Sleeping on it: How cramming before bedtime can boost your memory ahead of exams
Following new research scientists think sleep sharpens our power of recall
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Your support makes all the difference.Last-minute swotting for an exam before going to bed might be a good tactic for students, according to new research.
“Sleeping on it” almost doubles the chances of remembering previously forgotten information, scientists found. They believe sleep makes memories more accessible and sharpens our power of recall.
Volunteers taking part in the study were asked to remember made-up words either before a night’s sleep or 12 hours of wakefulness.
The “sleepers” were much better at later recalling the words than the participants who had remained awake.
Dr Nicolas Dumay, from the University of Exeter, said: “Sleep almost doubles our chances of remembering previously unrecalled material. The post-sleep boost in memory accessibility may indicate that some memories are sharpened overnight.”
Dr Dumay believes the memory boost comes from the hippocampus, a part of the brain that plays a key role in recall. During sleep, recently encoded memory episodes are “unzipped” and replayed to the region of the brain originally involved in their capture.
The findings are reported in the journal Cortex.
Press Association
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