Refresh Your Memory

Ever had the experience of remembering something but being unable to remember the exact sequence of events that comprised the memory? It’s something that a lot of us have experienced at one time or another. We remember the holiday, for instance, but sometimes find ourselves unable to remember exactly the chronology of the events. In short, we can remember the whole event but not which events came first, second and third within it.

Now, researchers at the University of Lübeck may have hit upon an answer.

It’s a widely held view that it’s during sleep that long-term memories are formed. During sleep, the brain replays the experiences of the previous day in order to save them to memory. But the new research seems to show that sleep not only helps us to make memories, but also helps the brain to remember in which order a particular series of events took place.

If this is true, it might show getting a good night’s sleep does more than refresh the body and the mind on a shallow level. It might help the brain not only in remembering information, but also how to structure it.

Being able to structure information is extremely helpful, or even essential, for people who work on complicated projects or are involved in project management. Being able to start work in the morning with the information learned during the previous day’s work structured in the mind in a way which enables us to make sense of it and use it effectively can be a huge boost to our ability to get things done. Some of the time we struggle to remember exactly how one piece of information works with another. If the findings of the research are true, it’s been getting a good night’s sleep could be one of the best things we can do to get our brains working at an optimum level. This would make projects run much more smoothly and save time.

The research may also explain something else. I once worked with someone who slept hardly at all, and spent most of their waking hours in the office. That person could remember facts, but could never seem to get anything into a logical order. She had turned disorganization into an art form. If I’d known what the cure was, perhaps the company could have paid for some kind of sleep therapy… (Inspiration Insights)