Written by: Daniel Van der Pluym, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
A lot of people have heard about yoga and the many health benefits it offers, but few have heard of Yoga Nidra. If you haven’t either, don’t worry! This article will explain what Yoga Nidra is and how you can benefit from it, in addition to its possible uses in different areas of your life, including mental performance. Specifically, this article will break down the science behind Yoga Nidra practice and help you understand how it can support you to develop greater mental clarity and creative solutions to overcome mental blockages.
What is Yoga Nidra?
Yoga Nidra is a deeply restful and relaxing technique of meditation which encourages deep mental, physical and emotional relaxation. Practiced during shavasana, or lying on your back, Yoga Nidra uses a process of guided mental rotation of the body. Mental rotation involves guided instructions using the mind to scan each section of the body. This practice is becoming more and more popular among professionals who have demanding schedules, particularly those in creative fields or high-stress jobs. Yoga Nidra has many benefits, in addition to relaxation and creative problem-solving.
What are the benefits of Yoga Nidra?
There are many benefits to Yoga Nidra and understanding some of them will help you understand why it is such a helpful practice. Deep relaxation has been shown to help with mental performance, creativity and even flow of new ideas. In addition, people who use Yoga Nidra report feeling revitalized after their sessions. Yoga Nidra helps alleviate stress and support more ease in the body and mind.
The Hypnagogic State
Yoga Nidra practices often induce the hypnagogic state – the state between sleep and wakefulness. Characterised by unusual physical, visual and auditory experiences as the mind moves into lucidity, hypnagogia has been known to cultivate intuition, bring flashes of inspiration, and offer creative insight to some who experience it. Brilliant and creative geniuses such as Einstein, Aristotle and Salvador Dali intentionally found ways to use this state to channel creativity in their work. To support this, a number of peer reviewed studies have found that induced hypnagogia enhances creativity.
The mental rotation
A focal part of Yoga Nidra practice is the mental rotation, body scan. Mental rotation helps benefit the mind and body by encouraging the release of any residual tension that may be held within the muscles and joints, which in turn allows the mind to enter a more restful state of ease. The mental rotation also allows the mind to shift its focus away from the usual mental patterns, towards a sequence which induces a changed brainwave pattern.
Brainwave functioning
Yoga Nidra helps change brainwave functioning from the stressful beta state to the more relaxed alpha state. The alpha brainwave state has also been found to support creativity, and optimal mental performance.
Processing Stress, Anxiety and Trauma
Yoga Nidra is evidence-based and has also been found to be effective in helping process and treat stress, anxiety and trauma. By helping induce deep relaxation, Yoga Nidra can help create a safe container for participants to process stress and trauma that is stored in the body and mind. Often, it can be helpful to accompany Yoga Nidra with other forms of therapy to support this.
How can Yoga Nidra help mental performance and creativity?
Creativity comes from letting go of unnecessary thoughts and letting one’s intuition take over. When you practice Yoga Nidra regularly, it becomes easier to enter a meditative state at will and attain deeper insights into yourself and others. This heightened level of awareness translates into better decision-making skills in all aspects of life. The ability to gain deep, restoration from Yoga Nidra, allows the body and mind to recover from stress. This places the mind in a state to be able to perform more optimally. With optimal functioning, creative thinking and problem solving become less effortful.
Why should I add this to my regular routine?
If you’re like me, you spend far too much time in a beta state (anxious, overthinking, not enough peace). If you want to be mentally sharp and at peace – and I know plenty of creatives who do – then it’s essential that you create a daily practice to bring yourself into an alpha state.
How you can access Yoga Nidra practices?
You can access these deep relaxation practices through Yoga Nidra CDs or online streaming. There are a number of free online resources which you can use to try out these techniques before you decide to buy a course or CD. It’s really best to listen to them from someone who knows what they’re doing! Yoga Nidra teachers often require certification to guide the practice, as it is a specialised practice.
Access Yoga Nidra through a teacher
Yoga Nidra can be facilitated by a meditation teacher, or certified Yoga Nidra Practitioner. This is ideal for people who already have an established meditation practice and are looking to deepen their experience with Yoga Nidra. If you don’t have access to a teacher in person, there are online options available as well (see above). Many people find that having someone facilitate Yoga Nidra in person makes it easier to relax into deeper states of consciousness, as they feel more supported and guided through each stage of relaxation. Dan from Deeper Potential Coaching is a certified Yoga Nidra Teacher. You can access his guided Yoga Nidra practice here.
Conclusion Yoga Nidra is an effective way to relax the body and mind, which has a number of benefits for mental performance. Yoga Nidra can help with stress relief, anxiety and trauma processing, as well as creativity and mental clarity. The process of Yoga Nidra involves a mental rotation body scan which specifically helps relax the body and mind. By helping induce the hypnagogic state and alpha brain wave functioning, Yoga Nidra supports creative ideas and problem-solving. To get the most out of Yoga Nidra, it’s best to learn from a certified teacher or practitioner.
Daniel Van der Pluym, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Daniel Van der Pluym is the founder of Deeper Potential Coaching and part founder of ADHD Ambition. He is a psychotherapist, certified Life Coach and mindfulness teacher. Through his work, he focuses on helping people overcome their life challenges to create a new story of meaning and fulfilment. His work as a psychotherapist coach and part developer of ADHD Ambition is geared towards helping people overcome uncertainty and rumination, so they can reach live with more clarity and fulfillment.
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