Yoga Nidra

At the simplest level there are 3 keys to good health: 1) good diet, 2) exercise, and 3) sleep.

During sleep our body goes in to a heightened anabolic state, accentuating the growth and rejuvenation of the immune, nervous, skeletal and muscular systems.

However, sleep is far more than a state of energy conservation and physical restoration. It is a state of altered consciousness during which we integrate the experiences and learnings of our day and form and store memories.

From a yogic perspective we experience 3 states:

• Waking state
• Dreaming state
• Deep sleep state

These 3 states are associated with the 3 ‘bodies’

• Waking state: the gross body (our physical body)
• Dreaming state:  the subtle body (contains our life energy (prana), the mind and the senses )
• Deep sleep state: the causal body (the true ‘self’, close to the Christian concept of the ‘soul’)

In the waking state you experience the world through the senses and apply your intellect to your experiences.  In the dreaming state your mind replays impressions gathered during the waking state, but the intellect doesn’t get involved.  In the deep sleep you are only identified with the deepest level of being (the causal body).  There’s an absence of thoughts, emotions and objects, and without these you come closest to experiencing the nature of your true self – pure consciousness.

The benefits of Yoga Nidra

The purpose of Yoga Nidra is to practice drawing yourself away from the experience of the gross body during the waking state.  To practice suspending the intellect, so as to allow greater access to the experience of deeper levels of your true self.

When the thinking mind is suspended, you can enter a state of receptive relaxation that allows the innate intelligence of the ‘self’ to arise giving you access to the wisdom seated in the higher levels of your consciousness.

In deep relaxation you may find random images and thoughts arise, but generally you can watch these like movies happening on a screen without applying the same level of attachment or emotion that you would to thoughts in a fully awake state.  This can enable a process of release or acceptance, and sometimes new insight.

Yoga Nidra allows us to enter the ‘theta’ brainwave state, which is often associated with a feeling of floating and the experience of the mind expanding beyond the limits of the physical body.  The theta state rests directly on the threshold of the subconscious where we become receptive to information beyond our normal consciousness.  It is a deeply restful and powerfully restorative state.

The process of Yoga Nidra

Physical Relaxation

Every action is the result of thought. Thoughts take form in action. Just as the mind might send a message to the muscles ordering them to contract, the mind can also send messages to bring the relaxation to the muscles.

Yoga Nidra uses a systematic sensing, rotating through parts of the body, giving particular attention the sensory enriched areas, sending breath and attention to relax the muscles and nerves.

The ancient yogis had mapped out precise areas of the body that science has since proven to have particular nerve connections to and from the cerebral cortex of the brain.  As we move through the physical body we are simultaneously stimulating certain parts of the brain, resulting in deep relaxation in brain activity.  “Yoga Nidra relaxes the mind by relaxing the body, and relaxes the body by relaxing the mind.” (Richard Miller, PhD)

Mental Relaxation

Combining breath awareness, or using breath counting helps to reach deeper levels of mental relaxation.  Breath is closely linked to the subtle body, and can help you begin to naturally experience the subtle energy that animates and gives life to the physical body.

Spiritual Relaxation

“As long as a person identifies with the body and the mind, there will be worries, sorrows, anxieties, fear and anger. These emotions, in turn bring tension. Yogis know that unless a person can withdraw from the body/mind complex, there is no way of obtaining complete relaxation.

The yogi identifies himself with the pure consciousness within. He knows that the source of all power, knowledge, peace and strength is in the ‘self’, not in the body or the mind. We tune to this by asserting the real nature,  ‘I am that pure consciousness or self’. This identification with the true self completes the process of relaxation.“  (www.sivananda.org/teachings/fivepoints.html#relaxation)