A nap, even a short one, has a positive impact on memory. Good news for all those who are studying, but who dream of taking a nap.
Taking a nap can improve your memory. At least that is what the results ofa study conducted by the University of Saarland in Germany.
Sleep to memorize
The idea is simple: taking a nap, even for less than an hour, allows you to record in your memory the things learned just before falling asleep.
The study participants were divided into two groups, and had to memorize 90 words and then 120 pairs of other words, without any connection between them, for example “milk-taxi”, so that the participants could not help each other. associations of ideas to retain them. They then had to return as much as possible.
Some were then invited to sleep, others to watch DVDs. In the second phase of the experiment, they had to return as many words as possible. In the participants who slept, the performance was five times better than in the others.
Significant results therefore. However, Dr. Axel Mecklinger, who coordinates the study, says napping does not improve performance on memory tests, compared to results obtained immediately after learning. On the other hand, people who slept obtained the same results after the nap as just after memorizing the words, while the other participants performed less well. The nap therefore allows you to boost your memory, and to consolidate and retain what you have learned.
Hippocampus work
As for what happens in the brain, the experiment allowed us to observe the role of the hippocampus, the structure responsible for long-term memory. This is to follow the brain activity of the sleeping person, and in particular to wait for the appearance of “sleep spindles”, small waves that researchers can observe, and which seem to help. memory to consolidate.
Researchers believe that, during sleep, the appearance of these small waves corresponds to the work done by the hippocampus to classify information and store it in the brain, so that it can then be restored when waking up. A nap, after an intellectual effort or after revisions, would therefore be an optimal way of memorizing information.
.
