Yoga Nidra for Sleep: Does It Work?

Wish to crush it on the fitness center, within the workplace, and at residence? Begin with a great evening’s sleep. Relaxation is essential for general well being and well-being in any respect phases of life. With one in three adults reporting “poor” or “truthful” sleep, many are exploring yoga nidra to have extra restful nights.

Having been recorded way back to the seventh century AD, “yogic sleep” has loads of advantages — like probably higher relaxation, stress administration, and a wholesome temper. However “yoga nidra is just not an alternative choice to sleep,” says yoga nidra teacher Karen Brody.

It’s additionally not yoga. “Yoga nidra is a sleep-based meditation observe and a type of consciousness,” she explains.

Learn on to study guided meditation for sleep, how one can get began, what it could actually do for you — and why you continue to want at the least seven hours of shuteye.

What Is Yoga Nidra?

Yoga nidra is a yogic meditation observe whose purpose is a steadiness between leisure and consciousness that brings you to the third of 4 ranges of consciousness. Within the context of sleep, that is the deepest stage of non-REM (fast eye motion) sleep.

“Yoga nidra is a way to entry a state of deep leisure for each the thoughts and physique, the place consciousness stays awake and conscious,” says Tracee Stanley, creator of Radiant Relaxation: Yoga Nidra for Deep Rest and Woke up Readability and a yoga nidra facilitator and practitioner for over 20 years.

In a typical yoga nidra observe, you lie in your again in savasana whereas an teacher guides you thru a visualization designed to maintain you hovering between sleep and wakefulness. When you would possibly drift off, that’s not the purpose.

“The most important false impression is that yoga nidra is a yoga nap,” provides Stanley. “Throughout sleep, you aren’t conscious. You don’t bear in mind what occurred once you had been asleep. Within the state of yoga nidra, you stay acutely aware within the liminal areas between sleep and wakefulness.”

How Does Yoga Nidra Work?

Yoga nidra helps you decelerate and calm down, shifting your physique into “relaxation and digest” mode and turning on the parasympathetic nervous system.

The observe shifts you into “a peaceable and blissful state often known as samadhi,” Stanley says. “Yoga nidra is the nurturing facet of nature that welcomes repose, relaxation, and being held unconditionally,” she explains.

That sounds, effectively, blissful, however does yoga nidra actually work? Analysis has confirmed important variations in delta mind waves after solely two weeks of a yoga nidra observe. Delta waves are related to the deepest ranges of leisure.

We’ll dive into different advantages in a while.

However as for claims that yoga nidra can offset a poor evening’s sleep or one way or the other exchange sleep? No manner, says psychotherapist Niloufar Esmaeilpour, who holds a grasp’s in scientific psychology.

“Assuming that practices like yoga nidra can exchange sleep is dangerous as a result of sleep entails crucial organic processes, together with mobile restore, toxin clearance from the mind, and reminiscence consolidation, which can’t be replicated by meditation or leisure methods,” she says.

Brody provides, “it could actually assist folks who’ve sleep points go to sleep or get again to sleep. A very good evening’s sleep takes you from waking to desires to deep sleep.” Yoga nidra does all that and takes you right into a “state of consciousness that can’t be accessed by standard sleep.”

How Does Yoga Nidra Differ From Meditation?

Whereas each yoga nidra and meditation supply guided routes to leisure, they differ in a lot of methods. For starters, you’re usually seated throughout standard meditation, whereas the customary physique place for yoga nidra is corpse pose (savasana).

The 2 practices additionally emphasize completely different phases of consciousness. In meditation, “you both observe your breath or a mantra when you are awake,” Brody explains, in contrast to the sleep-wake-dream-bliss journey of yoga nidra, which reaches deeper ranges of leisure.

Nevertheless it’s positively not a contest: Each yoga nidra and meditation supply ample advantages for thoughts and physique. And who couldn’t use some down time away from screens and work?

Methods to Do Yoga Nidra

Working towards yoga nidra for sleep is straightforward. You’ll find an in-person or on-line class, or obtain a yoga nidra meditation on-line. (BODi’s Sound Meditation program consists of practices particularly for sleep.)

Discover a comfy spot to lie down — on a yoga mat, in mattress, on the sofa, and even in your automotive. If want be, you may even sit.

When you’re comfortable, flip in your guided meditation. You would possibly need to cowl your physique with a blanket, placed on an eye fixed masks, and/or put on headphones. Then, tune out the actual world as you tune in to yoga nidra. You’ll be able to observe yoga nidra any time of day or evening, and periods can final from quarter-hour to an hour or extra.

Yoga Nidra Advantages

Listed here are a number of the science-backed advantages of yoga nidra:

1. A lift of mindfulness

Well being employees experiencing each bodily and psychological exhaustion underwent an eight-week guided yoga nidra program and confirmed “important enchancment” in mindfulness.

2. Much less stress, improved shallowness

A bunch of college college students was administered one other eight-week yoga nidra routine consisting of twice-weekly, one-hour periods. The end result was a major lower in stress depth ranges and elevated shallowness scores in contrast with a management group.

3. Higher REM and non-REM sleep

Amongst sufferers with continual insomnia who underwent a yoga nidra intervention, sleep high quality and effectivity improved considerably, even in comparison with cognitive behavioral remedy.

What’s not on the listing of advantages? Swapping in yoga nidra for sleep, regardless of what you would possibly see on social media. Make yoga nidra a part of your leisure routine — however be sure you prioritize the remainder you deserve each evening, too.