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 a sophisticated full-body knot that requires 5 occasions 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 in no way what we’re speaking about as we speak.
What if I informed you that there’s one other sort of yoga, one through which 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,” generally translated as “aware sleep.” The aim of yoga nidra is to realize an altered state of consciousness the place you might be 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, folks use it to imply your entire apply.)
Yoga nidra affords the chance to step exterior your physique, ideas, and feelings. It’s a state of deep rest 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 the direction of bodily well being and homeostasis. “Equal to fours hours of deep sleep!” is a standard promoting level.
The latter could or might not be true, however it’s clear that yoga nidra has quite a bit to supply by the use of selling rest, higher sleep, and even restoration from main stress and trauma. There isn’t an individual working within the fashionable world who couldn’t profit from slowing down and deliberately tapping into enjoyable, restorative practices. Is yoga nidra best for you?
A Temporary Historical past of Yoga Nidra
Fashionable yoga nidra practices have roots tracing again into many historic yoga and meditation traditions. In historic texts, yoga nidra or yoganidra generally referred to that non-sleep, non-waking stage of consciousness or to the goddess Yoga Nidra Shakti. Yoga nidra was usually described as a better state of being, one through which regular psychological and bodily actions ceased, and the yogi achieved a state of bliss.
The kind of yoga nidra apply you’re more likely to encounter as we speak was most likely impressed by nineteenth and twentieth century “relaxationists” and hypnotists who had been all in favour of harnessing the therapeutic energy of relaxation, in keeping with students, however it actually received its kickstart due to the teachings of Swami Satyananda Saraswati. Starting within the Sixties and 70s, Satyananda devised a way of utilizing respiratory methods and physique scans to realize progressive rest and faucet into yoga nidra. For those who take a yoga nidra class as we speak, there’s a great 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 tutorial curiosity. Within the 2000s, medical psychologist and yoga scholar Dr. Richard Miller developed his iRest protocol—a model of yoga nidra—and institute of the identical identify to assist folks coping with points starting from “regular” stress to extreme PTSD, sleep disturbances, and continual well being points. Extra 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 varieties of NSDR.
What Occurs Throughout a Yoga Nidra Apply?
Yoga nidra includes a guided, meditative apply designed to realize a deep state of rest the place you transcend waking, sleeping, and dreaming states to reach at a deeper stage of consciousness. You stay conscious of the skin world (in contrast to once you’re asleep), however you might be 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 rest 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 might be normally sitting up and cultivating intense focus, generally 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 centered nor intentional. As yoga students Dr. Stephen Parker and Swami Veda Bharati describe it, “Neither ideas nor pictures are current, and the practitioner experiences aware, deep, dreamless sleep, possessing consciousness of the environment however neither desirous about them nor interacting with them.”
Like all types of yoga or meditation, the particulars of your apply will depend upon who’s guiding you. Relying on how your information or instructor was educated, they could comply with a script or they could faucet right into a extra intuitive movement in the course of the session. Both approach, it’ll most likely contain an identical 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 is likely to be one thing easy like “I’m going to calm down,” or it could possibly be one thing larger you are attempting to realize like, “I’ll sleep effectively at night time” or “I’ll cease consuming 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. Sometimes you’d begin with a physique scan, shifting your consciousness to totally different factors round your physique, adopted by directions to convey consciousness to your respiratory, your senses, and your ideas, usually with particular visualization cues. In the end, you arrive within the desired state of deep rest.
- Lastly, you reaffirm your intention or sankalpa earlier than returning to a waking state.
Advantages of Yoga Nidra
In accordance with conventional knowledge, yoga nidra is a deeply therapeutic state. Yoga nidra is particularly touted as an efficient solution to alleviate stress, sleep higher, and enhance total well-being. And there are many research to help these assertions, for instance:
- Yoga nidra decreased stress and nervousness amongst faculty college students, nursing college students, and professors.
- Adults with continual 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 when it comes to modifications in slow-wave sleep and whole insomnia severity.
- 4 weeks of yoga nidra was simpler than progressive muscle rest for bettering sleep high quality in male athletes (although each had been useful).
- Two research discovered that despair and nervousness decreased, and psychological well-being improved, amongst girls with menstrual well being issues after six months of yoga nidra. (Apparently,yoga nidra additionally appears to have an effect on reproductive hormone ranges.)
- Yoga nidra could also be an efficient software for serving to veterans (and probably others) address PTSD signs. The U.S. Military Surgeon Normal 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 accordance with one examine, for instance, yoga nidra can activate the parasympathetic, rest-and-digest nervous system, as evidenced by larger heart rate variability (HRV).
- One other set of researchers put eight skilled yoga academics in a PET scan and had them do a yoga nidra apply, throughout which they confirmed a 65 p.c improve in dopamine launch within the mind.
- Different research recommend {that a} common yoga nidra apply can cut back blood stress, irritation as measured by CRP, and blood glucose ranges.
Getting Began
There’s no query that every one types of yoga and meditation can provide super bodily, psychological, and even religious advantages for individuals who apply repeatedly. Nevertheless, different types of yoga have obstacles to entry—considerations that you simply won’t be sturdy sufficient or versatile sufficient, for instance—that may scare folks away. And lots of people hand over 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 tools nor bodily health capabilities are required. There are many free yoga nidra workouts on-line, and plenty of yoga studios provide in-person courses. Some are as brief as 10 minutes, that are nice when you have to take a fast break. To essentially faucet into the advantages, although, most yoga nidra practices will final 30 to 45 minutes or so.
If the thought of disconnecting from the aware thoughts whereas nonetheless retaining consciousness, of “browsing the interface between sleeping and waking consciousness” (a standard tag line of yoga nidra) feels a bit too summary for you, I’d encourage you to provide it a strive however. All you need to do is lie nonetheless and take heed to the instructor’s voice. Contemplate it a apply of deep rest to begin. Who couldn’t profit from that?
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