Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Why Yoga Nidra?


Yoga nidra is one of the deepest possible states of relaxation while still maintaining full consciousness.  In Mandukya Upanishad Yoga nidra is referred to as ‘Prajna’, which means conscious awareness of the deep sleep state. It is a state of consciousness between waking and sleeping, like the "going-to-sleep" stage. Here the body is completely relaxed, and the practitioner becomes systematically and increasingly aware of the inner world by following a set of verbal instructions. 


 

Meditation vs Yoga nidra

Yoga nidra is for systematically relaxing the body and mind while maintaining awareness. It's done on the floor on your back for the best effects. Meditation is for training the mind using a particular point. It is done sitting up, with erect spine to facilitate movement of prana.

In meditation, concentration on a single focus is required. It is essentially a practice of attaining awareness of your own thoughts. In order to achieve so, you need to sit, close your eyes and turn inward. You need to watch your thoughts.

In yoga nidra the practitioner remains in a state of light withdrawal of the 5 senses (pratyahara) with four of his or her senses internalised, or withdrawn, and only the hearing still connects to the instructions. Yoga nidra is a state of consciousness, in between sleep and wakefulness. It is complete relaxation of the body, while the mind stays awake.

Yoga nidra promotes deep rest and relaxation that isn't found in your average meditation practice. The stages of body scan and breath awareness alone can be practiced to calm the nervous system, leading to less stress and better health.

How does yoga nidra work?

During the sleep cycle, from alpha, you go into a deep alpha and high theta brain-wave state, the dream state, REM sleep. In theta, your thoughts slow down to 4 to 8 thoughts per second. Here, emotional integration and release happen, structures in the brain change, leading to super learning. Kids and artists experience a lot more theta activity in their brains. At this stage you begin to enter the gap of nothingness.

After theta, you are guided to delta, where your thoughts are only 1 to 3.9 thoughts per second. This is the most restorative state, when your organs regenerate and the stress hormone cortisol is removed from your system.

In the current time, very few people are going into the deep states of sleep like theta and delta on a regular basis. So the bodies are not powering down and getting the chance to restore themselves. Depressed people go to beta (beta waves are those associated with day to day wakefulness) and alpha states, but rarely go to theta and delta.

From delta, the guided yoga nidra experience takes you down into an even deeper brain-wave state—one that can’t be reached through conventional sleep. At this stage, your brain is thoughtless, like a complete loss of consciousness, but you are awake. Not everyone who practices yoga nidra touches this state, but the more you practice, the more you’ll receive glimpses of it.

As you are guided back to a waking state, you bring a bit of peace back to your waking, daily brain state. So, in your routine life, you begin to rest more in the space between emotions and thoughts, and this resting space gives you a sense of freedom. And you find you are not agitated so much by the incidences happening around you.


During yoga nidra, we bring our attention the third eye, behind which lies the pineal gland. This gets stimulated when you bring your attention there, releasing the hormone, melatonin. And it is widely known that melatonin is a powerful agent for reducing stress, inducing more restful sleep, and boosting the immune system, which helps prevent illness, promote healing, and slow premature aging.

Time to experience Yoga nidra now, are you ready?

In the following yoga nidra, you need to state an intent, which can be any desire you are having at this moment. Think of it in a small sentence, which you will have to repeat thrice when asked for. 
Be ready with it before starting to listen. Enjoy the session!
Click on the youtube link, or on the image below.





When you finish the session, if you are doing it just before sleep, you don't have to sit up as instructed. Otherwise, sit up and continue to be in a meditative state for at least ten minutes, or more if you are inclined. 

References:

No comments:

Post a Comment