Remember, sleep!

Each day, we exercise our memory abilities to perform numerous tasks. These can range from remembering to reply to an email, to being able to recall your day's activities when you fill in your daily questionnaires.

For many Singaporeans, the topic of ‘memory’ may bring to mind stressful all-nighter study sessions. With limited time, many had often chosen to study rather than sleep. Any time spent awake and re-reading is better than none at all, right? Not quite. Recent research shows that when we sleep, our brains work to reactivate learned material, strengthening memories and making them resistant to forgetting—a process known as memory consolidation. In fact, when napping versus cramming was compared, napping helped to retain material even longer than cramming did!

Sleep does not only help with remembering facts. Research suggests that sleep also protects procedural memories, like the fine-motor skills required in crafts, or the fluid enactment of steps involved in sports like tennis. Sleep also helps with prospective memory, which is the ability to remember to perform an intended task at the right time, e.g., remembering to return a call, or remembering to wear and sync your Oura ring at a specific time!

People do many things to try to remember all that they need to. They set reminders on their phones, make to-do lists, and spend time revising or practicing. Sleep complements all these, making these strategies even more effective. With our busy schedules it is not always easy to prioritise sleep, but knowing that it boosts memory gives us one more reason to try to!