NEW DELHI: Want to boost your memory? Move your eyes horizontally from side to side for just 30 seconds.

In a revelation that could rid you of using artificial stimulants and memory booster pills, researchers from the Manchester Metropolitan University have reported that eye jiggling could actually improve your memory by up to 10%.

The researchers, who published their findings in the journal 'Brain and Cognition' say the exercise works, because the eye movements cause the two hemispheres of the brain to interact more efficiently with each other.

According to lead author Dr Andrew Parker, the discovery is tremendously exciting, and could greatly benefit students cramming endless information for an upcoming exam.

He told TOI, "That such a straightforward experimental manipulation can bring about enhanced memory for studied information and lower the number of memory errors is quite exciting. This could be important in situations where we feel uncertain, unclear or maybe even just confused about what we may have done or said."

To reach the finding, Dr Parker presented 102 university students with recordings of a male voice reading 20 lists of 15 words. The subjects were then handed a list of words and asked to pick out those that they had just heard.

Contained within the lists were lure words that were not in the spoken list but were similar to some of those that were. Students who had moved eyes sideways were 15% better at ignoring the misleading words and performed 10% better than the rest. However, up and down eye movement was of no use at all to recall