Yoga Nidra For Deep Rest

This yoga nidra is a guided practice designed to help you find deep rest and relaxation. You will be gently led through body awareness, breath, and visualisation, allowing your mind and body to settle into stillness. The practice encourages a state between waking and sleeping where profound restoration and calm can be experienced.

It is suitable for both beginners and experienced meditators seeking rest, release, and renewal.

Transcript

Hi everyone and welcome to this yoga nidra for deep rest.

So this 20 minutes or so is a chance for you to really enter deep rest and to give yourself the rest that you need.

Sometimes if we've been so busy in our days or we've got a lot going on in our lives then rest can be quite hard to find.

But rest is so nourishing,

It can really help us to have a new perspective on anything that's going on for us in our life,

It can really rejuvenate us,

It can really help us to feel a lot better,

A lot happier and a lot more well within ourselves.

So to achieve deep rest it's really important that you make your environment as conducive to rest as possible.

So make sure that your room is dark,

Make sure that you're lying down in a really comfortable way,

Maybe find some blankets,

Making sure that your head is really comfortable but that it's not propped up too much by a big cushion or anything.

You might just lie with your head on a very very small pillow or just on the ground or your yoga mat or just on your bed.

Once you've made yourself as comfortable as you can be,

Just now letting your eyes come to close if you haven't already and let us enter a state of deep rest.

So just start by noticing your breath and your breathing,

Just gently allowing your breath to naturally calm down,

To slow down,

Knowing that this is your time for rest and there's nowhere else that you need to be right now and there's nothing else that you need to be doing.

And also just noticing your body and inviting relaxation to come into your body.

And we'll start by just bringing to mind a time when you felt really rested and really content within yourself.

Can you bring to mind a time from your past,

Maybe the recent past or maybe a very long time ago,

Where you felt really comfortable,

Really safe,

Really able to rest?

Just bringing to mind that memory right now and that time.

How did it feel to be able to fully let go and to fully rest?

Bringing awareness to what other elements of that memory are present for you.

How did things look?

Were there any smells that were available to you at the time?

And most importantly,

How did it feel?

How did it feel to be able to fully rest and to fully let go in a state of contentment?

And then just slowly allowing that memory to fade.

We're going to move our awareness slowly through our body now as we move through the rotation of consciousness throughout our body.

Begin by bringing awareness to your right hand.

Just noticing and feeling your right hand.

Maybe it feels heavy or light or cold or hot.

Or maybe there's a tingling feeling in your right hand.

And then bringing awareness to your right hand thumb,

To your index finger,

Your middle finger,

Your ring finger,

Your little finger.

And to the palm of your right hand.

To your wrist,

Your forearm,

Your right elbow,

Your right upper arm,

Your right shoulder,

The right side of your chest.

And then bringing your awareness to the middle of your chest,

The area of your heart.

Just taking a moment just to touch in with this part of your body,

Your heart space.

This is the feeling part of your body,

Where many of our feelings reside.

And then bringing your awareness a little lower down into your belly.

Really bringing awareness to this part of your body.

We'll continue with the right side.

So feeling the right side of your waist,

Your right hip,

Your right thigh,

Behind your thigh,

Your right knee,

Behind your knee,

Your shin,

Your calf,

Your right heel,

Your right foot,

Your big toe,

Second toe,

Third,

Fourth,

And your baby toe.

On the whole right side of your body.

The whole right side.

And bringing your awareness now to your left hand.

How does it feel your left hand?

Maybe feeling it in contact with the ground.

Then bringing awareness to your left hand thumb,

To your index finger,

Middle finger,

Ring finger,

And your little finger.

In the palm of your left hand,

Your wrist,

Your left forearm,

Your left elbow,

Upper arm,

Shoulder,

Left side of your chest,

The left side of your waist,

Your left hip,

Your thigh,

Back of your thigh,

Knee,

Back of your knee,

Your left shin,

Calf,

Heel,

Big toe,

Second,

Third,

Fourth,

Baby toe,

And the whole left side of your body.

