You’ve just listened to your doctor explain a treatment plan, heard a roomful of new names or sat through an important work presentation and you want to remember the details later. Turns out, sitting quietly and doing nothing for a few minutes afterward might help.
That’s the takeaway from a recent meta-analysis that explored the “wakeful rest effect” — the idea that a brief period of quiet rest immediately after learning something new helps you retain it. Researchers from the University of Notre Dame found that wakeful rest can benefit people across age groups, with larger effects for older adults and even those with anterograde amnesia, a condition that makes forming new memories difficult.
The simple practice may support memory consolidation, the process by which fragile new information is strengthened into lasting memories. The human brain doesn’t necessarily make stable memories immediately, making this a critical step to really make information stick, explained Nelson Cowan, the curators’ distinguished professor emeritus of psychological sciences at the University of Missouri and director of the university’s Working-Memory Laboratory.
“When we learn something, it’s not yet permanent,” he said. “It needs to have a consolidation time.”
Sleep has long been understood as the brain’s key opportunity to sort through and consolidate your daily experiences, “and that’s absolutely correct,” said Andrew Budson, a professor of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine. “But we’ve more recently understood that this consolidation process can also begin with just resting after the learning occurs,” he said.
What did this research review find?
In the meta-analysis, published in January in the journal Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, researchers looked at 51 studies on the wakeful rest effect across these groups: healthy young adults, healthy older adults and patients with amnesia.
Study participants who rested quietly — typically for eight to 12 minutes — after learning something new retained more information than those who immediately did a mentally demanding activity, particularly in the older adult and amnesia groups. Wakeful rest “is much more beneficial, seemingly, for people with weaker memory abilities,” said Dani Parra, lead author and a graduate researcher in cognition, brain and behavior at the University of Notre Dame.
The benefit is still there for young, healthy adults, she added, “but it’s just not as strong as it is for older adults.”
The wakeful rest effect was observed across a variety of memory tests, including those involving names, stories, photographs, navigation routes and faces. Among people with amnesia, one study found even six minutes of quiet rest could aid memory.
Why resting might aid your memory
Our brains are constantly exposed to new information, but not every life experience makes the cut as a long-term memory. Learning involves changes in connections between brain cells. Repetition can help strengthen those connections — studying before a test, say, or practicing a sport — and help memories last.
Take a situation that frequently causes people to rack their brains: remembering a new name. “It might not stick just after hearing it twice, it’s a lot more effective if you revisit it repeatedly,” said Ken Paller, a professor of psychology and director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Program at Northwestern University.
But research on wakeful rest suggests memories can also strengthen without deliberate practice, “without your necessarily even knowing you’re doing it,” Paller said.
If quiet rest supports memory-building, taking on another mentally engaging task immediately after exposure to new information may have the opposite effect. A number of studies use so-called interference tasks as a contrast to wakeful rest. These might involve scrolling social media or watching a movie. Such distractions may interfere with that crucial memory-consolidation time.
How to incorporate wakeful rest
The practice doesn’t have to be complicated, experts said. “I often have people close their eyes and just think of it as a moment to detach from the world,” said Parra. Some people choose to meditate, she added, “and there are studies showing that is also very beneficial.”
You probably don’t need to overthink your setup: An earlier meta-analysis found that the wakeful rest effect wasn’t influenced by body posture, room brightness or whether participants’ eyes were open or closed.
Here’s how to try it, plus other ways to help new information stick:
Actively listen in the moment.
Before you can sit quietly and process new information, you have to pay attention to it in the first place. During a presentation or lecture, for example, Cowan recommended listening carefully and taking essential notes rather than trying to write down every word: “You have to decide what’s important enough to write down, what will point you in the right direction later, but without distracting you,” he said.
Don’t look at your phone.
If there’s one rule during wakeful rest, it’s to stay off devices. “Reaching for your phone would definitely defeat the purpose,” said Budson. Scrolling social media keeps your brain busy processing new information, so what you’re trying to remember has to compete with whatever pops up on your screen, he explained.
Try to rest immediately after learning.
Say you want to remember a work presentation. Try to sit quietly as soon as possible afterward, said Budson. “It’s not going to be nearly as effective if it’s at the end of the day, three hours after you heard [it],” he said.
Test yourself later, too.
“We know from lots of studies that rehearsing is helpful for strengthening memories,” said Paller. So while wakeful rest can be a useful way to encourage memory consolidation, try combining approaches — resting quietly right away and testing yourself later to reinforce what you’ve learned. “Study by testing yourself often, and testing yourself with actual recall rather than just recognition,” recommended Cowan.
Give yourself permission to pause.
If you’re someone who always feels like you need to be doing something, remind yourself that quiet rest may help strengthen lasting memories. For better learning, “we have to do more offline processing,” said Paller. “It means maybe you’re not wasting time when you daydream or take a moment off and relax.”
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