Can't remember something? Sleep on it

Research suggest sleepers have a better power to recall things

Don't remember where you kept your phone's charger last time? It's completely OK and you need to stop fretting about it as scientists have found a perfect solution for all your lost things.

Your quest is now just a sleep away. According to a report in Dailymail,  scientists discovered that sleep increases the possibility of retrieving the bits and pieces of lost information in your memory.

They have suggested that sleep sharpens the memory and makes it more accessible as it enhances the recalling power of the brain.

A group of volunteers participating in the study were asked to remember few made-up words in two different situations, before sleeping at night and after 12 hours of being awake.

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The results indicated that the sleepers were able to recall more words as compared to the latter.

The research also suggested that reading before going to bed can help students boost their memory during exams.

A psychologist from the University of Exeter, Dr Nicolas Dumay, said, "Sleep almost doubles our chances of remembering previously unrecalled material."

"The post-sleep boost in memory accessibility may indicate that some memories are sharpened overnight."

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'This supports the notion that, while asleep, we actively rehearse information flagged as important.

"More research is needed into the functional significance of this rehearsal and whether, for instance, it allows memories to be accessible in a wider range of contexts, hence making them more useful."

According to Dr Dumay, the memory boost comes from the hippocampus, a part of the brain that plays a key role in recall.

The recent episodes in the memory are unzipped and replayed to the region of the brain originally involved in their capture. The findings are reported in the journal Cortex.