Which will it be — the berries or the chocolate dessert? Homework or the Xbox? Finish that memo, or roam Facebook?
Such quotidian decisions test a mental ability called cognitive control, the capacity to maintain focus on an important choice while ignoring other impulses. Poor planning, wandering attention and trouble inhibiting impulses all signify lapses in cognitive control. Now a growing stream of research suggests that strengthening this mental muscle, usually with exercises in so-called mindfulness, may help children and adults cope withattention deficit hyperactivity disorder and its adult equivalent, attention deficit disorder.
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