Yoga Nidra
Lingering & Relaxing in a Twilight State While Staying Fully Aware
Yoga Nidra is an age-old relaxation technique in which you consciously enter a state between wakefulness and sleep. Yoga Nidra allows you to calm your physical and mental activities down while your consciousness remains aware and clear. The technique is often supported by a guided audio meditation.
The benefits of Yoga Nidra are many, including deep relaxation on both a physical and mental level, increased mental resilience and relief from anxiety, insomnia and depression, the nervous system becomes regulated and the body recovers.
How is Yoga Nidra Practised?
Yoga Nidra can be practised at many different times: During the day to develop a habit of deep relaxation that makes it easier to fall asleep at night. Or before going to bed to prepare the way for sleep. You can also practise Yoga Nidra when you wake up in the middle of the night – to help you relax and find your way back to sleep more easily.
It seems paradoxical, but by practising not falling asleep you will become more familiar with the path that leads to sleep.
The easiest way to practise Yoga Nidra is to follow a guided audio meditation. This will take 20-30 minutes on average. At the beginning, you are instructed to move your awareness through your body (body scan) and are often encouraged to slow your breathing and to visualise calming images. Unlike other relaxation exercises, the instructions are spoken relatively quickly – this will keep your awareness hooked and will prevent your mind from wandering.
The structure of a Yoga Nidra session generally consists of the following steps:
- 1
Preparation – Mindful attunement to the practice
- 2
Arrival – Beginning of the practice
- 3
Sankalpa/Intention/Resolution – Setting an intent for the practice
- 4
Body Scan/Body Awareness – Moving awareness through the body in a focused way while the body remains still
- 5
Breath Awareness – Connecting with and focusing on the power of breath
- 6
Balancing Opposites – Noticing and balancing physical and emotional sensations
- 7
Visualisation – In some schools, spontaneously arising thoughts, memories or images are simply noticed and welcomed; in others, the teacher will guide specific images or journeys
- 8
Repetition of the Sankalpa – The intention is reaffirmed once more
- 9
Integration and return – Slowly and mindfully returning to the waking state
- 10
Ending the practise – Giving thanks, being awake and present
Different Approaches
There are now many different schools (iRest, Yoga Nidra Network, ParaYoga, Himalayan Institute, Bihar, and more) that offer Yoga Nidra with or without music, are secular or spiritual, or are PTSD and trauma sensitive, such as the iRest programme. iRest is even used in military hospitals in the USA because of its confirmed positive health benefits.
As we all know, tastes and needs vary, but fortunately there is a wide range of Yoga Nidra audio recordings available on Spotify, InsightTimer, YouTube and the like. So hopefully you will be able to find something that suits your taste. There are also recordings specifically tailored to help with insomnia or the particular needs of women (please see the database on the Yoga Nidra Network for a wide range of examples).
In order to give you a first impression of the method, I have put together a small selection of recordings for you to try out:
Selection of Yoga Nidra Recordings
General Yoga Nidra Instructions
- 1
Start by selecting a Yoga Nidra audio track. Before you begin, check that the volume on your speakers or headphones is comfortable.
- 2
Next, prepare your room for the exercise: Make yourself comfortable on the floor, sofa or bed lying on your back. If you’re unable to lie on your back, the exercise can also be done sitting upright keeping a relaxed position (ideally, however, Yoga Nidra should be practised lying down). Cover up and if you prefer place a pillow under your head. If you like, place a pillow or blanket under your knees too. Make yourself comfortable, but not so comfortable that you fall asleep immediately. The aim is to remain in the twilight state and not to drift off to sleep (unless you’re doing this as a precursor to falling asleep).
- 3
Create a relaxed and quiet atmosphere. Switch your mobile phone to silent or flight mode and let anyone you share your space with know about your Yoga Nidra practice, so that they can act accordingly. If you are worried about falling asleep during the exercise and you’ve got appointments later on, set a gentle and pleasant wake-up alarm.
- 4
Start the audio recording and follow the instructions. In case you fall asleep before the end of the exercise, that’s alright – then you get to enjoy and benefit from a nap. Yet, if possible try to follow the instructions until the end of the exercise.
- 5
When the audio recording has finished, allow yourself time to gently return to the present moment.
When to Practise
Once a day for 20-30 minutes, twice a day for trauma or PTSD.
Handling Sleep Pressure
Some people worry that Yoga Nidra will shorten their sleep, but in fact the opposite is true: you can’t practise Yoga Nidra too often. On a Yoga Nidra retreat, participants practise six or seven 30-minute sessions a day and still sleep soundly every night. How is this possible?
Unlike a nap, Yoga Nidra does not reduce sleep pressure (tiredness) in the body, but the deep relaxation achieved activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which is required for restful sleep. The more relaxed you are during the day, the easier it will be to fall asleep at night. But if you suffered a sleepless night, a nap can save the following day (please see further informations below).
Yoga Nidra, the Same as Napping?
Yoga Nidra is not the same as a nap or a power nap – in Yoga Nidra we deliberately immerse ourselves in a twilight state and remain there in full consciousness. However, during a nap we enter into light sleep, sometimes even deep sleep, and usually lose our waking consciousness. A nap reduces sleep pressure (tiredness), Yoga Nidra does not.
Therefore you should be careful not to take a nap later than 6 hours before your intended bedtime, so as not to unintentionally weaken your sleep pressure for the night. Yoga Nidra, on the other hand, can be practised at any time of day or night and does not affect sleep pressure.
Napping
A nap can save the day after a sleepless night: it reduces irritability, increases performance, reduces fatigue and lifts mood. For these very reasons, NASA lets its astronauts take a 20-30 minute nap on missions.
20-30 minutes is the ideal length of time for a short nap. This allows you to immerse yourself in light sleep, which will boost your vigilance, without you dropping into deep sleep because being woken up from deep sleep will cause fatigue and can actually make drowsiness even worse.
So if you’re planning on a longer nap, don’t go beyond 60-90 minutes. This will ensure that your set alarm wakes you up during a sleep phase of your sleep cycle which is not deep sleep, making it much easier for you to return to full waking consciousness feeling refreshed.
7-9 Hours of Healthy Sleep …
A word about the famous 7-9 hours of healthy sleep per night: this should be better understood as 7-9 hours of sleep per 24-hour period (!). This means that a nap or afternoon rest absolutely do count as part of our daily sleep time and therefore can be added to the amount of our nightly sleep hours.
Also, taking a nap is a much more realistic way to increase our sleep quota than obsessively trying to get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep in one single go.
In our modern society, we regularly suffer from chronic sleep deprivation. Taking a nap or practising a session of Yoga Nidra can almost be seen as a revolutionary act – “I’ll take a break now and be gone for a moment. Please continue without me … “ – in addition to the undisputed positive effects on mind and body.