In a constantly changing world and being on the edge, leads to physically and mentally exhaustion. Various situations in professional and personal life leads to a restless mind and imbalance doshas (ayurveda energies). It is evident that such status for long period of time may reflect as a health issue like hypertension, stress, anxiety, digestive issues and so on.
It is important to give your mind a break from constant internal dialogue, jumping from one thought to the next, reduce stress and providing internal strength.
Yoga Nidra is a simple yet most powerful technique, to provide mental calmness and inner peace. It eases the restless mind, reduce stress and one feel empowered.
Benefits of Yoga Nidra
Reduce stress
Improve quality of sleep
Lowers blood pressure
Enhances concentration
Emotional and physical healing
Clears negative thoughts and imbalance
Steps of yoga nidra
- Lie down straight on your back, eyes closed. Begin taking deep, slow breaths to relax.
- Next, calm your mind and forget all the thoughts running in your mind.
- Meditate on your breathing to make the brain empty of thoughts, this makes it easier to calm the brain.
- Shift your attention to the right part of the body.
- Focus on the right foot. Keep it relaxed, and slowly move upward to your right knee, thigh, and waist.
- Now move your focus towards left leg downward first and then upward same as described
- Keep your eyes closed and taking deep, slow breaths.
- Gradually, move your attention to the rest of your body parts: waist, stomach, naval, chest, and right shoulders.
- Move your attention to right hand downward
- Slowly move your attention upward, focus on your fingers, palms, wrist, forearm, biceps and shoulder.
- Now turn your focus on to your left side of the body. Repeat all the above steps and stay like that for a few minutes.
- Now move upward and focus on the neck, face, forehead and inside brain.
- Feel that your body becomes lighter and your mind stops wandering around. Feel the brightness in your mind.
- Continue taking deep and slow breath and experience your body sensation
- Relax your mind and body for 10 to 15 minutes.
- Then, turn toward your right side and slowly sit up, eye closed.
- Rub your palm together to warm it and cover your eyes for few second. Now remove palms from your eyes and open.
Few Tips
- There are few essential tips for doing yoga nidra in a better way to get most out of it:
- Do not hurry or put yourself under stress to complete all the steps or complete it in a limited time. Be comfortable, take your time to ensure better relaxation of your mind.
- Your environment should be calm during the practice of Yoga Nidra. Prefer morning time when there is less noise or distraction
- Don’t worry too much about the random thoughts that pop into your mind when you first start practicing.
- Avoid doing yoga nidra just after having a meal. You may fall asleep very quickly and not be able to experience benefits of this practice.
- After you finish the asan, turn onto your right side before getting up to allow air to flow through the left nostril and cool down the body.
Yoga Nidra is a perfect asana having multiple benefits. This will change the way one lives the life. After doing Yoga Nidra, a feeling of free mind, great peace and lighter body cannot be described in words. Doing yoga Nidra is a great experience.
