Daily HealthBeat Tip

Remembering sleep

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I'm Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Remembering seems to go better if you get sleep.

Jeffrey Ellenbogen of Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital looked at the ability to recall facts. In the study, people learned 20 pairs of unrelated words, followed by another 20 introduced to add difficulty to remembering the first set.

All were tested on remembering the first set. But some were tested after a night's sleep. Others learned the pairs in the morning and were tested after going through their usual day.

Ellenbogen says the ones who got sleep did better.

"The brain is doing lots of things during sleep, including consolidating memories. So the basic take-home message is, you need to get sleep on a regular basis in order to maximize memory." (nine seconds)

The study in the journal Current Biology was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: September 28, 2006

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