The whole left side.

Then bringing your awareness to your lower back,

The middle of your back,

And the top of your back,

The back of your head,

The crown of your head,

Your forehead,

Your left eye,

Your right eye,

Your left cheek.

Your right cheek,

Your nose,

Your mouth,

Your tongue,

Your throat.

And ending with your awareness in your heart space,

The area of your heart.

And then feeling all of your body.

I want you now to imagine that your body is really,

Really heavy.

So bringing up a sensation of real heaviness in the whole of your body.

Your body feels so heavy that it could even begin to press down into the earth beneath you.

And with each exhale,

Feeling your body getting heavier,

And heavier,

And heavier.

And now bringing up a sensation of lightness in your body.

How might it feel to feel really light in your body?

Your body feels so light that it could even begin to raise off the ground.

With each in-breath,

Feel your body getting lighter,

And lighter,

And lighter.

And coming back to the heaviness,

Feeling a real sense of heaviness in the whole of your body.

Your body feels so heavy that it could even begin to press down into the ground.

And then coming back to the lightness one more time.

How might it feel to feel light in your body?

So light that your body could even begin to raise off the ground.

And now feeling both together.

How might it feel to feel both heavy and light at the same time?

Feeling both together.

We're now going to move into a visualization.

For this I want you to imagine yourself standing on a patch of grass.

You look down to the ground and you notice that your bare feet are touching the earth.

This always gives you a sense of groundedness.

A sense of peace and a sense of freedom.

You begin walking around and you notice a woodland.

You decide to enter this woodland.

This woodland is full of big oak trees and some beech trees as well.

And these are your favorite type of trees.

And you instantly notice upon entering the woodland that you feel a sense of coming home.

You've been here many times before and this is your woodland,

A place that you call home.

You begin walking through the woodland.

You notice the smells.

The smells of nature that make you feel calm and rested.

The weather is however you want the weather to be.

Your favorite type of weather.

You continue walking through this woodland.

Being here gives you time to allow your mind to unwind.

It allows you to reflect on all the things that you need to reflect on.

It gives you a little space,

A little bit of space from your mind and your worries.

It allows you to have a better perspective on things.

You continue walking through the woodland and it slowly begins to go uphill.

You enjoy your bare feet touching the earth and it gives you a sense of being connected to nature,

To all the trees and all the animals that live in this forest too.

You continue walking upwards.

And in the distance,

Up on the hill,

You notice a bench.

You carry on walking through the woodland and you find the bench and you sit down.

You cross your legs sitting on the bench and you decide to close your eyes.

And you enter one of the deepest meditations that you've ever entered.

A time when your mind completely stops and your body gets a chance to completely rest.

All the muscles in your body start to let go one by one.

From your feet,

Your legs,

Your belly,

Your chest,

Your arms,

Your hands,

Your head.

All the muscles start to let go.

Your body begins to replenish itself.

Your mind and your brain begins to replenish itself.

This is one of the deepest rests you've ever had.

You feel so safe here in your home,

In your forest,

Your woods.

And after some time meditating here,

You decide to gently open your eyes.

You come out from the deep rest feeling like you're a new person.

You're still in the forest.

You begin to slowly walk down the hill.

But you're walking on the other side,

So this is new terrain for you.

You walk all the way down.

From here,

You leave the woodland,

Knowing that you can come back here whenever you need to,

If you need a rest.

You walk back to the patch of grass where you began,

Your bare feet still touching the earth.

We enter from that place back to this place here,

You lying here with your body.

We're slowly coming towards the end of our time here in this yoga nidra.

So in your own time,

You can very gently start to make some little movements.

You can wriggle fingers,

You can wriggle toes,

Maybe licking your lips,

Rocking your head side to side.

And just whenever you're ready,

There's no rush at all.

You can slowly bring yourself out of this nidra and come back to your day.

Namaste.