Recently, you may have been hearing a lot about Yoga Nidra
Specifically, you may have heard podcast host and Stanford professor Dr. Andrew Huberman discussing NSDR (Non-Sleep Deep Rest) or Yoga Nidra and its potential to improve and manage sleep, stress and more. Yoga Nidra is literally translated as "Yoga Sleep," and is a guided meditation practice involving intention setting, body scan, breath awareness, and the induction of a pseudo sleep state.
This practice, lasting 10 - 45 minutes can. be practiced by almost anyone, at any time of day, and allows the mind to enter a state of deep relaxation, akin to a shallow nap or sleep.
An Introduction to Yoga Nidra
In this eight-session yoga nidra course, you will learn effective mindfulness and meditation tools to support relief from pain, stress, insomnia, PTSD, addictive cravings, stress, and more.
Learn at your own pace, lesson by lesson:
- 8 x 30 Minute Audio Meditations
- 8 x How-to Video Lessons
- 10 x Progressive Personal Inquiry Worksheets
What Happens During Yoga Nidra?
While resting at ease, yoga nidra guides you through a series of inquiries inviting you to welcome opposites of sensation, breath, emotions, beliefs, images, and memories that naturally arise within your awareness.
As you engage each experience, you proactively explore actions you can responsively take with respect to what you are experiencing. You also experience yourself as the observer or witnessing awareness, which is an unchanging presence in which your ever-changing experience is unfolding.
During iRest, we observe, welcome, and engage various aspects of our waking existence, starting with the grossest form, the physical body, and then moving on through more subtle layers, such as the breath, feelings, emotions, thoughts, joy, and awareness. As we welcome everything that is present in the body and mind, our emotions and thoughts begin to grow calmer. In the process, we discover and connect to the aspect of ourselves that is always peaceful and at ease.
Course Outline
Yoga Nidra Research:
- A 20-minute NSDR protocol after a period of intense focus or learning can accelerate plasticity by about 50%
- 6 weeks of Yoga Nidra resulted in a 22% decrease in depressive symptoms
- In one study at the Miami VA, U.S.A. Army veterans found a Yoga Nidra protocol extremely useful in helping them with their symptoms of depression, pain, and insomnia associated with their PTSD
Yoga & meditation teach tools that you can use throughout your lifetime to deal with difficult situations skillfully, and to develop a deep and secure sense of well-being. Yoga Nidra helps you discover a state that exists between sleep and wakefulness where deep healing takes place. You learn to remain awake and alert, even if the body sleeps during the practice. You don’t need any previous experience and there is no right or wrong way to do this practice.