What Is Yoga Nidra?
Rest, Guided

Yoga nidra is the one practice where lying completely still and drifting off is perfectly welcome. You get on the floor, you make yourself comfortable, and a voice guides your attention around your body for twenty or thirty minutes. That is genuinely all of it.

It suits people who have found seated meditation hard going, and people who are simply tired. Our yoga nidra sessions are guided live from start to finish.

What Actually Happens in a Session

You lie on your back, usually with a cushion under the knees and something over you, because bodies cool down quickly once they stop moving. The teacher settles you, then walks your attention slowly through the body - right hand, right forearm, right elbow, and on around. There is often some simple breath awareness, and sometimes a short image or phrase to rest on. Then you are brought back gently. You never have to move, hold anything, or work out what you are supposed to be feeling.

How It Compares With Meditation

The two overlap, and plenty of teachers use the words loosely. A few practical differences are worth knowing.

• You lie down rather than sit, so no effort goes into staying upright.
• It is guided throughout - you follow a voice rather than holding your own focus.
• Drifting off is fine. In seated meditation you would gently come back; here it makes no difference.
• Sessions tend to run longer, often twenty to forty minutes.
• There is nothing to get right, which is a relief for anyone who has felt they were bad at meditating.

What It Tends to Feel Like

Most people describe a heavy, pleasantly sunk feeling somewhere in the first ten minutes, and a slight sense of losing track of time. Some fall asleep every single session for the first few weeks and worry they are missing the point - they are getting exactly what their body asked for. Others stay awake and simply feel unusually still afterwards. A few find the first couple of sessions fidgety, which tends to settle once the format becomes familiar. Results vary.

When to Practise It

Evening is the obvious slot, and it sits well as the last thing before bed. It also works surprisingly well in the middle of a heavy day - twenty minutes on the living room floor instead of a third coffee. Once or twice a week is plenty to get a feel for it. All you really need is a floor, something soft under your head, and a blanket. If sleep is the main thing you are after, meditation for sleep is a close cousin.