Once again, a study of the obvious is released:

The study found that in young adults, activity in the area of the brain associated with tasks that require concentration (memory, for instance) goes up when called upon, while activity in other regions linked to a resting state (such as thinking about yourself, what you did last night and monitoring your surroundings) goes down. But starting in middle age, this seesaw pattern begins to break down, with activity during memory tasks falling off somewhat and activity during rest mode remaining turned on at a higher level. This imbalance becomes even more pronounced in older adults, which could explain their reduced ability to ignore distracting or irrelevant information, Grady said.

Specific restful and irrelevant thoughts of the early middle-aged noted in the study included: "Gee, I like this chair", "Hey, the Steelers won!" and "Another beer? Why not!" Another putative victory for the type-A, productivity-obsessed and relaxation-fearing set. The study was probably written by twentysomethings. Punks.