Yoga Nidra – Everything You Need To Know

Anyone who has known me for longer than 15 minutes has probably heard me bang on about many kinds of yoga styles but not so much about yoga nidra, also known as “yogic sleep”. This conscious relaxation practice is also a wonderful for anyone suffering from stress-induced insomnia.

Personally, I love to use this simple practice to re-frame my mental sphere and reduce the side effects of my daily corp. job at the office.

If you are not a fan of sweaty yoga classes, listen to this: yoga nidra is a style of yoga that just involves relaxing on a mat, blanket or even your bed!

While the practitioner rests comfortably in savasana (corpse pose), this systematic meditation takes you through the pancha maya kosha (five layers of self), leaving you with a sense of wholeness.

Through causing a state of deep physical and mental relaxation, yoga nidra enables the practitioner to access the subconscious mind and higher levels of consciousness. Once in this state of mind we have the capacity to access ‘Chitta’ our storehouse of mental, emotional and physical patterning and begin to ‘sort stuff out’, gaining the capacity to move beyond those ideas that do not serve our higher goals.

And the best part about this style of yoga is that a 45-minute session could leave you feeling like you indulged in a peaceful three-hour nap. There’s some debate over the science that backs this up, but it is likely this effect is due to the series of brain-wave changes experienced during yoga nidra. 

If you’re ready for an asana-free yoga class to slow down and recover from the stress in your life, read on to discover how yoga nidra could be the solution for you.

Many people tend to lump together yoga nidra and meditation and we could discuss all day if they really are the same or  two different practices.

In the Yoga Sutras (the definitive guide to yogic meditation) Meditation is defined a Dhyana, or effortless concentration – where the observer is settled in steady observation of the object. The pathway to Meditation is through Pratyahara/withdrawal of senses (think listening for sounds and body rotation in Yoga Nidra) > Dharana/Effortful concentration – where we have to keep returning our attention to the concentration (think counting the breath in Yoga Nidra) and then into Dhyana – where the concentration is settled and ‘effortless’.

With yoga nidra, you are lying down and the goal is to move into a deep state of conscious awareness sleep (that does not equal actual sleep), which is a deeper state of relaxation with awareness. This state involves moving from consciousness while awake to dreaming and then to not-dreaming while remaining awake — going past the unconscious to the conscious.

With meditation, you’re sitting and in a waking state of consciousness while focusing the mind and allowing thoughts to come and go. Meditation makes it possible for us to get to the theta state — the state we go through to get to the delta state, which is the place of the deepest sleep cycle. The delta state is a deep healing state. That’s where we’re trying to get through yoga nidra. In this state, the body and mind rest and the consciousness is awake.

Yoga nidra works with the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system regulates processes of the body that take place without a conscious effort (heartbeat, breathing, digestion and blood flow). This system also includes the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

Whilst meditation helps us calm the sympathetic nervous system; mainly, our fight-or-flight response and activate the parasympathetic more. 

There’s such a benefit when those are balanced overall for immunity, digestion and stress management. But in this deeper relaxation, the pineal gland is activated and that releases the hormone called melatonin, a powerful antioxidant. It can also help manage immune function, blood pressure, cortisol levels and induce restful sleep.

Studies shows that practicing yoga nidra improves anxiety, depression, and overall well-being for women experiencing menstrual irregularities and psychological problems. And even more science points to how yoga nidra can help lower blood pressure and cholesterol and improve blood glucose fluctuations and symptoms associated with diabetes.

Here are few of the greatest benefits of practicing yoga nidra:

ॐ Ease insomnia

ॐ Lessening of headaches

ॐ Decrease anxiety

ॐ Alleviate stress

ॐ Reduce PTSD, chronic pain and chemical dependency

ॐ Heighten awareness and focus, aides in achieving goals

ॐ Transform negative habits, behaviors and ways of thinking

ॐ Foster feelings of peace, calm, and clarity

ॐ Emotional strenght

ॐ Self awareness

My clients and private yoga students always tell me how yoga nidra improved their overall well being and positively impacted their family life, too.

There are many different ways of teaching and practicing yoga nidra, most practices include several stages to relax the body, mind and emotions. These steps may include (but are not limited to):

ॐ Intention

ॐ Body awareness

ॐ Breath awareness

ॐ Emotional awareness

ॐ Visualization

ॐ “Waking up” or re-integration

Satyananda’s practice (my favorite) consisted of the following eight stages:

ॐ Internalisation – Your awareness begins to move from the physical body inward.

ॐ Sankalpa – This is an intention that is set at the beginning of each practice and remains the practitioner’s sole intention until it becomes true.

ॐ Rotation of Consciousness – The practitioner is led by the body in a guided manner while repeating the name of the body part and visualizing it.

ॐ Breath Awareness – Bringing awareness to the breath.

ॐ The manifestation of Opposites – The practitioner explores opposite emotions or sensations while practicing non-attachment.

ॐ Creative Visualization – Simple visualizations are created and can be based on any number of topics.

ॐ Sankalpa – The original intention is repeated to deeply root this into your body and mind’s purpose.

ॐ Externalization – You begin to bring sensation back to the body.

Each step is intended to take you deeper into an altered state of consciousness where you’re fully conscious but your body and mind are fully at rest and ease.

When you set a conscious intention (sankalpa) at the beginning of your yoga nidra practice, and then let go and allow for deep relaxation of the body, mind and emotions, your unconscious opens up to new ways of thinking, healing, and fulfilling your conscious intentions. We make Sankalpa twice during the practice, at the beginning and the end – when the conscious mind is settled and the subconscious becomes receptive. We seed the idea for the change and then this concept, such as “I eat healthy nourishing food” becomes part of our subconscious programming, so that the next time we go to binge on junk food the concept of our sankalpa will jump in from the background, and guide us back towards our higher junk food free purpose. To be sure, to be sure, Yoga Nidra + Sankalpa is a yogic superpower.

Tantra is an ancient system of philosophy and practice that is based on a concept of radical acceptance and reverence for all life. In this system we cultivate our capacity for observing life in it’s most subtle forms, through our breath, our thoughts and the subtle energy (prana or chi) that flows through each of us. In the relaxed state of yoga nidra we begin to work with the dimension of prana (pranamaya kosha) refining our chakras, activating our Kundalini energy and seeking to harmonise and expand our energetic dimension. For those interested in exploring the subtle realms of energy and kundalini, Yoga Nidra is a marvellous vehicle through which to do it.

While yoga nidra might seem much easier than traditional yoga, you still have to practice, especially if you’re not used to meditation or quieting your mind.

ॐ Practice away from distractions and in a darker room or cover your eyes with a sleep mask to block out light.

ॐ Cover yourself up with a blanket since the body tends to cool down when it’s at rest.

ॐ If lying on the floor for a while wouldn’t be comfortable for you, you can practice yoga nidra in bed.

ॐ You can start with a 15-20 minutes short session and work your way up.

ॐ Don’t give up if you struggle with your first session. Quieting your mind and not doing anything is much harder than you think. So give yoga nidra a few tries.