Yoga Nidra For Anxiety & Nervous System Regulation

This FREE guided Yoga Nidra practice is for down-regulating your nervous system and resting in calm meditation, basking in the enjoyment of your inner peace. Listen regularly to permanently reduce chronic anxiety. If you're feeling the benefits of this practice, rate and comment, I'd love to hear how you've found the practice today.

Transcript

Welcome to this practice for down-regulating your nervous system and resting in calm meditation,

Basking in the enjoyment of your inner peace.

Before we start,

I invite you to subscribe so you get access to more of my free yoga nidra practices as soon as they get uploaded.

This sequence today can bring you more in tune with your centre of calm and your nervous system's parasympathetic state so that you have better access to this state throughout your day.

So make yourself comfortable and take a few moments to move into a position that feels restful and cosy.

You could use blankets,

Supports for your joints,

Or an eye pillow to get as cosy as you can possibly be.

Allow your attention to drop down from the thinking mind into your body.

If there are any sensations in your body drawing your attention,

Notice them now,

And notice the form that they're taking,

Allowing them to be there.

Feel your body awash with sensations and feelings.

Approach these feelings with curiosity and lightness,

Observing them as part of your human form.

Imagine yourself standing in a beautiful open field of freedom and calmness.

Build a picture of what that looks like in your mind's eye.

Allow the picture to unfold without you needing to refine it in any way.

As you stand in this beautiful open free field,

Sense into a backpack on your shoulders.

This backpack contains your expectations about how your day has unfolded and how it will unfold.

It contains your anticipation about the outcomes of this practice.

Look at how your anticipations present themselves within this backpack.

Are they represented by books,

Jars,

Or even an abstract colour being held within your bag?

Trust the symbolisation that your intuition is guiding you towards.

Now visualise yourself taking this backpack off your back and gently settling it down on the soft grass.

As you do so,

Can you feel into a sense of relief washing over you,

As if the burden of expectation and anticipation has been lifted as your backpack has lifted off your back?

You may feel drawn to opening the backpack and removing the contents,

Releasing them into the wind and letting them be gently carried away with a supportive breeze.

Or you may feel drawn to walking from the backpack,

Leaving the burden of expectations behind you.

Whatever your intuition is guiding you to do is the right thing.

Feel free from the weight of preconceptions and judgements,

Feel the openness and curiosity that comes with letting go of these expectations.

Embrace this moment and invite yourself to approach the practice today with openness and acceptance,

Ready to explore it with fresh eyes and an open heart.

We're going to set a sankalpa,

Or an intention.

This is your heart's desire.

If you're not currently working with a sankalpa,

Invite your heart's desire to reveal itself to you now.

If nothing appears,

That is okay,

It may also be a feeling rather than a statement,

But if it feels right for you,

You can use this sankalpa.

I trust in the power of rest to nourish my body and mind.

Take another minute to mentally or physically feel your sankalpa forming.

Now rest your attention on your heart centre,

Sensing into any sensations that you feel in your heart centre with curiosity and attentiveness.

Imagine now that you can breathe in through your heart centre,

Without changing the shape or the rhythm of your breath,

Breathe in and out naturally through your heart centre.

We're now going to move into a rotation of consciousness.

As I call out each body part,

Visualise placing a soothing light on each part.

As the light saturates the part,

Feel into the sensations within each part,

Allowing them to be exactly how they are,

Without changing anything.

Simply invite your body to remain still and restful as the light saturates each part that I call out.

Top of the head,

Forehead,

The sensations in your right eyebrow,

Your left eyebrow,

Your third eye centre,

Your right eyelid,

Left eyelid,

Right eye and all the muscles behind the eye filling them with a radiant soothing light,

Your left eye,

Your right ear,

Feel the space in between your ears lighting up with soothing light,

Your left ear,

Right cheek,

Left cheek,

Your nose,

Your right nostril and the breath moving in and out of your right nostril,

Your left nostril and the breath moving in and out of your left nostril.

Feel the inside of your mouth as it saturates with a soothing light,

Middle of the throat,

Base of the throat,

Both collarbones,

Left side of the chest,

Left shoulder,

Left armpit,

Left upper arm,

Elbow,

Lower arm,

Wrist,

Palm of your left hand feeling the radiant light filling the palm of your left hand,

Left hand thumb,

Second finger,

Third finger,

Fourth finger,

Fifth finger.

Move your attention to your navel centre,

Your left waist,

Left of your hip bone,

Your calf muscle,

Your ankle,

Heel,

Sole of the foot,

Top of your left foot,

Left big toe,

Second toe,

Third toe,

Fourth toe and fifth toe.

Bring your attention all the way back up to your heart centre and feel the radiant light filling your heart centre,

Right side of your chest,

Right shoulder,

Right armpit,

Right upper arm,

Elbow,

Lower arm,

Wrist,

Palm of your right hand,

Right hand thumb,

Second finger,

Third finger,

Fourth finger,

Fifth finger.

