How to Rest Using Guided Meditation
Get to know the powerful practice of yoga nidra, a technique that can fill in where sleep fails us.
At 1am on the morning that I sat down to edit this piece, an insane thunderstorm rolled into my neighborhood. It sent blinding flashes paired with crashing booms through the house, shaking the walls and rattling my nervous system. In the morning, my Fitbit didn’t even have detailed sleep data, because my heartbeat and sleep patterns had been so irregular.
To lose a night of sleep before sitting down to finish an article about rest was the most perfect irony! It was nature’s reminder that even our best laid plans for rest can be easily thwarted.
Here’s the truth: we can’t always count on getting enough sleep, and even when we feel that we get “enough” rest, it often doesn’t feel like enough.
Why enough sleep is sometimes not enough
A few weeks ago, after another bad night of sleep, I woke up feeling drained, and then angry that I felt drained. I know that the writing has to come out of my body, and I couldn’t figure out why my body was betraying me.My theory? Sleep is just one piece of the equation when it comes to complete rest. Even if we are getting eight hours, we have no guarantee that those eight hours will be restful sleep, because they are likely to be interrupted by unavoidable environmental factors. Also, we are often spending a good portion of our nights either consciously (laying awake) or unconsciously ruminating on the very work from which we are supposed to be recovering. Case in point: work dreams.What I’m hoping is that after putting this piece out there, I’ll have let myself off the hook a bit. And after reading this, I hope you will have as well. Because I think there’s a reason we don’t feel well-rested that has nothing to do with our sleep habits, and I know there’s a solution.In order to be properly rested, we need to take time to actively recover. And to do it, all you need is somewhere to lie down and about 20–30 minutes.
The solution? Yogic sleep, a.k.a. yoga nidra.
In this article, I hope to communicate three points:
Rest is not doing nothing. It is an integral step that enables you to do your life’s work.
Sleep is critical. But at certain points in our life, especially transitional times, getting ‘enough’ sleep will never feel like enough.
Yoga nidra is an excellent technique for promoting complete, active recovery (mental, physical, and emotional).
Let’s imagine for a moment that instead of trying to write a book right now, I was training for a marathon. I would likely run 5 days a week, with two rest days. Those two rest days would not just be thrown in haphazardly or out of laziness. They’d be strategically placed to allow my muscles, nerves, bones, and connective tissue time to rebuild before my next workout. If I didn’t take a rest day, I’d probably injure and absolutely stall my progress.
Skipping nidra sessions is a bit like training for a marathon while squeezing in extra sets of squats and lunges on rest days.
The athlete scenario is straightforward. But as creators, entrepreneurs, parents, etc. — the definition of what qualifies as rest can become a bit fuzzier. Is watching TV a form of rest? What about reading a book? Meditation? Taking a bath?
The reason those activities qualify to the degree yoga nidra does, is that there is no guarantee or systematic way for us to prevent ourselves from thinking about the work while we are doing them. And thinking about work is work.
Yoga nidra is the only activity I’ve found that really does give my mind a dose of true rest. This is not a knock to silent meditation, but it’s quite different. Silent meditation is akin to mental exercise. It’s important work, but it is work. This is similar to the difference between taking a long drive in an old clunky car without cruise control versus a self-driving car. With a session of yoga nidra, I can sit back and enjoy the view of my interiority without white-knuckling it. At the end, I may not have improved my driving skills per se, but that wasn’t the point. Because I’ll have arrived safely, and feel rejuvenated, instead of exhausted.
How does yoga nidra work scientifically?
Yoga nidra is not sleep. This is important, and often misunderstood. While it is OK if you do fall asleep, it should be avoided if possible, as this result slightly undermines the power of the practice.
It is, however, sleep-adjacent. As summarized by Dr. Julie Lusk in this piece:
“Yoga nidra produces low beta, increases and balances alpha and theta, and produces delta. The physical body changes as the mind changes. Yoga nidra literally changes the ‘fluctuations of the mind’ by slowing down brain wave frequencies.”
The brain produces delta brain waves while we are asleep. But of course, while we are asleep, we are unconscious so that relaxation is generalized. Yoga nidra is a technique that can be used to achieve those delta brain waves, but while you are conscious. This is why it’s such a powerful technique for rejuvenation, because we are actively sending that rejuvenation into the areas that need it most — like delicate strokes versus splashing a can of paint on the wall.
You can look at some interesting photos of the brain that show this here.
What a yoga nidra session entails
You start, obviously, by laying down.
Now that we got that out of the way, let me explain a bit about what happens during a yoga nidra session, so you can feel at ease going into it, especially if you’re a newbie to the process.
The format may be different based on the recording you’re listening to, or the teacher you’re with, but it will likely include most or all of these elements (or layers):
Entry: You’re introduced to the practice, and reminded that your core self will continue to absorb the practice, even if you slip in and out of conscious listening.Body scan (physical layer): I always let students know beforehand that nidra includes a body scan component, which involves turning attention to various points (ankle, knee, hip, so on). The reason for disclosure here is that body scans can be potentially triggering for those with past trauma.
Breath awareness (energy layer): There is guided instruction that calls attention to the breath.
Sankalpa (mind-body layer): You’re invited to create an intention, which is something like a statement of truth. This might be something like, “Compassion is my true nature.” Or, “I am completely healed and completely whole.” It may be helpful to know in advance what you’re looking to achieve with the session, but you can also organically let this arise in the moment and keep it simple.
Visualization (higher intelligence layer): This usually includes some sort of nature scene, as well as sensory perception and development (feeling temperatures, seeing colors, noticing textures, etc.)
Return to the Sankalpa (this has been called the bliss layer) where it can merge with that experience you have conjured up, and unify with the sensations you’re noticing in your body. It may be subtle, or may be very powerful.
Exit through those layers again and back into the body.
When to practice yoga nidra
There’s no particular time of the day that’s best for nidra, just the time that you’re able to do it. I have had awesome morning sessions, and I’ve had great evening sessions as well. I imagine it could work as a great alternative to mid-afternoon coffee, too. You might fall asleep, but the idea is to stay awake, for the aforementioned reasons. You can use an eye mask or eye pillow to create more weight there. You might also use what’s called a touchstone, a small object like a piece of jewelry or a rock, to keep in your hand during the practice for grounding.
My favorite way to practice yoga nidra
My preferred format for yoga nidra pre-COVID was to attend a class in person where the instructor guided the practice. However, right now you can find a similar experience with a recording online.
Here is a recording you can download where I lead through a 22-minute yoga nidra practice with a nature visualization.
Alternatively, you could read some scripts online, and memorize and guide yourself through the process, but I don’t recommend this for beginners. You can also record your own and play it back, I suppose. If you are deaf, or hearing-impaired, learning a script would also be a method you can use to practice the technique. Alternatively, you might find an ASL instructor who can explain the process to you (or read this book yourself) and have the instructor or a trusted friend/partner apply light touch to various points during the body scan portion.
You don’t have to deprive yourself of rest to do your work. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
No matter what your work is, you have got to rest. It’s mandatory. Our life’s work is inherently depleting. We owe it to ourselves and to the communities we serve, to avoid needless suffering. And when we skip recovery, we expose ourselves to needless suffering. We simply don’t need to live that way.
So, how do you rest? You give yourself space away from the work, in order to fully honor the work. This is why some tech CEOs go off-the-grid. It’s why some artists retreat to cabins. And for the rest of us, there is yoga nidra.