Learning Math Before Sleep Proves More Effective: The Experiment That Proves It

In a quest to uncover the links between sleep and memory, Jayne Spiller and Camilla Gilmore from the Centre for Mathematical Cognition at Loughborough University in the UK have demonstrated that sleep, following learning, increases the ability to memorize mathematical concepts.


In their paper titled "Positive impact of sleep on recall of multiplication facts," published in the Royal Society Open Science journal, the researchers explored the effect of sleep on the memorization of complex multiplication problems. The study involved 77 adults aged between 18 and 40, all from the UK. Each participant was presented with complex multiplication problems in two different scenarios: before sleep and upon waking. The online sessions included timed and untimed trials, where they learned new operations or were tested on previously learned material.

The findings reveal that participants who studied before sleeping exhibited better memorization. This improvement remained even among participants with varying learning abilities, though the effect was less pronounced. The mathematical competence of the participants, assessed by accuracy in solving simple multiplication problems, was linked to learning scores but not to the efficiency of sleep on memory retention.

This study underscores the potentially positive impact of sleep on learning, particularly for children in the phase of memorizing multiplication tables or other memorizable math skills. However, whether a math lesson should be welcomed before bedtime is still to be determined...

The authors suggest that sleep could offer an additional advantage in memory retention compared to daytime learning, possibly due to a reduction of external stimuli that may favor the encoding of information.