Yoga Nidra - A State Of Conscious Lucid Relaxation Unlike Sleep Or Normal Resting States

Recently, I have started doing a practice of Yoga Nidra every morning, and I am getting a lot of benefits, intangible ones from it, especially related to the state of relaxation, something that I really do appreciate more as I get older.

Transcript

Hey everyone! I hope that you're doing amazing wherever you are in the world. My name is Bloomshika and I welcome you to my channel. I'm so grateful that you are listening, Subscribing, Commenting. I do appreciate the support. And of course if you're interested in supporting me further, You can donate to me by going to my Ko-fi link or to my Patreon link, Whatever you prefer. In this one, I wanted to speak to you guys about tension in the body. Recently, I started doing a stint of Yoga Nidra. And if you guys don't know what that is, It's basically. . . Nidra means sleep, But it's not necessarily yoga, Sleep. But it's a state of lucid relaxation, So conscious relaxation, Where you consciously relax every part of your body and your mind and spirit. But you are conscious throughout it. So normally, As human beings, When we lay down to relax, We're basically laying down to go to sleep. That's the only time you lay down to relax. Unless you do Shavasana regularly as a yogi, And so then you know about conscious relaxation a little bit more. But Yoga Nidra is even taking it a step further. In Shavasana, I think you're consciously relaxing your body and perhaps a little bit of your mind. Probably a lot of your mind. But you're not touching your spirit at all, Or any part of your astral body. It's only the physical body that you're focusing on. Whereas in Yoga Nidra, You're kind of trying to focus on all the different bodies that you have. And we have five different bodies. I'm not going to go into detail with that. But basically, You're not just focusing on your physical body, But also the other parts of you. The energetic body, The astral body, Etc. And you're trying to relax all of them. Now it's a very conscious state of relaxation. So a lot of times what happens in Yoga Nidra is, Especially if you hold a lot of tension in your body, Or if you're exhausted, Which a lot of people are. Most people don't sleep enough. Even if they sleep, It's not really a restful sleep. They're dreaming a lot, Or they're worrying a lot while they're sleeping. They're anxious while sleeping. They wake up quite often during the night. So it's not really a full night's sleep, Even if they sleep for 8-10 hours. A lot of people in general are carrying a lot of tension, A lot of stress, And a lot of tiredness in their body. You'll notice if you start doing Yoga Nidra, And there's many different people online, On YouTube, And on all the meditation apps that have Yoga Nidra sessions for you. So you can try it out. It's N-I-D-R-A, Yoga Nidra. You'll notice the first few times that you do it that you will fall asleep right away, Almost. Also because, As I said, We're used to the idea that as soon as we lie down to relax, It means we're falling asleep. Our body and our mind knows that. It's an automatic reaction to it, So you'll fall asleep. But also, As I said, Many people are so exhausted. They have no idea how exhausted they are. So we kind of take care of all that exhaustion by caffeinating ourselves. So we have coffee. We drink 6-7 cups of coffee a day, Or tea, Or Coca Cola, Or carbonated drinks with caffeine in them, Things like that. So we're caffeinating ourselves, And also other stimulants like alcohol, Or you might even be using pharmacological drugs to stimulate yourself. We really have no idea how tired you are unless you stop taking all those drugs and all those caffeinated drinks. Most people won't stop. So you are exhausted, And as soon as you lie down to relax to go into Yoga Nidra, You fall asleep. So the first few times you might do that, But eventually the idea is to stop that. Not fall asleep, But to relax yourself profoundly, Really, Really deeply. But also be conscious about it, And be in this lucid state of relaxation. So as I said, I've been doing this for about 3-4 weeks now, Every single day, And I've noticed not only am I more relaxed in general as I walk through the world, My shoulders have relaxed a lot as well, And I hold a lot of tension in my shoulders, And they usually are up here, Well, Higher than normal. And now they're kind of relaxing and going down a bit, And I can see that relaxation is transferring over to the entire body. I noticed that the way I'm speaking is a little bit softer and slower as well, Because I'm more relaxed. I noticed that my sleep is deeper in general. In general, A lot of relaxation, Things have kind of popped up in my life. But more so than that, The reason I wanted to do this video is to point out that I had no idea how tense I was before this. I usually assumed, Because I do so much yoga and because I meditate, That I was a relaxed human being. I assumed that, Falsely. And so as soon as I started doing yoga and vidva, That's when I really realized how much tension I'm actually really holding in my body. And not only that, I realized how odd some of the spots are where I hold my tension. I know that I hold my tension in my shoulders, So that was very apparent to me, That's okay. But I realized that I actually hold a lot of tension around my eyes, And as soon as I started doing yoga and vidva, I really noticed that how much tension the muscles around my eyes hold. Obviously my jaw as well, I knew that I hold a lot of tension there. I grind my teeth at night sometimes. So I have to wear a night guard. I also hold a lot of tension in my stomach, So I noticed that my bowel movements became faster and easier. I think that's too much information perhaps. But