Why Yoga Nidra Meditation Should Be a Part of Your Daily Routine
especially if your life is extremely busy and you are exhausted and worn out from doing it all
I know that your life is packed.
And I wouldn’t dream of suggesting adding anything extra to your infinite to-do list that will consume even more of your precious time and energy.
So please don’t worry about that!
This is the total opposite.
Because, like most other women, I know you already face pressure to be Superwoman, put out fires, flourish in your career, and be there for your friends, family, and everyone in between.
Intellectually, we understand the oxymoron “put your oxygen mask on first," and we know that” we can’t pour from an empty cup"—yet these mantras are ones we struggle to follow.
No matter how much we desire more me-time and quiet, we just don’t have the time or energy to fill our empty cups.
So, we struggle and ignore our bodies' cries for rest and deep care.
Why Most Women Struggle With Self-Care
I am a Black woman of Caribbean descent, born and raised in South-East London.
As a child growing up, most women I saw worked hard, tried to save and survive, and keep their families together.
The concept of “thrive and flourish," “rest and relax," and “me-time” or seeing women put themselves first, was not a thing.
For example, in my household, dad got the largest piece of meat, then my brother and me, while mum took the bony scraps and filled her plate with the gravy.
So, as I grew up, I internalised the norms and values around me and adopted that ingrained paradigm of
“Pushing hard to succeed.”
“You must work hard for your living.”
and the biggest yet invisible law
“Don't stop to rest because then you will be judged lazy and worthless.”
Like most women I know, who are also ambitious and strive to be independent at work and home, we didn't learn the skills to dismantle this paradigm, protect our well-being, or consider our self-care needs.
Nowadays, even though we are older, wiser, and know better, we are so worn out trying to survive and keep our heads above water that we still don’t have time or energy to think about how to take care of ourselves.
That’s why I love yoga nidra meditation and feel it is a core practice to help us learn to care more for our bodies and rest and recharge our minds.
Why Yoga Nidra Meditation is Unique
Yoga nidra meditation (aka yoga nidra) is an ancient Tantric meditation practice that nowadays falls within the guided relaxation meditation technique category.
For more information about the Tantric origins of yoga nidra, I invite you to read this article and other blog posts on the same bigShakti website.
Yoga nidra is often described as “the meditation of yogic sleep.”
Even though it’s known as “Yoga Nidra Meditation,” don’t worry; yoga nidra doesn’t involve doing physical yoga postures or asanas that call for mastering difficult and complex body shapes.
It certainly doesn’t require flexibility or bendability.
And it doesn’t require you to be up at dawn, take a cold shower, and do 108 rounds of the Sun Salutations.
Plus, unlike other types of meditation, practicing yoga nidra also doesn’t require you to sit still on the floor for twenty minutes in the lotus position, concentrate on expanding your awareness, or focus on your breath.
Fortunately, yoga nidra meditation is a lot simpler than all of that. Phew!
Fitting Yoga Nidra into Your Busy Schedule
The beauty of yoga nidra is that it is a gentle and accessible form of meditation.
It is very helpful for people with health conditions that affect their sense of wellness and vitality and those going through highly stressful situations at home, work, or, most commonly, both.
One of the reasons for its accessibility is that you practice yoga nidra by lying on your back on a yoga mat, a blanket, or, like me, on (or in) your bed.
The practice refreshes your mind and body from your punishing schedule.
How to do Yoga Nidra Meditation
Yoga nidra is easy to practice.
- First, ensure you are warm and cosy in an area where, hopefully, people and pets won’t bother you.
- Then, choose your preferred yoga nidra meditation audio or video (see the resources section below) you want to listen to, make yourself comfortable lying on your back (or side, if that works best for you), and press play.
- Next, you let the facilitator’s voice guide you through the practice.
- Through guidance, your body and mind slowly settle into deeper states of rest and conscious relaxation.
In yoga nidra, it is perfectly normal if you drift in and out of sleep, fall into a deep sleep, and don’t wake up till the session has finished—or, in some cases, in the morning!
If you nod off during the practice when you notice this has happened, return your attention to listening to the facilitator’s guidance.
Or if you notice there is a silent pause in the guided meditation, tune into your body’s wisdom and listen to any messages your body may have for you.
You’ll continue to benefit from yoga nidra’s therapeutic effects even as you drift off to sleep because of how the subconscious mind functions.
Useful Yoga Nidra Meditation Resources For Further Exploration
As a yoga and meditation teacher, I love discovering and practicing yoga nidra with other teachers, as it helps me ignore my automatic tendency to criticise my voice and go deeper into the practice.
- Two of my favourite yoga nidra teachers offer guided yoga nidra meditation for free online on YouTube: Ayla Nova (Yoga Nidra and Beyond) and Kristen McCarthy (Yoga with Kristen).
