Yoga Nidra for Sleep: Does It Work?

Wish to crush it on the fitness center, within the workplace, and at residence? Begin with an excellent night time’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 doubtlessly higher relaxation, stress administration, and a wholesome temper. However “yoga nidra just isn’t an alternative to sleep,” says yoga nidra teacher Karen Brody.

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

Learn on to study guided meditation for sleep, methods to get began, what it might do for you — and why you continue to want at the very least seven hours of shuteye.

What Is Yoga Nidra?

Yoga nidra is a yogic meditation follow whose purpose is a stability 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, writer 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 follow, 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 may drift off, that’s not the purpose.

“The largest 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 aware within the liminal areas between sleep and wakefulness.”

How Does Yoga Nidra Work?

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

The follow shifts you into “a peaceable and blissful state generally 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 vital variations in delta mind waves after solely two weeks of a yoga nidra follow. Delta waves are related to the deepest ranges of leisure.

We’ll dive into different advantages afterward.

However as for claims that yoga nidra can offset a poor night time’s sleep or one way or the other substitute sleep? No approach, says psychotherapist Niloufar Esmaeilpour, who holds a grasp’s in medical psychology.

“Assuming that practices like yoga nidra can substitute sleep is dangerous as a result of sleep entails essential 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 might assist individuals who’ve sleep points go to sleep or get again to sleep. An excellent night time’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 typical sleep.”

How Does Yoga Nidra Differ From Meditation?

Whereas each yoga nidra and meditation provide guided routes to leisure, they differ in numerous methods. For starters, you’re usually seated throughout typical 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 comply with your breath or a mantra when you are awake,” Brody explains, not like the sleep-wake-dream-bliss journey of yoga nidra, which reaches deeper ranges of leisure.

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

Find out how to Do Yoga Nidra

Practising yoga nidra for sleep is straightforward. You will discover an in-person or on-line class, or obtain a yoga nidra meditation on-line. (BODi’s Sound Meditation program contains practices particularly for sleep.)

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

When you’re comfortable, flip in your guided meditation. You may wish to cowl your physique with a blanket, placed on a watch masks, and/or put on headphones. Then, tune out the true world as you tune in to yoga nidra. You may follow yoga nidra any time of day or night time, and periods can final from quarter-hour to an hour or extra.

Yoga Nidra Advantages

Listed below are among 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 “vital enchancment” in mindfulness.

2. Much less stress, improved vanity

A gaggle 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 vanity scores in contrast with a management group.

3. Higher REM and non-REM sleep

Amongst sufferers with power insomnia who underwent a yoga nidra intervention, sleep high quality and effectivity improved considerably, even when put next with cognitive behavioral remedy.

What’s not on the record of advantages? Swapping in yoga nidra for sleep, regardless of what you may see on social media. Make yoga nidra a part of your leisure routine — however make sure to prioritize the remainder you deserve each night time, too.