Yoga Nidra Certification
Is your favorite part of your yoga class savasana? Have you wondered what a longer, deeper period of relaxation would feel like? What might it do for your stress levels and your health in general? Yoga Nidra is a deep form of guided meditation that systematically takes you through four brainwave levels on a journey toward yogic sleep. Studies show that one Nidra session translates to the equivalent of 2-3 hours of restful sleep. This practice is deeply restorative and healing for the mind, heart, body, and spirit.
We are more than just our physical bodies. Yoga teaches us that what we do with our physical bodies affects our emotional and spiritual bodies.
Yoga is a Sanskrit word meaning “union” and Nidra means “dream”. Therefore, in Yoga Nidra, the mind of the individual, the body, and the intellect are in a complete state of relaxation and may even seem to be sleeping, but in reality, their consciousness is active and functioning at a higher level deep. In a person’s yoga dream he is taught how to get out of the waking state, go beyond the dream state and even go into deep sleep, but nevertheless stay awake.
What is Yoga Nidra?
• Yogic technique where we learn to relax consciously
• The mind and awareness disassociated from the senses
• 5th step or Limb of “The 8 Limbs of Yoga” – Pratyahara – withdrawal of senses from their external objects fosters transcendence beyond the physical body and its senses. Through this practice, an individual is able to withdraw and then detach from their physical senses by directing their attention inward.
• Sometimes referred to as Yogic Sleep
• A state between sleep and wakefulness
• In touch with all 3 levels of consciousness:
o Consciousness
o Unconsciousness
o Sub-consciousness
• A way of moving carefully through the Koshas – sheaths to help us bring our attention inward,
to plant a seed for a desired change with a resolve or Sankalpa, intention
• State of wholeness, integration; original or true self