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OK, so how many of you have joked about sleeping with your textbook under your pillow? How many have actually tried? In moments of desperation before tests and exams, we’ve all hoped for some kind of overnight understanding. Well, it turns out that this kind of wishful thinking isn’t worth ruling out just yet. Recently there has been tons of research in the fields of sleep and memory, so lets have a look at what we can do to boost your study.

While you can’t learn something brand new while you sleep, there are a number of memory hacks you can do to consolidate your memory and accelerate your study. And all while you sleep! It’s been known for decades that your brain processes your recent experiences while you sleep – this is why your dreams can often be associated with things you did or saw the previous day. Mulling these things over during a good night’s sleep can strengthen the connections between the brain cells associated with these memories.

Smell is strongly associated with memory. You may have noticed that certain smells can evoke old memories – be it a stranger wearing your ex’s perfume, or other smells you associate with people, places and events. Scientists have put smell (and taste) to the test, to see if smell could help your memory at night. They had participants perform memory tests then measured their subjects’ brainwaves while wafting certain scents that they had been exposed to earlier. They saw that there was brain activity between different parts of the brain, indicating that there was memory formation going on during sleep.

You can hack this memory and smell/taste system while you’re awake, too. Try chewing the same flavour gum in an exam as you do while you study. You’ll find that it can be easier to recall your notes, just by the association of the study to the taste!

Scientists also looked into the effect of sound on memory and sleep. They found that if you played a frequency that matches your brainwaves, it would encourage memory consolidation. Now I assume that most of you don’t have the medical equipment just lying around the house to measure your sleeping brainwaves, but the technology to measure and mimic your brainwaves could be just around the corner.

All in all, the one memory hack that beats all is really quite simple: a good night’s sleep. With or without memory sleep hacks, your brain does a pretty good job of this on its own. It’s pretty important to make sure you don’t all but move in to the library. Let your brain get a break, let sleep work for you. I don’t know about you, but I sure love my sleep. If I can take advantage of my learning when I’m asleep, you bet I’m going to take the opportunity.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that you can rely on sleep alone for study – you have to put the hard yards in and actually read the material. However this could help you study smarter, not harder, and get above and beyond those Cs that get degrees. Instead of studying day and night, put that textbook aside, and let your sleeping brain do half the work for you!