Yoga Nidra For Sleep: All You Want To Know
Beyond headstands and physical postures, yoga offers much more. Yoga has the ability to calm the mind and strengthen the body, regardless of age, experience level, or age group.
Yoga comes in many different forms, including hot yoga, hatha yoga, Iyengar yoga, yoga Nidra, and many others. Don’t let the different yoga styles or poses intimidate you.
Yoga Nidra is a form of guided meditation that involves deep breathing and reflection to promote a harmonious connection between the body and mind.
We’ll examine the advantages, how to begin, and how yoga can improve sleep to show that yoga is for everyone.
Table of Contents
What Is Yoga Nidra?
Yoga Nidra, or “Yogic Sleep,” is a form of guided meditation that involves deep breathing and reflection to promote a harmonious connection between body and mind. This meditation technique is frequently thought to encourage deep sleep because it allows the mind and body to relax while the consciousness is still awake.
The entire practice also happens in savasana, or the resting pose in yoga, as it “remedies fatigue and causes the mind to stop.”.” The Bihar School of Yoga was established by Swami Satyananda Saraswati, who is also credited with fusing traditional Indian yoga practices to create the modern practice of Yoga Nidra.
Yoga Nidra Vs. Meditation
While they both aim to increase awareness, meditation and Yoga Nidra have a similar primary objective. Yoga Nidra is always done while lying down, whereas meditation is traditionally done while seated.
It entails slowing down and relaxing. Meditation follows the same rules. Although some people mix the two together, they are two distinct practices. When practicing yoga nidra, the person is lying down. To enter a deep state of consciousness, awareness sleep, or a deeper relaxation state with awareness is the main objective.
In regards to meditation, the person is sitting in a waking state of consciousness, focusing the mind, and allowing ideas to come and go without restriction. The goal of meditation is to develop awareness and a positive sense of perspective.
The Structure Of A Yoga Nidra
The structure of a Yoga Nidra for sleep is a series of sections (layers) each with various intentions to guide you into a deep state of awakened relaxation and the state of Theta or alpha waves in the brain.
There are three key facets of Yoga Nidra: Meditation, Relaxation, and Intention
The meditation calms the mind, the relaxation causes the body to release tension, and the intention (Sankalpa) can be a tool to help you stay on track in your daily life when you are physically or emotionally challenged. It can also help you change unhealthy or unproductive patterns.
What Makes Yoga Nidra Beneficial For Sleep?
In the modern world, many people deal with sleeping disordersdue to stress-related issues. It can be extremely upsetting and detrimental to your nervous system to have a mind that doesn’t shut off when you want to go to sleep and get a good night’s rest.
It might turn into a vicious circle. The more you want it to go away, the more it prevails and it can end up as a huge disturbance to your wellbeing and health.
The Yoga Nidra for sleep offers excellent support for a peaceful mind – that’s why the technique has become so popular in these modern times, even though it’s an ancient practice.
A scientific study done at the University of Minnesota shows that the practitioner of a While still fully awake and conscious, yoga nidra exhibits all the signs of a deep non-Rem sleep, including the lowest delta brain waves.
It resembles drowsiness on the verge of awakening.
Continued practice of Yoga Nidra has been known to improve your nightly sleep routines, making it easier to fall asleep and stay asleep, enjoying a full night of deep rest. See more about What Is Yoga Sculpt?
Yoga Nidra Benefits
Yoga has many advantages. Yoga Nidra can help people of any age and ability relax and release tension before bed, regardless of whether they experience insomnia, anxiety, general stress, or discomfort.
Adults can benefit from lying down and clearing their minds before bed, just as we gently rock children to sleep to help them drift off to sleep.
Improve Blood Pressure & More
Science also supports the advantages of this style of yoga meditation, which feels good. Researchers discovered that Yoga Nidra helped women’s blood pressure and hormonal imbalances in two separate papers that were published.
After practicing Yoga Nidra for 30 consecutive days, type-2 diabetics’ blood glucose levels fluctuated less, according to Shyam Shah Medical College researchers.
