o Improve Memory Five-Fold in 45 Minutes

 
How to improve memory with very little effort.
A power nap of under an hour can improve memory performance by five times, a new study finds.
New information normally disappears from memory quite rapidly as people naturally forget.
But, after a 45-60 minute nap, participants in the study had forgotten little.
In comparison those who had remained awake had forgotten a lot.
The study had people learning unconnected pairs of words, and afterwards some slept while others watched a DVD.
Professor Axel Mecklinger, who led the study, explained the results:
‘The control group, whose members watched DVDs while the other group slept, performed significantly worse than the nap group when it came to remembering the word pairs.
The memory performance of the participants who had a power nap was just as good as it was before sleeping, that is, immediately after completing the learning phase.
Dr Kinga Igloi, who led the research, said:
“Rewards may act as a kind of tag, sealing information in the brain during learning.
During sleep, that information is favourably consolidated over information associated with a low reward and is transferred to areas of the brain associated with long-term memory.
Our findings are relevant for understanding the devastating effects that lack of sleep can have on achievement.”
In the study people were given pairs of pictures to try and remember.
Some took naps after learning, while others did not.

Sometimes participants were given small rewards after learning as well.
The study revealed that people remembered the pairs of pictures better when they received a reward.
But it was the group that slept after learning that performed the best overall.
Brain scans also showed that those who slept had higher activity in the hippocampus, an area vital to forming new memories.
People were asked back into the lab three months later for a surprise test.
Even three months later the group who were rewardedand slept after learning had the best recall.
Dr Igloi said:
“We already knew that sleep helps strengthens memories, but we now also know that it helps us select and retain those that have a rewarding value.
It makes adaptive sense that the consolidation of memory should work to prioritise information that is critical to our success and survival.”