Yoga Nidra For Falling Asleep

This short yoga Nidra practice is intended to lull you into a deep sleep. The practice starts with a gentle progressive muscle relaxation and moves into a body scan. There is no ending bell and no cues to wake you up as the practice is intended to lead you into slumber and leave you peacefully there. Perfect for listening to from the comfort of your own bed.

Transcript

Welcome to the practice of yoga nidra.

The intention of this specific nidra practice is to help you fall asleep peacefully by calming your nervous system as you drift into your own sacred sleepscape.

This practice is best done lying down and if possible from the comfort of your own bed with lights off and external noises quieted.

Allow yourself to get warm and cozy.

Release your body into the position of shavasana with the full length of your spine resting below you.

Arms and legs spread wide away from body center.

Take time to adjust the bed around you for maximum comfort and ease.

To relax the body deeply we'll start with a progressive muscle relaxation.

Take a deep breath in through your nose and hold your breath for a few seconds.

And now breathe out nice and slow.

Take another deep breath in through your nose.

Notice how your body feels when you breathe.

Move your awareness to your feet and legs.

With your next breath in begin to squeeze all the muscles in your feet and your legs.

Curl your toes as tight as you can.

Squeeze all the muscles in your legs and hold it.

Hold.

Now relax muscles as you exhale.

Feel feet and legs soften.

Notice the difference between the tension and the relaxation.

Moving up to your stomach and chest.

Take a deep breath in and squeeze all the muscles in your stomach and chest.

Front side and back side.

Hold everything in tight.

Then exhale and release all tension.

Feel the tension flow out of your stomach and chest.

Moving into the arms,

Shoulders and neck with your next breath in begin to tighten all the muscles in your arms,

Shoulders and neck.

Squeeze your hands into fists.

Feel everything get tense and hold.

Hold.

Now exhale,

Release and let the tension go.

Last time feel into your face and jaw.

With your breath in squeeze all the muscles in your face.

Clench your jaw and hold.

Keep holding and then exhale.

Releasing all tension and noticing the feeling of relaxation that washes over you.

Feel your whole body now released of tension,

Softening into stillness.

Allow the body to settle into your most comfortable position.

Feel the body like warm candle wax melting and spreading.

Bend your arms and soften the center of your palms towards the sky.

Feel a sense of softness wash through the palms.

Feel softness in the jaw,

In your mouth and at the space between your eyebrows.

From this place of comfort and stillness resolve to remain still for the duration of the practice.

If at any point your body becomes uncomfortable feel free to adjust.

Follow the sound of my voice as best you can and if you drift off know that is okay.

Simply return to the sound of my voice.

There is no wrong way to do this practice so trust that your body will take from it what it needs.

We now begin the practice of yoga nidra.

Make any final adjustments you need in order to get yourself exquisitely comfortable.

Begin to softly draw your senses inward.

Allow surrounding sounds to gently flow through your experience without resisting them and settle into a deep peaceful stillness.

Bring awareness to your breath.

As you breathe become more aware of everything that is going on inside of you.

Begin to tune in to the ebb and the flow of your own breath.

Let the breathing be as soft and as relaxed as possible.

Feel each gentle breath in expand and open your senses.

And feel each breath out soften the body and calm the nervous system.

The practice of yoga nidra is anchored in an intention or sankalpa.

Your sankalpa is a positive potent present tense statement starting with the pronoun I.

Your sankalpa represents your heart's deepest desire or whatever you deeply need in this moment.

If you are struggling with sleep your sankalpa can be I sleep peacefully.

And if self worth is currently a challenge you can say I am worthy.

Or if you are not feeling very safe in your life right now you can say I am safe.

Take a few moments to listen to what your intention is and trust what naturally arises.

If there is struggle to find the perfect fit in this moment your sankalpa can simply be I am loved.

Repeat your sankalpa silently to yourself three times now.

And trust that by planting the sankalpa into your practice it will become more true and resolute with every breath you take.

We will now rotate your awareness through the physical body.

I will name a body part and you will feel it with your full attention.

No need to move your body.

Simply let your awareness move into that body part.

If you lose your place gently come back to the sound of my voice.

Feel your right thumb.

Direct all your awareness into your right thumb.

Notice how you are aware of it,

How you feel it without necessarily needing to touch it or move it.

You are aware of your right thumb through your own sensation.

Feel now your pointer finger,

Middle finger,

Ring finger,

Pinky finger.

Feel all five fingers on your right hand,

Palm of the hand,

Back of the hand,

Whole hand.

Feel sensations in your whole right hand.

Feel the right forearm,

Elbow,

Upper arm,

Shoulder.

Feel the entire right arm from shoulder to fingertips.

Travel down the right side of the body to the rib cage,

Waist,

Hip,

Right thigh,

Kneecap,

Shin,

Top of the right foot,

Ankle,

Heel.

Feel the right toe,

Sole of the right foot.

Feel the big toe,

Second toe,

Third toe,

Fourth toe,

Fifth toe.

All five toes.

Feel the entire leg,

The entire right leg from thigh to toes.

From awareness in the whole right leg,

Add into your awareness your right arm,

The right side body.

Now feel the entire right side.

Awareness floods the entire right side.

