Yoga Nidra gets the back-up of the world's favorite scientist: and it's coming to your yoga mat!

Dear Yoga Friends,

Don’t you love it when science catches up and confirms what we intuitively know, Yoga Nidra is a game changer!

Dr. Andrew Huberman is my favourite scientist, maybe not the world’s, but pretty close as he is host of the Huberman Lab Podcast, frequently ranked the #1 Health Podcast in the world. In 2022 he coined the phrase, NSDR or non-sleep deep rest and when you hear him talk about it you will also hear him mention Yoga Nidra in the same sentence. He is a huge proponent of both.

Non-sleep deep rest, or NSDR, is an umbrella term for a variety of practices that guide your brain and body into a state of deep relaxation without falling asleep completely.

Practicing NSDR for 10-30 minutes offers many advantages to your mind and body. Scientifically proven benefits of NSDR include:

Enhanced memory retention

Boosted neuroplasticity, aiding learning

Stress relief

Improved cognitive function, focus, and mental clarity

Enhanced sleep quality

Potential assistance in pain management

In week 4 of all courses we explore Yoga Nidra for half the class after having moved and stretched the body through a full range of motion yoga flow. You can also practice it any time at home.

Yoga Nidra is the powerful technique from the Tantra Yoga tradition. In yoga language it allows you to relax and heal your entire being, expand your imagination, enter the realm of subconscious and superconscious being, and assist in reaching a state, called by some, of enlightenment, Samadhi or Nirvana. 

No wonder the ancient yogic practice was kept secret by the Indian Yogis, potentially for centuries, until the 1960’s when it was introduced to western students by Parmahansa Satyanada Sarawasti.

The ability to remain fully awake and aware is not only accessible to advanced practitioners, but it can occur spontaneously the first time. Referred to by some as a state of trance, lucid dreaming or an altered state of consciousness, Yoga Nidra is an extremely safe practice, yet may evoke some deep seated emotions. It is quite possibly the easiest of yogic practices to follow with the minimum of effort. There is no way to do the practice ‘wrong’; you simply listen without trying too hard.  

It’s perfect for beginners, even the very restless ones. It’s an ideal practice for someone who is fairly new to yoga as it adds a whole new dimension to savasana (corpse pose for relaxation); experienced yogis tend to love it!

Yoga Nidra, sleep of the Yogi, ideally takes place in savasana, lying comfortably on a yoga mat on the floor or on a couch or a bed. Getting very comfortable in savasana is one of the key benefits of the practice. For absolute beginners to yoga this may be the most profound experience, the ability to relax at will, the ability to surrender the physical body and allow it to be fully supported and held by the earth beneath. Often beginners find, despite never reaching a state of ‘switching off’ from the busy thoughts of the mind, they cultivate the ability to be still, to be comfortable with whatever arises in thoughts, feelings and sensations. Yoga Nidra is often, for this reason, hailed as an aid to falling asleep. Falling asleep during the practice, particularly in the beginning, is very common. Even if you do fall asleep you will receive peripheral benefits as your subconscious mind remains aware of everything that you take in. In the ultimate Yoga Nidra experience, however, the mind is fully awake and aware and yet fully asleep (even while snoring audibly!)

In the stillness of savasana my voice guides your consciousness on a tour of the whole body in a structured fashion, the rotation of awareness. During the rotation of awareness you visualise the body part mentioned without moving it, you are literally shifting awareness. This stage of the practice is conducive to detachment from the external world, pratyahara. Concentrating on a single body part focuses the attention rigorously on one point. Prolonged concentration, dhyana, saturates the mind until it permeates to the source of existence, then the intellectual and conscious energy dissolve into the seat of the soul. It is then that samadhi, when you lose the sense of your separate existence, is attained. Awareness of nothing else remains except the core of one’s being, the soul.

After rotation of the consciousness focusing the attention on the act of breathing completes physical relaxation. My voice guides you through breath awareness techniques. Often at this stage of the practice practitioners report they drift in and out of conscious hearing, some are well and truly asleep. 

The final state of Yoga Nidra relates to mental relaxation. You will try to visualise a series of objects as described by me This aspect of the practice helps to develop self-awareness, faculties of imagination, and instinctual reactions to concepts within the deepest part of the psyche. The experience can be quieting and calming, yet fascinating and exhilarating.

Towards the end of the practice you will be guided back to awareness of the breath, awareness of the floor beneath you and will gradually guide your attention back to the present moment. 

For all practitioners there is a sense that Yoga Nidra is place on an ongoing journey towards the liberation of the self, a journey of observing the experience of releasing, of expansion, of resting in stillness, quietness and peace. In other words, as you drop through all the layers of your outer self, seeing everything on the way down, you become aware of all those layers themselves. This awareness can be brought back on returning to normal waking consciousness. You are gifted a sense of space within yourself, a sense of time and a consciousness needed to help choose what to say, how to respond, what direction to go in, in each moment. Witnessing and sensing physical release as the body sheds layer after layer of tension and holding is one of the most blissful yet practical aspects of the practice.

You can follow Sylvia’s guided Yoga Nidra by purchasing the audio download here. For those who use Yoga Nidra as an aid to sleeping you can access my audio recording, which just switches off when it's over. €10 for 45 minutes of bliss, you can listen to this audio recording multiple times on any device, it is yours forever!  

Sylvia teaches weekly yoga classes and events and workshops in Dublin, you can sign up for her newsletter on her home page. Pre-recorded classes are available to you any time, you purchase once and own forever. If you’re new to Sylvia or back to yoga after a break we suggest Hatha Yoga to start. Bundles include the Zen Collection, a variety of classes for every mood, and the Daily Collection, five half-hour daily practices.