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 like onerous work?
That’s definitely one model of yoga, the sort that dominates the trendy notion of yoga within the West, but it surely’s under no circumstances what we’re speaking about in the present day.
What if I advised you that there’s one other type 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,” typically translated as “acutely 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 frequent parlance, folks use it to imply the whole 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 conduct patterns, stress dissipates, and you progress in the direction of bodily well being and homeostasis. “Equal to fours hours of deep sleep!” is a typical promoting level.
The latter might or might not be true, but it surely’s clear that yoga nidra has so much to supply by means 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 historical yoga and meditation traditions. In historical texts, yoga nidra or yoganidra typically 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 in the present day was most likely impressed by nineteenth and twentieth century “relaxationists” and hypnotists who had been concerned with harnessing the therapeutic energy of relaxation, in line with students, but it surely 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 attain progressive rest and faucet into yoga nidra. If you happen to take a yoga nidra class in the present day, there’s probability you’ll be following his methodology, or one thing fairly prefer it.
Yoga nidra has since loved a surge in recognition, in addition to educational 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 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 forms of NSDR.
What Occurs Throughout a Yoga Nidra Observe?
Yoga nidra entails a guided, meditative apply designed to attain 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 (not like once you’re asleep), however you’re completely indifferent from it. You might be conscious however probably not 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 means. 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 acutely aware consciousness may be very a lot “on.” In yoga nidra, acutely 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 photographs are current, and the practitioner experiences acutely aware, deep, dreamless sleep, possessing consciousness of the environment however neither fascinated about 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 instructor was skilled, they might observe a script or they might faucet right into a extra intuitive movement through the session. Both means, it can most likely contain the same 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 may be one thing easy like “I’m going to calm down,” or it could possibly be one thing larger you are attempting to attain like, “I’ll sleep properly at night time” or “I’ll cease ingesting alcohol.”
- Subsequent comes a collection of visualization and respiratory workouts. The aim is to maneuver you thru completely different layers of the self towards a state of yoga nidra. Sometimes you’ll begin with a physique scan, shifting your consciousness to completely different factors round your physique, adopted by directions to deliver consciousness to your respiratory, your senses, and your ideas, usually with particular visualization cues. Finally, 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 keeping with conventional knowledge, yoga nidra is a deeply therapeutic state. Yoga nidra is particularly touted as an efficient strategy to alleviate stress, sleep higher, and enhance total well-being. And there are many research to assist these assertions, for instance:
- Yoga nidra decreased stress and anxiousness amongst school 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 dwelling (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 more practical than progressive muscle rest for bettering sleep high quality in male athletes (although each had been useful).
- Two research discovered that despair and anxiousness 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 probably others) deal with PTSD signs. The U.S. Military Surgeon Common has endorsed yoga nidra as an efficient technique for ache administration.
Scientific research (small although they’re) present some proof concerning 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 heart rate 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 % 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 each one types of yoga and meditation can supply large bodily, psychological, and even religious advantages for individuals who apply usually. Nevertheless, different types of yoga have boundaries to entry—considerations that you simply may not 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 onerous to quiet the monkey thoughts and obtain the specified focus (though that does get simpler with time).
The great thing about yoga nidra is that it may be practiced wherever 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 supply in-person lessons. Some are as quick as 10 minutes, that are nice when you’ll want to 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 thought of disconnecting from the acutely 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 provide it a strive nonetheless. All it’s a must to do is lie nonetheless and hearken to the instructor’s voice. Think about it a apply of deep rest to start out. Who couldn’t profit from that?
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