10 Amazing Life Hacks That Are Actually Backed By Science

6. Sleep On It To Learn Faster

When revising for a test, or simply trying to learn a new skill, we're often told that a good night's sleep will help you learn faster.

This is not just because a bit of shut-eye renders you more alert and ready to learn in the morning, but there is something specific about sleep that helps actually ups your synapse count.

Although sleep is still one of the least-understood human behaviours, studies have shown that it plays a vital role in memory and learning. A study in mice showed that those who took a nap after learning a new skill actually physically grew more neural connections in their brains compared with their sleepless counterparts. It was also shown that no amount of intense training could produce the same results as a good snooze.

Many experts also think that sleep has the effect of consolidating raw data and finding rules and patterns within it, so you might actually be able to read a bunch of facts, figures and statistics before you go to bed and, like magic, wake up with a much better understanding of how they fit together.