What psychological picture does the phrase “yoga” conjure for you? Most likely a spandex-clad particular person in downward canine or balancing on one leg in tree pose. Or perhaps they’re in an advanced full-body knot that requires 5 instances extra flexibility than you’ve ever had? Does it appear to be arduous work?
That’s definitely one model of yoga, the type that dominates the trendy notion of yoga within the West, however it’s by no means what we’re speaking about right this moment.
What if I informed you that there’s one other sort of yoga, one wherein you don’t transfer in any respect? You don’t even sit or stand; you lie down the entire time. That’s yoga nidra. “Yoga nidra” actually means “yogic sleep,” typically translated as “aware sleep.” The objective of yoga nidra is to attain an altered state of consciousness the place you’re neither awake nor asleep however in a liminal area in between—or perhaps surpassing each. (Technically, the time period refers back to the state of consciousness past wakefulness or sleeping. That’s, “yoga nidra” is the vacation spot, not the journey it takes to get there. However in widespread parlance, individuals use it to imply the whole apply.)
Yoga nidra gives the chance to step exterior your physique, ideas, and feelings. It’s a state of deep leisure and, say proponents, of deep therapeutic the place your unconscious turns into extra open to studying and establishing new thought and habits patterns, stress dissipates, and you progress in direction of bodily well being and homeostasis. “Equal to fours hours of deep sleep!” is a typical promoting level.
The latter could or will not be true, however it’s clear that yoga nidra has rather a lot to supply by means of selling leisure, higher sleep, and even restoration from main stress and trauma. There isn’t an individual working within the trendy world who couldn’t profit from slowing down and deliberately tapping into stress-free, restorative practices. Is yoga nidra best for you?
A Temporary Historical past of Yoga Nidra
Trendy yoga nidra practices have roots tracing again into many historic yoga and meditation traditions. In historic texts, yoga nidra or yoganidra typically referred to that non-sleep, non-waking degree of consciousness or to the goddess Yoga Nidra Shakti. Yoga nidra was typically described as a better state of being, one wherein regular psychological and bodily actions ceased, and the yogi achieved a state of bliss.
The kind of yoga nidra apply you’re prone to encounter right this moment was most likely impressed by nineteenth and twentieth century “relaxationists” and hypnotists who had been involved in harnessing the therapeutic energy of relaxation, in response to students, however it actually received its kickstart because of the teachings of Swami Satyananda Saraswati. Starting within the Nineteen Sixties and 70s, Satyananda devised a way of utilizing respiratory methods and physique scans to attain progressive leisure and faucet into yoga nidra. When you take a yoga nidra class right this moment, there’s an excellent probability you’ll be following his technique, or one thing fairly prefer it.
Yoga nidra has since loved a surge in recognition, in addition to educational curiosity. Within the 2000s, scientific psychologist and yoga scholar Dr. Richard Miller developed his iRest protocol—a model of yoga nidra—and institute of the identical title to assist individuals coping with points starting from “regular” stress to extreme PTSD, sleep disturbances, and power well being points. Extra just lately, Stanford neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Huberman coined the time period “non-sleep deep relaxation” (NSDR) to embody practices that may promote stress launch, neuroplasticity, extra environment friendly studying, and higher sleep, amongst different advantages. Huberman counts yoga nidra, hypnosis or self-hypnosis, and napping as sorts of NSDR.
What Occurs Throughout a Yoga Nidra Follow?
Yoga nidra entails a guided, meditative apply designed to attain a deep state of leisure the place you transcend waking, sleeping, and dreaming states to reach at a deeper degree of consciousness. You stay conscious of the skin world (not like while you’re asleep), however you’re completely indifferent from it. You might be conscious however not likely awake. There however not-there. In a real state of yoga nidra, you reportedly expertise not solely profound leisure however a way of interconnectedness with the universe.
That is the place yoga nidra differs from conventional meditation in an essential approach. With meditation, you’re normally sitting up and cultivating intense focus, typically on the breath, a chant, or a psychological picture. You might be very a lot awake, and your aware consciousness could be very a lot “on.” In yoga nidra, aware thought is “turned off,” changed by an consciousness that’s neither targeted nor intentional. As yoga students Dr. Stephen Parker and Swami Veda Bharati describe it, “Neither ideas nor photographs are current, and the practitioner experiences aware, deep, dreamless sleep, possessing consciousness of the environment however neither interested by them nor interacting with them.”
