Yoga nidra is simultaneously described as a holistic practice, a meditation process or a state of consciousness, depending on the context.
It is an ancient practice which takes care of all layers of the self including:
the biological, physiological body
our energy levels and our vitality
our psychology, our mental and emotional processes, our personality
our spiritual health, spiritual connection and spiritual wellbeing.
Yoga nidra was originally used as a path for Self Realisation or for Union with the Divine.
In fact, the term ‘Yoga’ can be translated as Union with the Divine.
Another rarer translation for the word Yoga is ‘Awakening to All That Is’, ‘Awakening to the Interconnectedness of All Things’. *And then the word ‘Nidra’ is usually translated as ‘deep sleep’.
So, it’s like a play on words:
Awakening through the practice of deep sleep.
And in the practice of Yoga Nidra, you lie on your back with eyes closed, although this position can be modified if you have some kind of injury or health condition which prevents this.
But traditionally, Yoga Nidra is practised lying supine and you simply close your eyes and listen to the voice of a guide who takes you down through the layers of the self into a state of deep relaxation where your brainwaves slow down and replicate the state of deep sleep.
However, during the practice of yoga nidra, you are actually still awake. Or at least, that is the intention.
The body is put to sleep. The mental activity is put to sleep, the thoughts and emotions and the personality are put to sleep. But we remain awake.
Because it replicates the state of deep sleep, sometimes in the beginning, people tend to fall asleep whilst practising yoga nidra. This is usually sleep that they really need if they’re in a sleep-deprived state. But with continued practice and perseverance, we learn to stay awake.
So, why would we want to stay awake as we take ourselves down into a state that resembles deep sleep?
Well, that is where we usually encounter, what is described in ancient traditions, as our True Nature.
According to these traditions, our True Nature is a state of deep happiness and unshakable peace. And we usually encounter this state of bliss every night during deep sleep. (Not REM sleep or light restless sleep, but deep sleep).
The only problem is, when we wake up afterwards, we re-encounter all our worries, all our anxieties and all our physical ailments.
Everything that we forgot while we were in the state of deep sleep, we remember in the so-called waking state and we forget the deep happiness and peace that we enjoyed in deep sleep.
So, yoga nidra is a way of staying awake while we encounter the happiness that we usually enjoy in the state of deep sleep.
When our ego personality is put to sleep, we are able to awaken within the Divine.
It is like these two parts of the self cannot co-exist.
We often can’t remember what it’s like to be happy when we are in our egoic state.
And similarly, we can’t remember our misery when we’re in that deep sleep bliss state.
So, the practice of yoga nidra is a way of cultivating the happiness and peace of deep sleep whilst still awake and bringing all that healing and rejuvenation that we get in deep sleep with us into our waking life at a conscious level.
And it has enormous benefits on the physiological level, and the psychological level, in terms of rewiring the brain's habitual negative programming and in terms of soothing the nervous system.
So, it helps to regulate our body’s processes in all ways, whether that be hormonally or in relation to our brain chemistry or our nervous system or psychologically and spiritually.
You can find guided Yoga Nidra meditations on my YouTube channel, Spirit Restorative:
https://www.youtube.com/@SpiritRestorative
If you haven't practised yoga nidra before, you may like to try out the guided meditation in this video.