Wait! How We Control Our Thoughts and Actions as We Age

Abstract

Have you ever sat next to someone in class who cannot stop talking? You would like to focus on your teacher, but you cannot avoid listening to your talkative classmate. This is what inhibition is useful for! Inhibition is the ability to ignore, suppress, and resist irrelevant information coming from the environment or from our own minds. Inhibition is more difficult for young kids, is optimal in young adults, and becomes more problematic as we age. How does inhibition work? Why does inhibition change as we age? Can we train inhibition? In this article, we will try to answer these questions.