Your guide to deep rest and healing
From the moment I first encountered Yoga Nidra and was invited to lie down:
Because there’s nothing to do, and nowhere to go
by my teacher Uma, I was hooked. Yoga Nidra became a daily practice for me through perimenopause, and it’s still daily now, a decade later. Some days, it’s two or three, when I can squeeze in a shorter, pocket-sized session like these, use them to find sleep at night or to work with specific therapeutic issues.
It’s particularly useful in menopause, because we are being asked to slow down, rest, and turn our attention inwards. Yoga Nidra delivers exactly this, plus all the benefits of a meditation practice, in a way that’s genuinely accessible: no special skills or experience required, just a quiet-enough place to rest. I created a collection of Pleasure Yoga Nidras here which you might enjoy.
There’s plenty of research showing how helpful meditation is for anxiety, depression, and pain management. Awareness of our thoughts and body sensations is the gateway to mental and physical wellbeing, so you’d think we’d all be sitting in meditation for 40 minutes twice a day. In real life, very few of us manage a regular meditation practice, despite understanding the benefits it brings. If you’d like to meditate but just can’t seem to make it stick, you’ll love Yoga Nidra. It helps us shift gear from 90mph stress-head to a slower, more aware relaxation that rebalances your nervous system and consequently, your hormones too.
In my own menopause, Nidra has been the door to deep rest and genuine healing.
Vicki
What Is Yoga Nidra?
Yoga means ‘union’ or ‘integration,’ and nidra means ‘sleep.’ But Yoga Nidra is much more than the sum of those parts. It can take you from Beta consciousness, our ordinary, everyday way of being, to Theta, the frequency of practised meditators.
I’ve listened to many, many nidras, but keep coming back to Kate’s because she gets it! Her voice holds deep understanding, as well as kindness and care. Even listening to the recordings, it feels like she’s right there beside you, holding you, witnessing you. I feel at ease and safe in her nidras. Thank you Kate!
What Are the Benefits?
A classic Yoga Nidra is a time-efficient way to get out of our heads, relax the body, and reset the nervous system. Given that pretty much everyone has learned to override their need for rest and repair, a regular Nidra practice supports the health of all the major body systems by reducing the chronic stress we live with day to day. You can find a substantial list of studies and research into the benefits here.
All styles of Yoga Nidra share these benefits, but the practice goes way beyond the health gains of reduced cortisol. The open, relaxed state of dreamy, half-awake sleepiness, the same state we pass through as we fall asleep or wake up, known as the hypnagogic state, is where images, ideas, and breakthroughs readily arise. This makes the practice wonderful for nourishing creativity, working with particular psychological issues like this Nidra for Emotional Integration, supporting good sleep, and deepening a spiritual practice.
Yoga Nidra trainer Indu Arora describes it as:
‘the dissolution of all distinctions and divisions a state combined with nidra, or sleep. Where ordinary sleep is the negation of cognition, she suggests, Yoga Nidra is the cognition of all possible negations’
You can read more of her thinking about it here.
It’s way more than just a body scan; when I’m stuck on a particular issue, I make myself a Nidra to invite new possibilities, and use it on repeat over a month or so. This ‘effortless effort’ the surrender involved in lying down, resting, and getting out of my own way always delivers ease, compassion, and understanding to whatever I’m working through. Second Spring was written to a daily soundtrack of Uma Dinsmore-Tuli’s Nidra for Creativity, for example.
I love creating bespoke Nidras for my clients and for groups. They give me the ingredients; the state of mind they desire, the imagery that resonates for them, the particular phrases and words they want to hear, and I cook up something that delivers a profound sense of healing. Once a year, I co-create a bespoke Nidra from my teacher, Jennifer Piercy. Listening every day, pretty much, over the year, the change was extraordinary. I’d asked for a Nidra to bring me ease and flow, in place of the striving and hard effort that had become habitual, and that repeated use has changed a core part of my personality for the better. In the many practices that engage the spiritual life, an expansive, non-dual experience is practically the norm, and without effort.
There’s a strong lineage using Yoga Nidra for big and small-T trauma. Naturally, with active and complex trauma I would advise seeking professional support, but the permissive, gentle focus allows for the possibility of steps towards more wholeness and ease. I created this Rites of Passage series with this in mind.
A sacred journey into the imaginal realm that truly transforms by literally doing nothing – how amazing and Zen is that?
