What is Yoga Nidra?

Those of you who follow my social media may have noticed my love of yoga Nidra - but what is it I hear you ask? and how is it different from the Hatha Yoga we practice in class?

Yoga Nidra has been a more recent addition to my practice and I only started practicing it during the first lockdown in 2020 as it provided a very deep state of emotional and physical relaxation. It also helped me massively with sleep which is something I can occasionally struggle with and like many was struggling a lot with during the periods of lockdown. It is only more recently though than I have really began to notice the additional benefits past relaxation (which lets face it is a pretty great benefit); but before we get onto that let me explain what it is

Yoga Nidra translates as 'yogic sleep' (I know, it sounds yummy right?) and whilst is likely to have existed in some form for thousands of years, and is first believed to have been referred to in the Upanishads, the Yoga Nidra practice we might recognise today is a more recent practice.

It's hard to sum Yoga Nidra up as one thing and whilst it translates as Yogic sleep (and it's helped me to fall asleep MANY MANY times), the idea is actually to enter a state of deep rest and full awareness. A Yoga Nidra practice can be anywhere from 15-60 minutes long and will use several techniques such as body scans, breath awareness and visualisation to help your body and mind enter a luminal state where you can access deeper levels of consciousness. Yoga Nidra has been described as 'a practice to support us to know our deepest nature', 'conscious sleep' and 'a refined form of meditation that leads you deeper into the stillness and silence of your own being'. It can provide a very deep form of relaxation as it actively calms the nervous system, taking us out of flight, fight or freeze mode, and activating our parasympatetic nervous system which is sometimes referred to as rest and digest. When combined with a Sankalpa, it can also be a really powerful tool for self-development through setting intentions - more to come on this in my next blog post!

I could harp on all day about what Yoga Nidra is, and what it isn't, but I recommend you just try it and work out what it is for you! Yoga Nidra's can be quite varied and can be used to support with any of the things below

• Better sleep

• Deep relaxation

• Intention setting and manifesting

• Building energy

• Activating your creativity

• Tapping into your intuition

If this sounds like your cup of tea contact me to find out more about how you can practice it with me. Whilst I don't include them in my rise and shine classes due to the amount of time they take, I often incorporate them as parts of workshops including my upcoming Spring Equinox: Yoga Workshop on 19 March. I also offer Yoga Nidra 1:2:1s and I send a free Yoga Nidra recording to all members of my Determined Yogi subscription