( TIME.com ) -- Forget brain-training exercises , 12-hour shifts and those long , uninterrupted , caffeine-fueled study binges . When you really need new information to sink in , you ca n't skimp on taking breaks , new research suggests . That 's the message from a study by psychologists and neuroscientists at the University of Edinburgh , in Scotland , who asked a small group of normally aging elderly men and women to recall as many details as possible from two stories they were told . Following one of the stories ( but not always the same one for all the participants ) , the men and women were instructed to relax , take a brief break and close their eyes for 10 minutes in a dark room . Following the other story , those same participants were instead distracted with a new task , spotting the differences between pairs of nearly identical images . Overall , the study participants remembered many more details of whichever story they heard before they were told to rest — and their striking memory boost persisted even a full week out after the story-telling . Take heed , students , doctors and anyone else who has to process large amounts of information : the elderly may worry most about memory , but given what we know about how memories form , these new findings have implications for people of all ages . TIME.com : Quizzes help the brain learn . Previous research has already shown that both the young and the old have better recall of , say , a list of words if they 're allowed to rest for a few minutes in between learning the words and then regurgitating them . What this latest study adds , however , is evidence that a few minutes of wakeful rest may have an effect even on long-term memory consolidation . In fact , when we first encounter new information , it seems , we are probably `` just at a very early stage of memory formation , '' according to Michaela Dewar , the research fellow who is first author on the new study . `` Further neural processes have to occur after this stage for us to be able to remember this information at a later point in time , '' she told reporters . Those neural processes do n't have to be consciously planned , however . Research on rats has shown the animals will `` re-play '' in their brains the things that have just happened to them — things like walking through a maze — if they are given some idle time . Scans of human brains suggest that people do the same thing , and , importantly , that this brain activity occurs automatically , without people having to think about it . The volume of that brain activity is then linked to memory retention later . TIME.com : Want to sharpen your mind ? Drop a few pounds . Similarly , there is a growing body of evidence on the crucial role of sleep in memory consolidation . The precise mechanisms are not well understood , but sleep seems important both for `` declarative '' memory ( remembering facts ) and especially for `` procedural '' memory — remembering how to do things , like learning to ride a bike or to play scales on a piano . In fact , it 's even been suggested that sleep 's major role in procedural memory is the reason that infants spend most of their lives asleep ; they need that time , perhaps , to consolidate new memories about how to control their young bodies . TIME.com : Are e-books harder to remember ? But if resting , either while awake or asleep , is so important for memory consolidation , then it 's unfortunate there seem to be so very many distractions everywhere we turn . `` In this day and age of information overload there are few opportunities to sit back and rest , '' Dewar and her colleagues write in their new paper , to be published in Psychological Science . Whether at work or at school , to learn new tasks well , it may help to schedule in some genuine down time . This article was originally published on TIME.com . To boost memory , shut your eyes and relax . & copy 2012 TIME , Inc. TIME is a registered trademark of Time Inc. Used with permission .
Researchers in Scotland asked study participants to remember details of two stories . Those who shut their eyes for 10 minutes in a dark room remember more than others . Score: 7