Hit the books before you hit the sack. According to a recent study published in PLoS ONE, it’s the
best time to learn new information.
When students were asked to memorize pairs of words at either 9 a.m. or 9 p.m. and were tested after 30 minutes, 12 hours, or 24 hours, the students who were tested after a night of sleep were able to recall more information than those who had been awake all day.
What gives? When you fall asleep after learning something new, you’re telling your brain that it’s important, says lead researcher Jessica Payne, Ph.D., a psychology professor at the University of Notre Dame. “The sleeping brain decides what to remember and what to forget. By placing sleep close to learning, there’s less conflicting information to process.”
If you’re perfecting that shot for the game, or prepping for a big speech, practice before you call it a night. But make sure you’re not nodding off while learning—studies have shown that as we fall asleep, we tend to forget things, Payne says. Maybe that’s Why You Can’t Remember Anything.
And when it comes to remembering info for the long haul, don’t go back to your college habits. Stagger your practice before bed for a few nights. Long-term memories form when your hippocampus—the part of the brain that helps store short-term memories—communicates with the neocortex—where permanent memories are stored.
“We think this dialogue underlies memory consolidation,” Payne says. “That process does best when it’s repeated.”
http://news.menshealth.com/the-best-pre-bed-activity/2012/04/02/... dying is for quitters though
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