed in his patients. “Very intelligent people would become markedly less cogent as their stress mounted,” he notes (p. 34). He also points out that the modern world creates unprecedented levels of neurological stress. We are constantly battered by noise of all sorts—not only the noises of modern urban living, but also information overload. Add to this the relentless “struggle to survive and succeed” (p. 84). We are simply trying to do too many things, sometimes all at the same time (proudly calling it “multi-tasking” rather than brain-destroying stress). It is no wonder that working mothers, for instance, have been found to have chronically elevated cortisol.

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