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Yoga Nidra and Yoga Nidra Yoga Self-Examination Application
Yoga Nidra
is a carefully guided resting process that a lot of users refer to as a daytime type of profound sleeping. It was crafted by ancient yogic sages to help folks realize complete peace, to promote dynamic rejuvenation and it is a wisdom meditation that these sages prescribed as a means of knowing through your other than conscious mind. It is an outstanding relaxation tool for all human beings.
Yoga Nidra is an ancient Tantric-Yoga path that leads to inner freedom. It is a secret of transformation that unfolds in a realm that is neither sleep or waking – it unfolds somewhere between the two because in this process you relax and rest as in deep sleep yet remain conscious.
Recently, yoga practitioners and modern western clinicians have found the benefits of this yoga relaxation meditation with regard to the daily stresses of modern life, and they have found the practice to be helpful in soothing the nervous system, increasing relaxation and mental focus.
The greatest benefit of Yoga Nidra is that it restores both your body and mind to complete peace and restfulness. In the practice your thinking mind is guided to completely relax such that you enjoy complete physical, mental and emotional relaxation and explore the tremendous powers hidden within your subconscious and other than conscious mind.
Yoga Nidra
is able to supercharge your renewal process and boost your body’s immune system because it is a step-by-step treatment of maximum letting go, naturally dealing with your bodily, neurological, and unconscious requirements. It is simultaneously a skill designed for peacefulness as well as an application practiced to provide physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual healthiness and well-thiness. This yoga routine is definitely the most effective strategy yet acknowledged to bring about maximum physiological, psychological and emotional letting go.
In addition to that Yoga Nidra application presents the actual possibility to unravel the sacred secrets of being and divulge the mystery and power of your essence because it is the experiential activity of discovery that goes past the boundaries of information and book-learning. It is a method to get immediate access to nothingness, the intelligent no-thing-ness or pregnant emptiness that is the root of being by whatever name you choose to label it. When you initiate the application you effectively discover gentle relaxation, powerful rejuvenation and deep rest; in all scenarios the treatment leads to the insight or realisation that one’s life itself is the dynamic meditation in which the traveling is the destination, and, that this approach is the way of the human ‘being’, in contrast to the human ‘doing’ of our present day societies.
Yoga Nidra is an amazingly useful approach for causing the relaxation response to cancel out the accumulation of anxieties. It is uniformly loved by school children and golden-agers, and it is genuinely treasured in a large number work environments.
Now you know of the classic remedy of this specific yoga meditation, you’re ready to utilize it. That’s uncomplicated to do because this course of action does not require any special props or equipment; all that is needed is a quiet place where you can lie down and rest as if you were going to take a nap for 30 minutes or so, and then simply allow yourself to be guided into deep relaxation while remaining alert to reap all of the benefits of Yoga Nidra.
Yoga Nidra
Yoga-nidra…
may be rendered in English as “yoga sleep”. It is a sleep-like state that occurs with some practitioners of meditation, details of which have been handed down by guru-to-disciple transmission (parampara) within the Indian religions. These aspects may include relaxation and guided visualization techniques as well as the psychology of dream, sleep and yoga.
Yoga-nidra should not be confused with hypnotic states, known as “yoga tandra”. The practice of yoga nidra as yoga relaxation has been found to reduce tension and anxiety. The autonomic symptoms of high anxiety such as headache, giddiness, chest pain, palpitations, sweating, abdominal pain respond well. It has been used to help soldiers from war cope with PTSD
History of Yoga Nidra
The Vedic literature and Upanishads are pregnant with Yogic knowledge but we don’t find the term ‘Yoga Nidra’. However, the Puranas mention it several times, in different context. Markandeya Purana, Vishnu Purana, Devi Bhagvat and other common scriptures highlight the importance of it. Yoga Nidra is very well defined by Adya Sankaracharya in his text Yoga Tadavali. Hatha Yogic Text Hatha Yoga Pradipika also used this term in different context. Later on, contemporary Yogis like Swami Rama, Swami Satyananda and Pandit Sriram Sharma Acharya propagated their own techniques, which are very common today. More recently, several scientific studies are going on in different parts of the world relating to the technique of -
yoga nidra.
In Need of Yoga Nidra
In today’s busy world
Yoga Nidra
, yogic sleep, may be the essential tool for rejuvenation.
