What Happens When You Nap Right After Practicing Something New?

When it comes to optimizing and accelerating learning, it’s natural to think about all the things we could do differently during our practice sessions. But in many cases, the things we do between practice sessions matter quite a bit as well.

For instance, we looked at a study previously (here) which found that learning new material at night and reviewing the material once again in the morning with a night’s sleep in between led to substantially greater recall (even six months later!) than learning in the morning and reviewing the material at night.

(Essentially, going to sleep after the initial learning period helped to minimize interference from other information and led to better memory consolidation during that night’s sleep, which was reinforced the following morning.)

As cool a finding as that might be, practicing or studying at night can be pretty brutal!

So…is there any chance a nap could work instead?

A study!

A team of Japanese researchers (Morita et al., 2016) recruited 18 participants to take part in a juggling study.

Learn and practice

Each participant came to the lab at 10am, and started off by watching an instructional video on three-ball juggling.

Then, they were given 15 minutes to practice, after which they completed a juggling test to see how long they could keep all three balls in the air.

A nap (or not)

At 2pm, half of the participants (the nap group) took a ~70-min nap, while the other half (awake group) spent that time reading books or watching TV.

Juggling tests

And then at 5:30pm, participants were retested on their juggling skills to see if napping had any impact on their skill development.

The next morning, participants were tested on their juggling skills one last time to see how much of their training really stuck.

So…did napping have any impact on the participants’ learning and improvement from one test to the next?

Results

On the very first test that took place immediately after practicing, the nap group managed about 4.4 catches before a drop, while the awake group managed 3.4. This difference wasn’t statistically significant, so essentially, both groups started off at about the same skill level.

The second test took place in the early evening after participants either napped or took a break by reading/watching videos. And this time, both groups did improve – but not equally.

While the nap group now averaged 7.7 catches (an improvement of about 3.3 catches), the awake group improved by only a tiny bit, averaging 4.6 catches (an improvement of just 1.2 catches over their previous test).

And what about the third and final test the following morning?

Well, the nap group now managed 13.8 catches, which was nearly double the number of catches of the awake group, which continued to lag behind at just 7.1 catches.

But wait!

Ok, that’s pretty impressive – but is it possible that performance improved after a nap simply because the nappers were less fatigued, and able to concentrate better?

Well, the researchers thought of that as well and measured participants’ ratings of fatigue and concentration…and found no differences between the two groups.

Which suggests that the improvements in juggling performance were indeed related more to the positive effects of sleep and memory consolidation.

So what are we to do with all of this?

Well, that’s a good question, because it turns out that napping can be kind of tricky!

Nap length

Let’s take nap length, for instance. Is 10 minutes long enough to gain these learning benefits? Or is 30 minutes better? And 90 minutes better still?

The researchers in this study used a 70-minute nap protocol (a 60-minute nap, plus 10 minutes to fall asleep), based on a previous study which found that this increased the likelihood of getting slow wave sleep, which is a deeper stage of sleep associated with memory consolidation.

But there are other studies (e.g. Mander et al., 2011) which have found benefits of even longer nap lengths for certain types of memory, like 100-minute protocols (90-minute nap, plus 10 minutes to fall asleep).

The problem with longer naps though, is that we start running into issues with “sleep inertia.” Which is where you get into a state of deep sleep that is difficult to wake from, and you feel groggy, disoriented, and out of sorts for up to an hour after waking up.

And while shorter naps of 20 minutes or so can be great for enhancing alertness, concentration, and problem-solving, it’s mostly beyond this point where you start getting into the deeper slow wave sleep that’s associated with memory consolidation illustrated in the study we looked at today.

Translation: there can be some meaningful benefits of longer naps, but there can be a cost as well. Not to mention that similar to drinking coffee too late in the day, napping past the early afternoon hours can make it difficult to get a good night’s sleep too. 🥲

Regular nappers vs non-nappers

To add an additional wrinkle to the mix, the benefits of napping also appear to vary from person to person.

In a 2006 study for instance (Milner et al.), researchers compared the effect of 20-minute naps on motor learning and memory consolidation among napping “regulars” who napped daily or 1-2 times a week and non-habitual nappers who either never napped or napped 1-2 times per month at most.

Intriguingly, they found that while a nap seemed to enhance learning and performance for the regular nappers – it made performance worse for the folks who weren’t accustomed to taking naps!

All this to say, there may not be a one-size-fits-all napping solution for every single person. And doubling your progress day over day is unlikely. But if you enjoy a good nap, or are in the habit of taking naps on a semi-regular basis, it may be interesting to see how being intentional about integrating naps into your practice routine could enhance your rate of learning from one day to the next.

A book – and how you could shape it

This is one of the posts I plan to draw on for a book I’m considering. One aimed at addressing those oh-so-frustrating “but it sounded better at home” moments, with research-based guidance on how we can shrink the gap between how we sound in the practice room and how we sound on stage. The idea is short, focused chapters, each addressing a specific frustration, with concrete action steps.

The community is central to this project, as each chapter will close with real-world examples from students, teachers, and professional musicians – showing how the principle plays out in actual practice, performance, or teaching.

If you’ve applied any concepts from this post to your own practicing, performing, or teaching, and found them helpful, I’d love to hear your story. Like, if you are a habitual napper, have you noticed any difference in how much of your practice sticks when you’ve napped after practicing? What role does sleep or naps play in your own learning process? What are the little “pro tips” related to this that you’ve discovered over the years? 😁

A short note is totally fine! Because if your story seems like a good fit, I’d love to set up a short conversation to hear more.

References

Milner, C. E., Fogel, S. M., & Cote, K. A. (2006). Habitual napping moderates motor performance improvements following a short daytime nap. Biological Psychology, 73(2), 141–156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2006.01.015

Morita, Y., Ogawa, K., & Uchida, S. (2016). Napping after complex motor learning enhances juggling performance. Sleep Science, 9(2), 112–116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.slsci.2016.04.002