Yoga Nidra

Description

If you’re looking for deep relaxation, this form of yoga can help.

How Yoga Nidra differs from meditation:

Yoga nidra involves slowing down and chilling out. So does meditation. While some people tend to lump them together, they really are two different practices.

Yoga nidra is like meditation, but yet it’s not. There are overlaps, but there also are key differences. With Yoga Nidra, you are lying down and the goal is to move into a deep state of conscious awareness sleep, which is a deeper state of relaxation with awareness. This state involves moving from consciousness while awake to dreaming and then to not-dreaming while remaining awake — going past the unconscious to the conscious. This practice is guided like some meditation practices, but it’s very structured.

With meditation, you’re sitting and in a waking state of consciousness while focusing the mind and allowing thoughts to come and go. Meditation makes it possible for us to get to the theta brain waves state — the state we go through to get to the delta state, which is the place of the deepest sleep cycle. The delta state is a deep healing state. That’s where we’re trying to get through Yoga Nidra. In this state, the body and mind rest and the consciousness is awake.

Benefits of Yoga Nidra:

Yoga Nidra works with the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system regulates processes of the body that take place without a conscious effort (heartbeat, breathing, digestion and blood flow). This system also includes the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

Meditation helps us calm the sympathetic nervous system; mainly, our fight-or-flight response. We do a meditation practice to basically calm the sympathetic, or fight-or-flight and activate the parasympathetic more. There’s such a benefit when those are balanced overall for immunity, digestion and stress management. But in this deeper relaxation, the pineal gland is activated and that releases the hormone melatonin.

Melatonin is a powerful antioxidant. It can also help manage immune function, blood pressure, cortisol levels and induce restful sleep.

A recent study showed that while Meditation and Yoga Nidra were both effective in reducing anxiety and stress, Yoga Nidra seemed to be more effective in reducing anxiety. The study also suggested that Yoga Nidra can be a useful tool in reducing both cognitive and physiological symptoms of anxiety.

Come experience this healing practice being gently guided by me. It will be a joy to share this practice with you! 

Check my Yoga Resume here.

Classes are suitable for total beginners and intermediates. We can setup an appointment just to talk and get to know each other before any previous commitments. Looking forward to hearing from you!