How to Lock in Memory, like after a class

Simply shutting your eyes and relaxing after learning something new may be the best way to remember it, livescience.com reports. 

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh asked a group of healthy volunteers between the ages of 60 and 90 to listen to stories and try to remember as many details from them as possible. Then, some were asked ro close their eyes for 10 minutes in a quiet room and daydream about anything they liked, while others were asked to play a computer game.

When it came rime to recall what they'd heard—both 30 minutes afterward and a week afterward—the volunteers who had rested remembered far more derails than those who hadn't. That suggests that the formation of new memories is not completed in mere seconds, and that activities that we are engaged in for the first few minutes after learning new information determine how well our brains absorb it, says study author Michaela Dewar.

Previous research has shown that sleep is crucial to crystallizing memories, but taking a brief waking rest—without studying what you've learned or facing any eternal distractions—appears to return similarly beneficial results.