that's something that you start noticing with yoga and nidra, Is that your body actually holds a lot of tension as a human being, And we're kind of used to it. We kind of adapt around it. We hold our tension and we kind of get used to it. We don't even think about it anymore. It's just part of who we are. And as soon as you start doing yoga and nidra, You actually start relaxing all that tension and you realize, Wow, Not only do I hold a lot of tension in my body in all of these random places, But I had no idea that I was holding all this tension in my body in all of these random places. And that in itself I think is such an important lesson for a lot of us to learn, Because as soon as you start releasing a lot of that tension, Not only are you releasing toxins in your body, Because tension also equals toxins and lactic acid buildup, Etc. , But also you're releasing emotions in your body, Because obviously every tense area in your body is also holding a lot of emotion. A lot of my shoulder tension is about fear. Whenever I go into fear mode, I notice my shoulder is tensing up and I can really notice my jaw tensing up and this area here, Oh my god, I feel so tense. I can actually feel it tightening up. And then my stomach tightens up and then I start feeling like, Oh my god, I need to go pee or I need to go to the washroom. And my eyes tighten up as well. I start getting a migraine or a headache, Especially if I'm really stressed. And so all of these things, Normally I would just not notice them. They're just there and I just kind of ignore them. Or I eat a lot of sugar to avoid thinking about it. Or I'll go talk to a friend and ignore the fact that there's tension in my body. Or I'll just kind of pretend like it's okay and it's alright and everyone has tension in their body and it's fine. It's normal. And so literally, The yoga nidra again helps you recalibrate your body. And that's such a fascinating thing for me to notice within myself. One of the reasons I wanted to share with you guys in this video is because it's such a revelation to me. I'm literally sitting here every single day, Lying there, Doing yoga nidra. And then afterwards, Throughout the day, I'll notice myself walking through the world in a much more relaxed manner than before. And I just notice myself not reacting to things as I would before. So if a computer program crashes and I lose some document, Normally I'd cry and throw things and I hate my computer and I would say all these random things. But now I'm noticing, Yeah, I have that moment, Oh my god, What happened kind of thing, That momentary lapse. And then I'm able to relax myself and be like, Ah, Okay, Cool, This happened, We can deal with it. I know you can, It's okay, Everything's okay. And so that relaxation I think is such an important thing, Especially for me because as I said, I hold a lot of tension in my body. And I spent my entire life until now walking around with all this tension in my body. Sometimes I would have so much tension in my body that my back would go into spasms and I wouldn't even be able to get out of bed. That's how much tension there was. But I did not realize it because I was so used to holding that much tension in my body. I think I still am. Little by little, As I said, Yoganidhra is working its magic. But I think it would take me months or at least a year of Yoganidhra continuously to really be able to notice all of that tension being released in my body. Probably more than that really because there's so much of it held in different random parts of my body. And it's really funny because I'm noticing, As I said, Random things like behind my armpits I have this ball of tension. I have no idea where it comes from or why it comes. And so it's there. And all of a sudden I'm noticing it. I never noticed it before, Right? And so I really do recommend if you guys have the capacity or the capability, Any meditation app, Insight Timer or whatever it might be, Has Yoganidhra sessions on it. They will guide you through it. All you have to do is lie down in a comfortable spot. Usually people do it right before they go to sleep. I usually do it when I wake up in the morning because I don't want to fall asleep. I want to be conscious through it. And I notice that if I do it before I fall asleep, I fall asleep. I don't even actually do the Yoganidhra. Which perhaps is good for you if you're really tired then maybe it's a good idea for you to fall asleep. But I recommend that you do your Yoganidhra right after you wake up because you're fresh at that point and perhaps you might not fall asleep. And so please try it and really notice the tension melting away in your body. It literally melts away. And you notice yourself much, Much more relaxed. And as I said, I've been doing it only for three weeks and I know it's such a profound change in my body. And so I can imagine if I kept on doing this for a long time that it would be miraculous really. And so if you do Yoganidhra already, Please tell me about it. How is your experience of it? And if you've never tried it, Please do try it. There are no side effects of it. You can just try it. It's basically like falling asleep or relaxing. Nothing bad can happen with that really, I don't think. And so try it and if you liked it, Let me know as well. Again, I'm not a doctor so if this is something that you're worried about, Talk to your doctor before doing it. Again, It's just a yoga practice so it shouldn't really have any side effects. If you have any questions, Comment below and I shall do a follow-up video. If you want to support me further, You can do that by going to my Patreon or Ko-fi link. And I shall see you guys next time around. Bye for now!

Reviews

Great explanation of what Yoga Nidra is about and how it can be of benefit.