While many students opt for the all night cramming sessions, those who rest and reflect on what they have learnt are most likely to do well, researchers say

Researchers have found that our learning ability is boosted when people allow their minds to rest and reflect on things that they've learned. The researchers say that their findings could have a major impact of the way children are taught. Scientists have already established that resting the mind, as in daydreaming, helps strengthen memories of events and retention of information. Now researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have shown that the right kind of mental rest, which strengthens and consolidates memories from recent learning tasks, helps boost future learning. Margaret Schlichting, a graduate student researcher, and Alison Preston, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience, gave participants in the study two learning tasks in which participants were asked to memorize different series of associated photo pairs. Between the tasks, participants rested and could think about anything they chose, but brain scans found that the ones who used that time to reflect on what they had learned earlier in the day fared better on tests pertaining to what they learned later, especially where small threads of information between the two tasks overlapped. Participants seemed to be making connections that helped them absorb information later on, even if it was only loosely related to something they learned before.