Yoga Nidra Therapy

This first stage is about coming into a comfortable savasana (corpse pose) position lying flat on your back, if possible. Props such as bolsters and blankets are used to help eliminate any discomfort and attain maximum relaxation. At this point, the yoga therapist will use various techniques to guide you to let go of the outside world and turn your attention inward, becoming aware of your body, your breath the present moment, and releasing any thoughts of the outside world. A yoga therapist engages in yoga nidra training before implementing these tools in an individual’s life. Practicing yoga nidra can lower blood pressure and your active sympathetic nervous system. Once sleep disorders are improved upon, mental health disorders soon follow.

At this stage, you will be guided to listen from within for a message from your soul and state your positive resolve. You will intuitively know what it is. It is something you secretly desire to achieve. It may be a very simple intention, such as “I am loving and kind to myself and others” or it can be very specific such as “I have $100,000 in my savings account.” You will be asked to repeat your resolve silently to yourself three times surrendering to the knowing that this will come to pass, that it will be manifest. The purpose of this is to leave a deep impression in your subconscious mind so repeat it with the full emotion of your heart’s desire.

Here, you will listen to the practitioner’s voice and follow it with your mind as she names parts of the body and you focus your awareness on those parts. This will jump quickly from part to part so you will be forced to let go of thinking and just follow the voice from part to part. You will remain completely still and the only thing moving will be the awareness. This will cause you to sink deeper into a relaxed state of being and you will completely release all muscle tension in the body embracing yoga nidra therapy.

In this stage, you will be guided deeper into relaxation using various breath awareness techniques which will help to keep you rooted in the present moment so that you do not drift off into thought, imagination, or sleep. These techniques will help to increase your concentration and maintain a witness consciousness state. You will remind yourself; “I am practicing yoga nidra sleep meditation, I will not sleep.” Allow your conscious awareness to improve your mental health, optimal health, and psychological well-being.

This stage uses visualization and imagined sensations to experience opposites. The practitioner will guide you to experience extreme heat and immediately after, extreme cold. This will be repeated with opposites like heavy/light, pain/pleasure, and then progress into feelings and emotions. Throughout this exercise you are reminded to remain as a witness, not getting involved in the feelings or emotions by judging or reacting to all the subjects. This stimulates opposite hemispheres of the brain and can create new neuropathways and allow the release of pent-up emotions transforming trauma. The result of this meditative practice can be an enhancement of your ability to resist getting lost in your emotions when triggering events happen in your life.

During this stage, the practitioner will guide you through visualization practices that cause you to see what is being mentioned in your mind’s eye. This can sometimes trigger memories stored deep in the subconscious mind, causing them to come up and be released. These Samskaras, which means impressions, are stored deep in your subconscious and you most likely are not aware that they are there.

These Samskaras are released with all of the feelings and emotions that they were stored with, however, due to your state of deep relaxation, you will be able to witness these events and experience them from a place of non-reaction, enhancing your stress management. This will ultimately give you a new understanding of these events and relieve your subconscious from being influenced by them.

Unlike meditation, yoga nidra therapy measures your brain activity through the frequency of your brain waves. The body’s sleep/wake cycle secret melatonin, a hormone known for synchronizing a person’s circadian rhythm and helping regulate menstrual irregularities. Menstrual abnormalities can interfere with stress levels and daily life. Yoga nidra therapy can alleviate the pain that comes with menstrual disorders.

Here, we will revisit your Sankalpa to plant it deeper into the subconscious. We have made space by releasing the buried emotions and disturbing events. Now we want to reinforce our resolve and seed our subconscious mind with this idea while we are in this hypnagogic state. We are telling our subconscious that its job is to manifest our intentions. We are implementing a new program.

Once you are awakened to this profound sense of relaxation response, the evident stress scores will be lessened. By reducing stress, you’ll be able to fall asleep and receive deep rest. Once you improve sleep, dreamless sleep about sexual trauma will be replaced with restful sleep.

It’s important to keep a sleep diary to measure improved sleep quality which is the result of a seated meditation on a yoga mat. Yoga teachers will engage in guided meditation during the yoga practice. During your yoga nidra session, your sympathetic nervous system will be slowed down which can result in improved blood pressure and sleep quality. A positive effect of yoga nidra is tapping into your autonomic nervous system and improving sleep disorders.

The final stage of yoga nidra sleep meditation is to bring you slowly from the subconscious back into the state of externalized consciousness. You will be guided back to breath and body awareness and reoriented towards your external surroundings. This will allow you to smoothly come out of the deep brain wave states and slowly come back into a wakeful state of being without any disorientation.

Instead of needing sleep medicine, engage in this sleep science practice of what yoga Nidra offers. Yoga Nidra sessions can improve your sleep duration and overall quality. Yoga therapists can help you get to a place of deep rest during this meditative practice.

Yoga nidra differs from hatha yoga because yoga nidra works to bring an individual to complete relaxation while hatha yoga aims to bring peace and calmness to the mind and body. Another positive is yoga therapy can assist with improved mental health. Yoga nidra relaxation can assist a younger age group during yoga nidra meditation to embrace self-care.