Brief Summary
This Yoga Nidra practice is designed to reset the nervous system, offering a full-body massage for the brain and promoting deep rest and relaxation. It guides you through a series of steps to achieve complete comfort, release tension, and arrive fully in the present moment. The practice includes setting an intention (Sankalpa), a rotation of consciousness throughout the body, breath counting, and visualization techniques to induce weightlessness and a sense of oneness.
- Reset nervous system
- Full body relaxation
- Visualization and intention setting
Introduction to Yoga Nidra
The Yoga Nidra practice aims to reset the nervous system, offering a full-body massage for the brain and acupuncture treatment for the peripheral nervous system. This meditation is designed to help you drop into the deepest states of rest and relaxation. You should find a comfortable position, using pillows and blankets as needed, to fully relax.
Preparation and Relaxation
To begin, find a cozy and warm space, ensuring you have everything needed for complete comfort, such as a pillow, blankets, and an eye covering. Take a few deep breaths, inhaling through the nostrils and exhaling through the mouth with a gentle sigh, to release tension and allow the body to sink into the support beneath you. This helps the nervous system unwind and allows you to arrive fully in the present moment of deep rest.
Releasing Tension and Effort
Focus on relaxing the body, starting with the jaw, tongue, and muscles around the eyes and forehead. Imagine the two hemispheres of the brain relaxing, releasing any tension or clenching. Allow this relaxation to migrate down through the shoulders, arms, hands, belly, pelvis, and legs, all the way to the toes. Envision yourself cocooned in a warm, gentle moment of deep rest, sheltered from the outside world, free to be present in this sanctuary within yourself.
Setting Your Intention (Sankalpa)
Allow the mind to dissolve momentarily, shifting from thinking and planning to listening and sensing. Invoke your Sankalpa, your intention for the practice. If you don't have a specific intention, you might state, "I rest deeply to honor and restore each layer of myself." Mentally whisper this three times, allowing the intention to linger for the duration of the practice.
Rotation of Consciousness
Bring your attention to different parts of your body in a specific sequence. Start with the tip of the tongue, then move to the roof of the mouth, teeth, gums, inside of the cheeks, and the space between the lips. Continue to the nose, eyebrows, temples, eyes, forehead, scalp, and both hemispheres of the brain. Proceed down to the brain stem, tongue, jaw, throat, heart center, chest, shoulder, arm, elbow, forearm, wrist, hand, fingers, and back to the palm. Then move to the shoulder blade, rib cage, waist, hip, thigh, knee, leg, ankle, heel, sole, top of the foot, and toes. Sense the whole foot, the entire leg, and the whole right side of the body simultaneously, along with the left hemisphere of the brain. Repeat the process on the left side of the body, connecting it with the right hemisphere of the brain, and finally sense the whole body effortlessly and deeply resting.
Breath Awareness and Counting
Focus on sensing the breath and the body breathing itself. Notice any warmth as you exhale and coolness as you inhale in the nostrils. Feel the sensation of breath and the ocean of air around you, like waves rolling in and out. Begin to count down from 18 with each breath, mentally whispering the number as you inhale and exhale, continuing at your own pace until you release the counting and welcome the natural flow of breath.
Visualization: Weightlessness and Heaviness
Imagine your body becoming weightless as you inhale, floating up off the earth, spacious and light. As you exhale, imagine your body becoming heavy, sinking deeper with each breath. Alternate between these sensations of lightness and heaviness, breathing in lightness and breathing out heaviness.
Visualization: Images
Bring your attention to the center of the forehead and welcome a rotation of images. Visualize your bare feet standing on the earth, the smell of flowers in the air, sunlight shining through the trees, and birds singing. Continue with images of a horizon full of mountains, the setting sun, ocean waves in the moonlight, the dancing flames of a fire, a silent owl gliding through the night sky, and the Milky Way expanding across the sky.
Sense of Oneness and Reintegration
Cultivate a sense of oneness with all that there is, basking in the vast interconnectivity of existence. Welcome your Sankalpa to be present, feeling or stating it. Imagine yourself floating in the constellations, with the outline of your body like twinkling stars. Begin to sense the physical edges and volume of your body resting in your Nidra nest, feeling the body breathing itself.
Returning to Awareness
Take a deep breath in through the nose and release. Allow your breath to soften and simmer in the benefits of the practice for a few moments. Begin to slowly bring little movements to the fingers and toes, nodding the head and making larger movements as you need.