Move the point of supportive light to your navel centre feeling it saturating the area,

The right waist,

Your calf muscle,

Your right ankle,

Heel,

Sole of the foot,

Top of the foot,

Your right big toe,

Second toe,

Third toe,

Fourth toe,

Fifth toe.

Now feel into your body as a whole,

Saturated with sensation with this calming light.

Now sense in to the back of the body and all the sensations in the back of the body.

At the same time as feeling the sensations in the back body,

Imagine that you could put your attention also on the back of the brain,

Just imagining.

Feel the calm light on the back body and the back of your brain.

Now sensing into the front of the body and imagine that you could sense into both the front of your body and the front of your brain.

Feeling the radiant,

Calming light in both the front body and the front of your brain.

Drift your attention now to your breath as it is naturally.

Feel in to where it feels best for you to feel the breath,

Might be the breath on your nostrils,

Moving through your nostrils or the movement of your chest or your abdomen.

Just watch the breath now,

Observing with ease and curiosity.

On your next exhale,

If it would feel good to you,

Exhale for just a moment or two.

Exhale for just a moment longer than your inhale.

If you find counting useful,

You could do a count of 3 or 4,

Inhale,

And your exhale would be a count of 4 or 5.

Just elongating the breath ever so slightly and gently in a way that feels supportive for yourself.

Repeat this,

Inhaling and exhaling for just a moment longer.

Now,

Without counting,

Just observe your longer exhale and find the sense of the shape or the rhythm of your breath on its own as you breathe in and out.

You don't need to do anything except observe and feel the sense of the shape of your breath.

Observe and feel the sense of the shape or the rhythm of your breath.

As you breathe in with your natural breath,

Sense into the feeling of clarity washing over your mind and beyond,

However that is sensed for you.

And with each exhale,

Visualise releasing any tension or stress,

Allowing it to dissipate into the air around you.

Breathing with your natural breath.

Breathing clarity.

Breathe out tension.

Breathe out tension.

Breathing clarity,

Bringing with it a sense of focus and awareness.

And breathing out any tension,

Bringing with it a sense of lightness and freedom.

Repeat again,

Breathing in clarity,

Breathing out tension.

As I name objects and symbols,

Bring to mind a picture or a sense of each symbol that I name.

There is no need to refine the image,

Simply let the first thing that comes to your mind be there and simply move on to the next.

If you haven't already,

You can release your focus on your breath.

So now,

Bringing to your mind a flowing river.

A flowing river.

Golden tree roots.

A small waterfall.

The infinity symbol.

A pebble on the beach.

The sun reflecting onto a lake.

A glistening gemstone.

A calm animal.

An inviting bridge over a stream.

A circle.

Now,

Rest your attention on your third eye centre in the centre of your forehead and sense deeply into this reflective space and allow yourself to just be restful here.

Allow any thoughts that come up to float down and out of your mind's eye,

Like blossom falling from the trees.

Continue to feel into this tranquil space as you rest deeply in your mind's eye centre.

As you rest in your mind's eye,

See if you can visualise the earth that surrounds you.

Visualise the web of ecosystems,

Even the microscopic ecosystems that stretch out from underneath you,

All the way out into the natural world.

Visualise the web of ecosystems stretching out,

All the way out to the sea.

Feel into the presence of energy and wisdom that make up the fabric of this world,

Binding us together in a shared journey of growth and evolution.

As you rest here in your mind's eye centre,

Bask in the beauty of this connection and the ecosystem that you are a part of.

Let this connection and beauty nourish your soul and fill you with a sense of peace and belonging.

You are a part of this intricate and incredible ecosystem.

Rest here in your third eye centre for just a moment more,

Feeling into the calmness and restfulness of this space.

Now gently bring your attention back to your sankalpa and whisper it in your mind's eye three times.

I trust in the power of rest to nourish my body and my mind.

See if you can feel your sankalpa deeply as you rest here.

Feel a sense of your sankalpa being accepted by your heart centre.

And rooting deeply into your being.

Your sankalpa is accepted.

Now begin to gently focus in on your surroundings.

You may focus on sounds around you or my voice,

Just gently becoming aware of your surroundings.

Begin to move in whatever way feels wakeful to you,

Slowly and lightly.

If you're using an eye pillow with your eyes still closed,

You may want to lift it off your eyes,

Just to let the light touch your closed eyed lids,

Allowing your eyes to get used to the brightness.

Your yoga nidra practice is now complete,

So whenever you're ready,

In your own time,

Open your eyes and allow yourself to be awake and present.

Thank you for joining me on this journey.

If this practice has felt good for you,

Feel free to save it and revisit this practice regularly,

As regular yoga nidra practice is where you'll find the most benefits.

And you can find more guided yoga nidra practices just like this and meditations on the wellness words.

Reviews

Soothing meditation; gentle and relaxing. If it helps: A few of the body scan instructions were a bit too close together for me, which tended to trigger my anxiety and self criticism habits.

Thank you for creating and sharing. It was relaxing, helpful and true to the title.