What is your health worth to you? Can you place a price tag on the remembrance of your most cherished life memories? What would you give to recall the meaningful events and experiences of your life if they suddenly disappeared? How much would you pay to restore the mental acuity you enjoyed in your youth?

Unlike sufferers of Alzheimer’s disease, you can answer these questions while you still have access to memories stored in your brain. A used book I bought for a measly $0.95 might be your answer to improved brain function, cognitive vitality, memory enhancement, and, as its author declares, an invitation to live “a second youth.”

Like many people, I buy books I never read. Last year I purged over 100 books bought at thrift stores over the past few years, and what a sad task it was, like parting ways with old friends you wish you would have taken the time to know during your time together.

Some of these old friends hail from distant, but important subjects of interest to me — the Future, Mathematics, Economics, Technology, Creativity, Health and Wellness, among many others. Another topic that has always fascinated me is the Brain. When I donated my old friends to my local library, these cool kids gleefully remained while many others were sadly evicted.

It was a long and arduous task, but after swatting the dust off the cover of book that sat atop the brain stack, I was mesmerized by the title.

Later I wondered why I hadn’t read Brain Longevity sooner.

I don’t remember where or when I bought the book, but I know I didn’t pay more than a buck for it. I opened the cover to the first page of chapter one, The Cortisol Connection. Out of curiosity, I read the first chapter in less than thirty minutes with my jaw agape. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Quickly, I discovered the $1 investment in the information buried in this little gem was worth a small fortune in applicable knowledge. Ultimately, I finished Brain Longevity in about two weeks.

Although written over two decades prior, Brain Longevity generously lays a foundation of knowledge how anybody can protect the vitality of their brain long into the twilight years. The knowledge found in Brain Longevity is an essential defense (and offense) to the variety of brain ailments which almost everyone encounters during life, even young people. It’s author, Dr. Dharma Singh, is an M.D. based in Tuscon, Arizona, and a practicing Sikh from Northern India. Dr. Singh is, without doubt, one of the world’s foremost experts on “brain longevity.”

In October, I read an article on the Scientific American website entitled, “Stress Hormone” Cortisol Linked to Early Toll on Thinking Ability, and I had to roll my eyes. This is something Dr. Singh talked about in 1996 in Brain Longeviy, but Scientific American is only now claiming the link between stress and cortisol, the killer of brains, through a scientific study of 2,000 forty-somethings, Circulating cortisol and cognitive and structural brain measures. This is the often inaccurate, self-important media world we live in today.

Be that as it may, Dr. Singh explains the devastation caused to our brains by cortisol in the first chapter of Brain Longevity:

“Cortisol is one of the hormones secreted by the adrenal glands. It’s secreted in response to stress. In moderate amounts, cortisol is not harmful. But when produced in excess, day after day–as a result of chronic, unrelenting stress–this hormone is so toxic to the brain that it kills and injures brain cells by the billions.

“I am now certain that chronic exposure of the brain to toxic levels of cortisol is a primary cause of brain degeneration during the aging process. Over decades, excessive cortisol destroys the biochemical integrity of the brain.”

Dr. Singh could not have started Brain Longevity better than with a thorough explanation, in brain research language, of the one thing that ravages people most in our stress-filled lives. The Cortisol Connection summarizes and explains the harmful effects of an over-production of cortisol caused by stress, and then lays a pathway how anyone can dramatically improve the functionality of their brain through a brain longevity program. The result is what Dr. Singh calls the rebirth of our brains into a “twenty-first-century mind–a mind that knows how to continually regenerate itself.” As Dr. Singh says, the benefits of a brain longevity program are, “like having a ‘second childhood’.”

Frankly, none of us needs an arrogant and expensive scientific study to know what other dedicated professionals, like Dr. Drarma Singh, researched and shared with us many years prior. Throughout the pages of Brain Longevity, you’ll learn about the functions of the brain, how to preserve memory and cognition, and how to make new dendrites.

Brain Longevity should be required-reading for anyone who wants to improve their intelligence and mental powers. Knowing the immense value of Brain Longevity, I have suggested this book more times in the last half year than I can remember, but I don’t blame that forgetfulness to Brain Longevity. You’ll find Brain Longevity a page-turner, and Dr. Dharma Singh a wise sage and friend. (Reading Dr. Singh’s book is like attending a brain class taught by him and you’re the only student in the room.) I suspect like me, you won’t be able to lay it down. You can pick up a used copy on Amazon or eBay. It will be the best $1 investment you ever make!

As I look upon my worn copy of Brain Longevity, I ponder the number of years of work Dr. Khalsa applied to its creation, and I notice the product classification the thrift store rendered Brain Longevity. Jewelry, an ironic label of truth to this priceless gem of knowledge.