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Remembering Tips 53 REMEMBERING TIP 5 Make Sleep Work for You About a dozen years ago there was a rash of experiments in which people went to sleep with tape recorders plugged into their ears. The experimenters were out to prove that people could learn in their sleep. They failed. People can't learn anything new when they're asleep-or even while they're falling asleep. If you conk out reading a novel, you probably won't be able to remember what you read during the half-awake state. But there's a big difference between learning and remembering-and sleep does help you remember better. There are two forces at work in your favor. First of all, there's the corollary of the interference factor we discussed in Remembering Tip 2. We said that the more interference you have, the harder it is to remember what you are learning. The opposite is just as true. The less interference you have to counteract, the more easily you'll remember-and the least brain interference of all comes when you're asleep. So make sleep work for you. If you've got a test the next day, review your facts and ideas one last time while you're still alert, but after you've studied everything else. Close your books and get ready for bed, and your brain will keep on reinforcing your memories all through the night. Research even tells us how long we ought to sleep for the best memory the next morning-at least four hours and preferably six. So if you stay up cramming until dawn for a 9:00 a.m. exam, you're probably cheating yourself out of your best grade. Moreover, between study and exam, you needn't rush right off to bed. Just do something relaxing with your mind. If you study early in the day, go to a movie, 54 STUDY SMARTS attend a party, and then crawl into the sack, you perform just as well-sometimes even better-than when you cram until bedtime. But there's one more effect of sleep to take into account: sleeping just before you learn something new interferes with remembering, whether the sleep is a 30-minute nap or a full night's rest. It seems that you've got to get your brain fully awake before it agrees to process any new information. Get to know yourself. Determine whether you wake up quickly or whether you're the kind who takes two hours to get going in the morning. If you're the latter kind, don't study first thing in the morning, and try to arrange your class schedule so that your early-morning classes don't call for heavy brainwork. ...

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