I’m stretched out during my first 45-minute Yoga Nidra class, body cradled in a fully supported Savasana (Corpse Pose), limbs limp, breath quiet, thoughts drifting by. In the distance, the teacher’s voice blends with the sound of Tibetan bells. All traces of the day fade away, time stops, and stillness washes over me. So this is Yoga Nidra!
Also known as yogic sleep or sleep with awareness, Yoga Nidra is an ancient practice that is rapidly gaining popularity in the West. It is intended to induce full-body relaxation and a deep meditative state of consciousness. “We live in a chronically exhausted, overstimulated world,” says Los Angeles yoga teacher Rod Stryker.
“Yoga Nidra is a systematic method of complete relaxation, holistically addressing our physiological, neurological, and subconscious needs.”
During a typical class, teachers use a variety of techniques—including guided imagery and body scanning—to aid relaxation. And unlike a quick Savasana at the end of asana practice, Yoga Nidra allows enough time for practitioners to physiologically and psychologically sink into it—at least 20 to 45 minutes, says San Francisco Bay Area yoga teacher Jennifer Morrice.
The ancient yoga text the Mandukya Upanishads refers to four different stages of Yoga Nidra. The practitioner begins by quieting the overactive conscious mind, then moves into a meditative state, gradually finding a state of “ultimate harmony,” in which the brain waves slow down and a subtle euphoria emerges. Though most practitioners don’t slip easily into the more advanced stages, they still tend to emerge feeling rejuvenated. “Yoga Nidra uniquely unwinds the nervous system,” Stryker says, “which is the foundation of the body’s well-being.”
Yoga Nidra is best done under the guidance of a trained teacher, but not to worry if a class hasn’t arrived at your local studio. Teachers like Stryker, Shiva Rea, James Traverse, and Jnaneshvara Bharati, to name a few, now offer Yoga Nidra workshops and CDs. You can find these materials via an online search for Yoga Nidra and Nidra Yoga.
By Stephanie Levin-Gervasi
Meditation – Relax with Yoga Nidra
Doctors, gurus and neighborhood do-gooders are all in the habit of prescribing relaxation as a remedy for taut nerves, work pressures and emotional upheavals. But very few know, or will tell you, how to accomplish the deceptively simple task of relaxing.
Yoga Nidra seems to have the answer. Although it finds mention in old tantric texts, it was rediscovered 20-odd years ago by Swami Satyananda Saraswati, founder of the Bihar School of Yoga (BSY) in Munger, eastern India. He translates Yoga Nidra as psychic sleep and describes it as a systematic method of inducing complete physical, mental and emotional relaxation, while maintaining awareness at the deeper levels.
Indeed, the practice is so relaxing that it becomes almost impossible to remain awake. But you come out feeling more rested than you do after a good night’s sleep, and injected with large doses of gumption to tackle the day’s tasks. The Swami says that prolonged suspension between wakefulness and sleep—called the hypnogogic state—in Yoga Nidra may have untold benefits that go beyond the therapeutic.
You practice Yoga Nidra while lying prone and follow the spoken instructions of a teacher. It is, of course, convenient to use the Yoga Nidra tape, or record one yourself. In the first phase of the session, you progressively relax your muscles by quickly running attention through different parts of the body. This is followed by an awakening of sensations of pairs of polar opposites, such as heaviness and lightness. The last phase is a rapid visualization of some nature images and abstract symbols.
But what is the purpose of each phase of the practice ? From neurophysiology we know that each part of the body has a different control center in the brain—curiously, small ones such as the fingers or armpits claim a large brain area. The movement of awareness through different parts of the body not only relaxes them, but also clears nerve pathways to the brain.
The alternating of opposite sensations such as heat and cold, heaviness and lightness, helps to improve the body’s ability to regain balance and brings the related involuntary functions under conscious control. Visualization is a method of consciously using a symbol our image as a catalyst to provoke a reaction in the unconscious mind. But since no time is given for the conscious mind to react, you remain detached and the ego becomes temporarily inactive. This phase helps to resolve suppressed conflicts, desires, memories and sanskaras.
In each session, you also repeat a sankalpa, or resolve. It should be a short statement, phrased in positive language and in the present tense. For example, your resolve could be: “I am taking full care of my family.” The resolve gets embedded deep in the subconscious and is bound to bear fruit in time.