Improve HRV
Heart rate variability, or HRV, is a unit of measurement for the variations in the intervals between each heartbeat that are measured in milliseconds. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) is a part of your nervous system that controls your breathing, blood pressure, digestion, and heart rate in addition to other bodily functions. This variation or irregularity—which is perfectly normal, even for a healthy heart—is controlled by this system.
Without engaging in posture practice physically, a research study from 2012 demonstrated that HRV can improve.
Reduce Stress & Anxiety
In a different study, researchers examined the effects of a brief, 11-minute Yoga Nidra meditation over the course of 30 days in a wide-ranging sample of the population.
The group given the short meditation showed “lower stress, higher well-being, and improved sleep quality after the intervention” compared to the group that did not.
Additionally, the beneficial effects of the treatment were still present six weeks later. You can benefit from this cost-free, health-improving exercise by simply taking a few minutes before bed to meditate and concentrate on mindfulness.
Recent Yoga Study: Yoga Nidra can be a useful tool in reducing the physical and mental signs of anxiety.
Improves Confidence And Self-esteem
You can boost your self-esteem and confidence by practicing frequently. The impact of Yoga Nidra on university students’ life stress and self-esteem was the subject of a recent 2019 study.
According to the findings, compared to the control group, the Nidra yoga practitioners significantly reduced their levels of life stress.
Yoga Nidra For Sleep Step-by-step Guide
You will be guided through all 6 layers by your teacher, live in a class, or through a recording. Your job is to relax and listen to the guidance.
Layer: The Relaxation Of The Body
Yoga Nidra for sleep starts with you lying down comfortably on your mat. To ensure that your body remains still for the entire session, it is crucial to make the necessary adjustments.
You are instructed to stay awake, but dozing in and out of consciousness is normal. Your brain is awake during Yoga Nidra for sleep even though your body is nearly asleep.
Layer: The Intention.
The next step is to set a Sankalpa, or good intention, for the session after the body has been relaxed. A Sankalpa is a single, brief statement that expresses something clearly and forcefully. It’s intended to change your life for the better.
A Sankalpa can be a wish for something to occur in your life, a resolution to let go of something in order to experience greater freedom, or even a question about how you want to live your life.
Layer: Body Scan
In this step, you will be engaged in paying attention to specific parts of your body. Your task is to follow the mentioned body parts with your focused attention as the teacher points to a particular area.
Your awareness shifting serves a very specific physiological meaning and function. It focuses your attention inward while relaxing the mind and stimulating the brain.
Layer: The Opposites
The next layer is the mental experience of opposites, such as lightness and heaviness, hot and cold.
This helps the conscious mind determine what your body feels, instead of always just responding to, and relying on, sensations from the outside world.
Layer: The Visualization
The purpose of this layer is to bring up what is stored in the subconscious mind. Since symbols are recognized as the subconscious mind’s language, guided imagery employs symbols.
It can stabilize the mind and assist in bringing suppressed feelings and thoughts to the surface.
Layer: Repetition Of The Sankalpa
Finally, you will be instructed to conclude the session by restating the Sankalpa that you created at its start.
You are bringing a positive resolution to an end to the Yoga Nidra for sleep in this manner. The reason for this is that your mind is currently very open to suggestions and uplifting ideas.
Your subconscious is very receptive, and this receptivity will make the resolution stronger.
When the Yoga Nidra is over, you will be led back to an awakened state of consciousness. Take your time to slowly exit the room and spend a few seconds relaxing, taking a few deep breaths, and stretching your body to help you integrate the session.
Conclusion
Yoga Nidra is an easy form of meditation because it is taught while one is lying down. The exercise is also led by a yoga teacher or instructor. It is a nice habit to get into, especially after a long day before bed. Your deepest slumber to date may result from practicing yoga nidra.
Yoga carries risks, just like any other form of exercise. Yoga should be practiced mindfully and respectfully to reduce the risk of injury. It is best to speak with a medical professional or your doctor before beginning this or any other type of yoga.
Thank you for reading.
