Yoga nidra - WikiHQ

thumb|upright=1.35|[[Shavasana, the usual pose for the practice of yoga nidra]]

Yoga nidra () or yogic sleep in modern usage is a state of consciousness between waking and sleeping, typically induced by a guided meditation.

A state called yoga nidra is mentioned in the Upanishads mentions a state called "yoganidra", and associates it with Lord Vishnu:

The Devīmāhātmya, written around the 6th century CE, mentions a goddess whose name is Yoganidrā. The God Brahma asks Yoganidrā to wake up Vishnu to go and fight the Asuras or demigods named Madhu and Kaitabha.

Medieval practices

Yoganidra is first linked to meditation in Shaiva and Buddhist tantras. In the Shaiva text Ciñcinīmatasārasamuccaya (7.164), yoganidra is called "peace beyond words"; in the Mahāmāyātantra (2.19ab) it is named as a state in which perfected Buddhas may access secret knowledge. This prescriptive approach was described by authors such as the "relaxationist" Annie Payson Call in her 1891 book Power through Repose, and the Chicago psychiatrist Edmund Jacobson, the creator of progressive muscle relaxation and biofeedback, in his 1934 book You Must Relax!

Dennis Boyes

In 1973, French yoga advocate Dennis Boyes published his book Le Yoga du sommeil éveillé; méthode de relaxation, yoga nidra ("The Yoga of Waking Sleep: method of relaxation, yoga nidra"). This is the first known usage of "yoga nidra" in a modern sense.

The French journal Revue 3<sup>e</sup> Millénaire, reviewing Boyes's approach in 1984, wrote that Boyes proposes relaxation in order to "reach the state of emptiness". The person thus imperceptibly moves to a stage where relaxation becomes meditation and can remain there once the mind's obsession with external objects or thoughts is removed.

Satyananda

In modern times, Satyananda Saraswati claimed to have experienced yoga nidra when he was living with his guru Sivananda Saraswati in Rishikesh. In 1976, he constructed a system of relaxation through guided meditation, which he popularized in the mid-20th century. He explained yoga nidra as a state of mind between wakefulness and sleep that opened deep phases of the mind, suggesting a connection with the ancient tantric practice called nyasa, whereby Sanskrit mantras are mentally placed within specific body parts while meditating on each part (of the bodymind). The form of practice taught by Satyananda includes eight stages (internalisation, resolve (sankalpa), rotation of consciousness, breath awareness, manifestation of opposites, creative visualization, repeated resolve (sankalpa), and externalisation). Satyananda used this technique, along with the suggestion, on the child who was to become his successor, Niranjanananda Saraswati, from age four. He claimed to have been taught several languages by this method.

Satyananda's multi-stage yoga nidra technique is not found in ancient or medieval texts. However, the yoga scholars Jason Birch and Jacqueline Hargreaves note that there are analogues for several of his yoga nidra activities. This state of consciousness is different from meditation, in which concentration on a single focus is required. In yoga nidra the practitioner remains in a state of light withdrawal of the 5 senses (pratyahara) with four senses internalised, that is, withdrawn, and only hearing still connects to any instructions given.

Richard Miller

The Western pioneer of yoga as therapy, Richard Miller, has developed the use of yoga nidra for rehabilitating soldiers in pain, using the Integrative Restoration (iRest) methodology. Miller worked with Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the United States Department of Defense studying the efficacy of the approach. The iRest protocol was used with soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The Surgeon General of the United States Army endorsed Yoga Nidra as a complementary alternative medicine (CAM) for chronic pain in 2010.

Post-lineage yoga nidra

In 2021, the yoga teachers Uma Dinsmore-Tuli and Nirlipta Tuli jointly published a "declaration of independence for Yoga Nidrā Shakti". In it, they stated that yoga nidra had become commodified and promoted by commercial organisations for profit; that abuse had taken place within those organisations; and that the organisations had propagated origin stories for yoga nidra "that privilege their own founders" and exclude or neglect older roots of the practice. They state their shock at abuses by Satyananda, Swami Rama, Amrit Desai, and Richard Miller. They invite practitioners and teachers to learn about the history of yoga nidra outside organisational boundaries and to work without "trademarked versions" of the practice.

Reception

The Mindful Yoga teacher Anne Cushman states that "This body-sensing journey [that I teach in Mindful Yoga] ... is one variation of the ancient practice of Yoga nidra ... and of the body-scan technique commonly used in the Buddhist Vipassana tradition."

The cultural historian Alistair Shearer writes that the name yoga nidra is an umbrella term for different systems of "progressive relaxation or 'guided meditation'." He comments that Satyananda promoted his version of yoga nidra, claiming it was ancient, when its connections to ancient texts "seem vague at best". A therapeutic model was developed by Datta and Colleagues (2017) and the same appeared to be useful for insomnia patients. Datta and colleagues (2022) report a beneficial effect of yoga nidra on the sleep of forty-five male athletes, noting that sportsmen often have sleep problems. Their small randomised controlled trial found improvements in subjective sleep latency and sleep efficiency with four weeks of yoga nidra compared to progressive muscular relaxation (used as the control).

Primary research, sometimes informal, on a small scale, and without strictly controlled trials, has been conducted on various aspects of yoga nidra. These have made tentative findings of benefits to mind and body such as increased dopamine release in the brain, improved heart rate variability, reduced blood pressure, reduced anxiety, and improved self-esteem.

There is evidence of neural modulation of the default mode network and functional coupling in experienced yoga nidra meditators. There is some evidence for other beneficial outcomes.

Notes

References

External links

Systematic review articles on Yoga Nidra indexed by Google Scholar