Taking a nap helps to improve memory, so there's your excuse | Health and Beauty, Studying & Revision | Student Hacks
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Taking a nap helps to improve memory, so there's your excuse
Posted January 16, 2018 07:52 by Hacks Staff
Now you've got the perfect excuse to nap with totally legit scientists proving it'll help your memory.
A study published in Nature Neuroscience (via IOL) claims that taking a short nap after revising can improve memory recall.
Two groups were given the same content to memorise but one of the two were allowed a 40 minute nap before being tested on what they had learned.
The tests results were fairly clear with those that had napped coming on top of the others.
That may be enough reason for you to head off to your bed right now but others may be wondering why?
The (relatively) simple answer is that - it seems - sleeping helps the brain store information more permanently.
When we read or revise the content is kept in a rather temporary state and continuing to read or memorise more things pushes other information out.
Sleeping helps the brain process the information we've learned and memorised, essentially moving it from a temporary to more permanent state in your mind.
Or, as Susanne Diekelmann from the University of Lubeck puts it: "During the first few minutes of sleep, the transfer from hippocampus to neocortex has been initiated."
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