The practice of Yoga Nidra is infact as old as yoga and was first featured in the ancient yogic text the Upanishads, written more that 2,500 years ago!
Entering yoga nidra is done through a guided meditation which asks you to sense your body and breathe in a specific way to trigger the relaxation response and is practised lying down. As there is no movement involved this method is accesible to all and requires no equipemnt.
Yoga Nidra has come to be very popular recently amongst busy, stressed and burnt out westerners struggling to get sufficient rest. It is a deeply restorative practice which allows one to be calm, energised, focused whilst cultivating an increased resilience to stress. It is thought that one hour of yoga nidra is equivalent to 5 hours of sleep!!
What happens during the process is a gradual settling of electrical activity in the brain. Practising Yoga Nidra can cycle your brain waves down from the high-stress top levels of Beta waves, through restful reveries of Alpha waves and down in to dreamy states of Theta waves until you may, quite likely, come to rest for a while in delta waves of deepest sleep, where vital repair and restoration happens with the stress hormone cortisol removed from your system.
Interestingly those suffering from depression rarely enter theta and delta brainwave states which perpetuates the cycle of anxiety and depression. Yoga nidra is a proven way to break this cycle in a natural way and has even been used in the US army for soldiers suffering from PTSD. A study conducted in 2019 revealed yoga nidra significantly improved the self esteem of university students after just 8 weeks.
Attend a yoga nidra class or listen to an online recording to see what benefits this practice can bring to your life.
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