Three months of intense training in a form of meditation known as ‘insight’ in Sanskrit can sharpen a person’s brain enough to help them notice details they might otherwise miss. These new findings add to a growing body of research showing that millennia-old mental disciplines can help control and improve the mind, possibly to help treat conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ‘Certain mental characteristics that were previously regarded as relatively fixed can actually be changed by mental training,’ University of Wisconsin neuroscientist Richard Davidson said. ‘People know physical exercise can improve the body, but our research and that of others holds out the prospects that mental exercise can improve minds.’ Paying attention to facts requires time and effort, and since everyone only has a limited amount of brainpower to go around, details can get overlooked. For instance, when two pictures are flashed on a video screen a half-second apart, people often miss the second image. ‘Your attention gets stuck on the first target, then you miss the second one,’ Davidson said. This is called ‘attentional blink,’ an effect akin to how you might overlook something when you blink your eyes. Still, the […]