Late nights, junk food and gallons of coffee followed by anxiety attacks were once the only tools for studying longer especially as exam time approached.
However, now researchers at Saarland University in Germany headed by Professor Axel Mecklinger have shown that a brief nap ‘lasting about an hour can significantly improve memory performance.’

According to Science Daily, psychologists studied the memory recall in 41 patients, the science journal writes:

‘The volunteers had to learn single words and word pairs. Once the learning phase was over, the participants were tested to determine how much information they could remember. About half of the participants were then allowed to sleep, while the others watched a DVD. After that, the participants were re-tested and those who had taken a nap were shown to have retained substantially more word pairs in memory than the participants in the control group who had watched a DVD.’

The team at Saarland University have shown that even just a short 45-60 min snooze can greatly improve students retention of what the have recently memorised.

Professor Alex Mecklinger concluded that short nap in school or office will greatly help learning:

“Wherever people are in a learning environment, we should think seriously about the positive effects of sleep,' says Axel Mecklinger. Enhancing information recall through sleeping doesn't require us to stuff bulky tomes under our pillow. A concentrated period of learning followed by a short relaxing sleep is all that's needed”.

If you are looking for help or advice on how to study please see our section on revision support for Junior and Leaving Cert.

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