A regular nidrista
Let’s Look at the Different Parts, to Understand How It Works
You’ll find huge variation in how people deliver Yoga Nidra from chatty to full of long silences, from rigid instruction to trauma-informed, and invitational language with plenty of options. This reflects the many different lineages and personal preferences of the teachers. Most guides are strongly influenced by whatever Nidras they’ve used themselves, creating a virtuous circle of rest and influence. A Nidra might be spoken, sung, or woven through with music, chimes, birdsong, or ambient sound. Generally, though, you can expect: preparation and settling, intention-setting (known in Sanskrit as sankalpa), a body scan, opposites, a story section which might include a journey, deepening, or affirmations, and finally, a gentle emergence back into everyday consciousness.
Prep and Settling
First, we make sure we have everything we need to be comfortable, and minimise distractions like phone alerts and people wandering in with questions. This can take a while. Settling helps us let go of our busy, everyday consciousness and become present in the body. Often, through the senses, we notice the world around us and how it touches us as we get more comfortable and more aware of our body and breath. Nidras can be intentionally hypnotic, using counting, steps, and a soporific tone to bring people into a deeper state of relaxation. By the end of this section, we’d hope to be relatively relaxed though you’ll find Yoga Nidra guides almost never use that word.
I’m hugely grateful to have found Kate. Her voice is so soothing. She says her voice is here ‘to hold you’ and that feels absolutely accurate! If you wish to calm your nervous system, do these Nidras as often as you can.
Intention
As a Yoga Nidra guide inducing profoundly deep states in my listeners, having clear intentions matters to me, and I often state them at the beginning and end of a session. You may also be invited to set your own intention, phrased in the positive and as though you’ve already achieved it; less “I am not angry,” more “I am content.” An intention might be something you work with for years, or something that simply suits you in the moment. I’ll also remind resting folk that not knowing, or having no intention at all, can be just as powerful an opening.
Rotation, or Body Scan
Here, we bring more awareness to the body in various ways. You might be asked to place a light at each named point, notice sensation, or place peace, pleasure, love, or forgiveness around the body. There’s usually more attention paid to areas with more nerve endings, the face, hands, and feet, which activates the visual and tactile centres of the brain and draws focus away from the frontal cortex. Naming each toe and moving from left side to right side has a hypnotic effect that can shift brain states fairly quickly, into relaxed Alpha, Theta, and even Delta waves.
For some, this rotation can be triggering rather than soothing, so I prefer to work in a trauma-informed way, repeatedly inviting people to opt out, move, wriggle, open their eyes, or return to a ‘safe enough’ anchor whenever they need to.
Kate’s Yoga Nidra sessions remind me that I can trust being here in the world.
Rose Ravetz
Opposites
This section activates other parts of the brain by inviting the resting person to feel opposite sensations or images, often related to the body scan: full and empty, heavy and light, crown and toes, earth and pebble. It has the effect of disorienting the cognitive mind so thoroughly that it simply gives up and switches off. Moving attention from left to right also calms the nervous system, in much the same way REM sleep does. This technique is also used in trauma treatment, where it’s thought to help the mind integrate difficult experiences.
Story
At the point of deepest consciousness sits the story. There might be a journey, almost always imagery, engaging all the senses and, as with every section, permission must be given for people to opt out. One person’s catnip is another’s trauma, and we simply can’t know beforehand what everyone is carrying. Care, always, comes first. Affirmations can work well here too, planting possibility and positivity into the consciousness.
Emerging
The final part of the practice is the journey back from the far-away, dreamy Nidra state towards the everyday and this takes time and gentleness. Typically, we retrace the steps we took coming in: if your attention was first drawn to breath, then sounds, then sensations to settle the body, you’ll likely emerge the same way, via sensations, then sounds, then breath.
Kate’s Yoga Nidra practices manage to feel easy and relaxing while still creating a profound level of shift. I’m a Yoga Nidra teacher, and when I need a deep rest practice, Kate is my favorite teacher to turn to. In fact, she was recommended to me during training by my own instructor.
You can tell I’m a fan, but amazingly Yoga Nidra isn’t for everyone. Some people find the structure too activating. If you’re new to the practice and curious to try it, I recommend trying this free taster, and if that resonates, this pocket collection for busy people, which has short practices will fit into even the busiest schedule, or you can come to the monthly sessions.
