Sara Braden doesn't have time to lose things. She's a working mom with a lot more hobbies than her friends, and when she misplaces (乱放) her keys or leaves her purse at a restaurant, she becomes annoyed and impatient." It impacts me greatly," says Braden, 35, a Washington officer.
According to a recent study led by Daniel Arely, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, Braden has ADHD, a type of attention disorder, which, she says, makes her*"likely to put things in certain places and not remember where I put them."
Her anxiety is familiar to anyone whose phone is missing a dozen times a day. Such kind of mistakes might result in a constant fear: Is something wrong with me? Probably not." It's common and certainly annoying," says Professor Arely." Most of the time, losing things is a breakdown of attention and memory. We're thinking about something else. We have other concerns occupying our attention, and then we never really add the information to memory about where we've put the object."
The study shows that, sometimes, people with ADHD report that losing things affects their work productivity or relationships. For example, if they can't find their keys all the time and are late for a dinner party, they could anger their friends. In that case, it's worth being evaluated by a doctor. Nevertheless, not all cases deserve special attention. Actually, people who have had ADHD since they were teens have nothing much to worry about. For those with ADHD, what really matters is changes from past performance.
When we're operating on autopilot (自动驾驶) and not truly focused on our surroundings, we may still lose things even with the strongest intention not to do so, Professor Arely says. But for the most part, he thinks people can overcome the tendency to lose things. Sara Braden has learned to adapt, in part by writing down where she has stored items. She also coaches herself not to panic when an item gets lost.
