Do you want to better remember new names and faces? Get eight-hour sleep

Do you want to better remember new names and faces? Go, hit the sack. According to researchers, people are better at remembering faces and names if they get eight-hour sound sleep after seeing those faces and names for the first time.

Many different kinds of memories are improved with sleep.

While a couple of studies have looked at how naps might affect our ability to learn new faces and names, no previous studies have looked at the impact of a full night of sleep in between learning and being tested.

“We found that when participants were given the opportunity to have a full night’s sleep, their ability to correctly identify the name associated with a face – and their confidence in their answers – significantly improved,” explained Jeanne F Duffy, associate neuroscientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH).

Participants in the study underwent testing in a controlled environment while staying at BWH’s centre for clinical investigation.

They were shown 20 photos of faces with corresponding names from a database of over 600 colour photos of adult faces and asked to memorise them.

After a 12-hour period, they were then shown the photos again with either a correct or incorrect name.