Sleep may help you remember better

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LONDON: Struggling to remember something you wanted to do today? Then take a nap, it may help improve your memory, a new study has claimed.

Researchers at the Washington University in St Louis found that sleeping well helps people remember tasks on their to-do lists.

The scientists said feeling refreshed after a full night's rest is a great aid to "prospective memory" – which helps a person to remember to do something in the future.

The findings can help understand better the role sleep plays in brain processing as well as memory, they said.

"We found that sleep benefits prospective memory by strengthening the weak associations in the brain, and that hasn't been shown before," study author Prof Mark McDaniel was quoted as saying by the Telegraph.

For their study, the scientists tested 24 university students, asking them to perform different word games on a computer.