Friday, December 3, 2010

Chewing gum improves your memory!

Chewing gum can improve memory, say UK psychologists. They found that people who chewed throughout tests of both long-term and short-term memory produced significantly better scores than people who did not. But gum-chewing did not boost memory-linked reaction times, used as a measure of attention [1].

There are a number of explanations for the link between recall and chewing gum: Chewing gum raises the heart beat by around 3 BPM, increasing blood flow in the cerebral area, which could explain the improvement in such brain activity [2].


[1] Chewing gum improves memory, NEW SCIENTIST, Emma Young, March 2002.

[2] Does chewing gum improve your memory?, Adam Waude, Editor, Psychologist World January, 2008.

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