Like all types of yoga or meditation, the particulars of your apply will rely upon who’s guiding you. Relying on how your information or trainer was skilled, they might observe a script or they might faucet right into a extra intuitive stream throughout the session. Both approach, it’s going to most likely contain an analogous collection of steps, one thing like this:
- You start by mendacity in your again in savasana, or corpse pose.
- Set an intention, or sankalpa, for the apply. This could be one thing easy like “I’m going to loosen up,” or it may very well be one thing larger you are attempting to attain like, “I’ll sleep properly at evening” or “I’ll cease ingesting alcohol.”
- Subsequent comes a collection of visualization and respiratory workouts. The aim is to maneuver you thru totally different layers of the self towards a state of yoga nidra. Usually you’ll begin with a physique scan, transferring your consciousness to totally different factors round your physique, adopted by directions to convey consciousness to your respiratory, your senses, and your ideas, typically with particular visualization cues. Finally, you arrive within the desired state of deep leisure.
- Lastly, you reaffirm your intention or sankalpa earlier than returning to a waking state.
Advantages of Yoga Nidra
In keeping with conventional knowledge, yoga nidra is a deeply therapeutic state. Yoga nidra is very touted as an efficient option to alleviate stress, sleep higher, and enhance total well-being. And there are many research to help these assertions, for instance:
- Yoga nidra lowered stress and nervousness amongst faculty college students, nursing college students, and professors.
- Adults with power insomnia had been randomly assigned to obtain cognitive behavioral remedy or do yoga nidra at residence (utilizing a recording) for 5 weeks. Each teams’ whole sleep time and sleep effectivity improved, however yoga nidra outperformed CBT by way of modifications in slow-wave sleep and whole insomnia severity.
- 4 weeks of yoga nidra was simpler than progressive muscle leisure for enhancing sleep high quality in male athletes (although each had been useful).
- Two research discovered that melancholy and nervousness decreased, and psychological well-being improved, amongst ladies with menstrual well being issues after six months of yoga nidra. (Curiously,yoga nidra additionally appears to have an effect on reproductive hormone ranges.)
- Yoga nidra could also be an efficient instrument for serving to veterans (and doubtlessly others) address PTSD signs. The U.S. Military Surgeon Basic has endorsed yoga nidra as an efficient technique for ache administration.
Scientific research (small although they’re) present some proof in regards to the physiological results underlying sthe psychological and bodily well being advantages practitioners observe.
- In keeping with one examine, for instance, yoga nidra can activate the parasympathetic, rest-and-digest nervous system, as evidenced by increased coronary heart price variability (HRV).
- One other set of researchers put eight skilled yoga lecturers in a PET scan and had them do a yoga nidra apply, throughout which they confirmed a 65 p.c enhance in dopamine launch within the mind.
- Different research counsel {that a} common yoga nidra apply can cut back blood strain, irritation as measured by CRP, and blood glucose ranges.
Getting Began
There’s no query that each one types of yoga and meditation can provide great bodily, psychological, and even religious advantages for individuals who apply repeatedly. Nonetheless, different types of yoga have limitations to entry—issues that you simply may not be robust sufficient or versatile sufficient, for instance—that may scare individuals away. And lots of people quit on meditation as a result of they discover it too arduous to quiet the monkey thoughts and obtain the specified focus (though that does get simpler with time).
The fantastic thing about yoga nidra is that it may be practiced anyplace by anyone. No particular gear nor bodily health capabilities are required. There are many free yoga nidra workouts on-line, and lots of yoga studios provide in-person courses. Some are as brief as 10 minutes, that are nice when it’s essential take a fast break. To actually faucet into the advantages, although, most yoga nidra practices will final 30 to 45 minutes or so.
If the concept of disconnecting from the aware thoughts whereas nonetheless retaining consciousness, of “browsing the interface between sleeping and waking consciousness” (a typical tag line of yoga nidra) feels a bit too summary for you, I’d encourage you to present it a strive however. All it’s important to do is lie nonetheless and take heed to the trainer’s voice. Think about it a apply of deep leisure to begin. Who couldn’t profit from that?
Concerning the Creator
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