I particularly love the vibe and deep transformative spiritual yoga nidra meditations provided by practitioners from The Amrit Yoga Institute.
2. Popular meditation apps, such as Insight Timer and Calm, offer guided yoga nidra sessions from various yoga nidra schools and traditions.
3. If you enjoy reading, read Swami Satyananda Saraswati's classic Yoga Nidra book.
My favourite yoga nidra book, Radiant Rest: Yoga Nidra for Deep Relaxation and Awakened Clarity by Tracee Stanley, is pure bliss.
4. If you search for “yoga nidra meditations” in the Spotify app, you will find numerous practices to select from to keep you rested, connected, and engaged.
5. And, if, like me, you love yoga nidra so much that you want to study it further and maybe even become a yoga nidra facilitator, here are two yoga nidra teacher training resources I can personally recommend:
Journey Into Wisdom by Kristen McCarthy and The Yoga of Sleep by Scott Moore.
6. If you are interested in exploring more about the role of rest in general as an active tool in our journey for inner peace, liberation, and enhanced self-care, check out the work of The Nap Ministry, founded by Tricia Hersey and Sisters of the Yam, by bell hooks.
How Does Yoga Nidra Work?
As previously mentioned, the beauty of Yoga Nidra is its simplicity and accessibility—lying on your back in bed or on another supportive surface.
Sessions can last between 15 minutes and an hour.
In another article, we will delve deeper into neuroscience and research on the impact and benefits of yoga nidra on your brain chemistry, health, and well-being.
For now, on a practical level, remember that you can practice yoga nidra at any time of the day, from meditating first thing in the morning to help you set your intention for the day and feel alert and refreshed, mid-day to rest and reset your energy, to the last thing at night to help you unwind and drift off to sleep.
The simplicity of yoga nidra is that it consists of a series of specific relaxation and meditative techniques designed to systematically relax our bodies and minds by eliciting the relaxation response in our physiology.
Some relaxation and meditative techniques include a sequence of breath awareness exercises, guided imagery, affirmation meditation, and physical relaxation techniques, which ultimately help you reconnect with your breath to revitalise the body and gently release physical and emotional tension.
From an energetic yoga anatomy perspective, the yoga nidra techniques systematically guide you through the body's five layers, or sheaths—the physical, energetic, mental, emotional, and spiritual bodies, known collectively as the Koshas.
In brief, the five layers, or sheaths, of the body are:
- Annamaya kosha (the physical layer)
- Pranamaya kosha (the energetic layer)
- Manomaya kosha (the mind, beliefs, and emotional layer)
- Vijnanamaya kosha (the higher mind, wisdom and intuition layer)
- Anandamaya kosha (the bliss/highest consciousness, our soul essence layer)
As the body consciously relaxes, your brain automatically shifts from an active beta-brain wave state, where most of us spend our day stressed out, exhausted, and anxious, to the calmer, more restorative, restful alpha-brain wave state.
The Simplicity of Yoga Nidra for Restorative Rest — Impact on Our Brain Waves
Depending on how your body and mind respond to the different yoga nidra techniques, some people go on to experience the slower, deeper theta and even delta brain wave states, which correlate to even deeper relaxation, restoration, and rest.
This state is the most restorative and restful in our bodies and, over time, enables the body system to get the message that our systems are regulating, regenerating, and repairing themselves.
Naturally, the longer-term advantages of yoga nidra take time to become embodied, and we need to make yoga nidra a daily part of our lives consistently.
We are so accustomed to the cultural values of feeling weary and depleted that we think those states are "normal.”
It takes courage, collective strength and patience to structurally change norms and biases which undermine our efforts to rest and reclaim our time — without fear of reprisal, shame and reprimand from others.
We can only begin to liberate ourselves from the routines and structures that support our hyperactive, stress-filled lifestyles when we intentionally unwind and embody “rest” as a normal part of our lifestyle.
Making yoga nidra an integral part of your busy lifestyle helps us take better care of ourselves.
We start to fully recognise the depth and value of conscious rest as a tool to strengthen our resolve to get free from socially prescribed identities and stereotypical roles that keep us locked in a state of extreme exhaustion and seeking external validation to get by.
Regular practice will help you cultivate the insights, wisdom, skills, and inner strength to resist the pressure to deny your body’s needs for rest, inner peace, a good night's sleep, and calm focus during the day.
So, anytime you notice your mind running on overdrive, you’re snapping at loved ones, and you feel frazzled and exhausted, rather than “push through and get it done now,” I invite you to give yourself permission to get off the merry-go-round of stress.
Check out the recommended yoga nidra resources—lean back, press play, and enjoy your moment of rest and restorative calm!
Let me know how you get along in the comment box below. I love reading your comments. Thank you.
Then, click here to receive your FREE Set of 21 “Affirmations for Self-Love and Healing,” which are ideal if you’re sick of struggling and want to start each day feeling better with hope and inspiration. Thank you.