Now feel sensation in your left thumb,

Directing all of your awareness into your left thumb.

Feel your pointer finger,

Middle finger,

Ring finger,

Pinky finger.

All five fingers on the left hand,

Palm of the hand,

Back of the hand,

Whole hand.

Feel the whole left hand heavy with sensation.

Left forearm,

Elbow,

Upper arm,

Shoulder,

Entire left arm from shoulder to fingertips.

Travel down the left side body to the rib cage,

Waist,

Hip,

Left thigh,

Kneecap,

Shin,

Top of the left foot,

Ankle,

Heel,

Sole of the left foot.

Big toe,

Second toe,

Third toe,

Fourth toe,

Fifth toe.

All five toes.

Whole left leg.

Feel the entire left leg from thigh to toes.

Sensing awareness in the whole left leg,

Add into your awareness your left arm,

Left side waist.

Now feel the entire left side.

Awareness of entire left side body.

Sensation now floods into both sides of the body,

Left side,

Right side,

Both sides together.

Feel both sides together.

Allow your awareness to move now into the back side of your body.

All the parts of you that are resting into earth below.

Feel your entire back side body.

Now feel the front side of your body,

All of your parts as they float and lift towards sky.

Feel the entire front side of your body.

Move your awareness now through your whole body.

Left side,

Right side,

Back side,

Front side.

Feel awareness of your whole body,

Sensation alive and pulsing throughout the whole body.

Now feel sensations in your body as breath floods in and as breath flows out.

As you inhale,

Feel the body expand.

As you exhale,

Notice the body softening.

Allow awareness to flow into your pelvic floor,

The very bottom of your torso.

Enjoy a deep,

Quieting breath into that space.

Then moving breath through the body with intention,

Allow your next inhale to move the breath from the pelvic floor to the crown of the head.

Exhale,

The breath moves from the crown back to the pelvic floor.

Inhale,

Breath flows to the crown.

Exhale,

Breath pours into the pelvic bowl.

Follow your breath a few times in this way.

Inhale,

Breath rises.

Exhale,

Breath empties.

Feel each breath in calm your nervous system and each breath out quiet your thoughts.

Feel yourself now becoming heavy,

Whole body heavy,

Dense.

Notice sensation of heavy,

Dense,

Weighted bones in the body.

Invite the whole body to feel heavy and dense.

Call in now a sense of lightness,

Of ease.

Feel your whole body light,

Light as a feather.

Gravity releasing its grip as you float up and away.

Whole body,

Light as air.

Allow yourself to feel heavy again,

Bones dense and weighted.

And then allow yourself to float to sensations of lightness and ease.

Now hold both sensations in your experience at the same time.

Sensations of being heavy,

Sensations of feeling light.

Don't overthink this.

Simply let yourself explore holding both sensations with equal presence.

Move your awareness now into the soft space between your eyebrows.

This quiet,

Neutral expanse.

From this space,

Feel into a sense of wholeness.

Your whole self,

Your whole complete perfect self.

Calm,

Quiet and at peace.

Saddle into deeper spaces of sleep and prepare for rapid visualization.

As I call off numerous images,

Try as best as you can to create these images inside your mind.

Allow your responses to appear before you and dissolve just as quickly.

Stay interested and present to the sound of my voice.

Relax all effort and feel yourself becoming more visual and creative.

Crackling fireplace.

Warm tea.

Comforting hug.

Rolling ocean waves.

Peaceful sunset.

Full moon.

Blank journal.

Field of lavender.

Star-filled sky.

Complete darkness.

Feel into this complete and quiet darkness,

A sense of wholeness within yourself.

Complete and peaceful wholeness.

You are peaceful.

You are whole.

You are complete and perfect just as you are in this moment.

Feel this sense of wholeness fill you up and wrap itself around you.

From this grounded awareness of your own complete wholeness,

Invite in a sense of gratitude and allow the sensations of gratefulness to make themselves at home in your heart.

Feel your heart.

Whole heart.

Grateful and at peace.

In this sensation of gratitude and peace,

Connect again to your sankalpa,

Your heart's deepest desire.

Repeat your sankalpa silently to yourself three times now and feel it settle into your life more deeply.

Know that this intention is coming more fully into your life with every sweet breath you take.

This softly floats to breath.

Feel sensations of your body breathing.

Feel yourself peaceful and calm.

Feel your whole self in perfect ease.

Feel the breath moving in and through your body.

Feel yourself drifting into deep sleep.

Your own sweet sleepscape as the practice of yoga nidra is now complete.

Reviews

Thank you! Helped me fall back to sleep after waking in the middle of the night.

Great, I fell back asleep. Very relaxing, and the pulsing music in the background helped find a soothing rhythm in my body and mind. Feel peaceful and relaxed on waking in the morning.
One thing that I would like to report back is that I personally prefer not getting further information during guidance as I want to fully concentrate on my sensations.

This was amazing. After my first time of listening to this meditation I fell asleep halfway through. It also helped me sleep as I recover from the common cold.

Great classic nidra - thank you

Amazing yoga nidra. Perfect for getting into sleep😴💙

My favourite yoga nidra on insight timer to date! Thank you!

Lovely relaxing yoga nidra with nice music and a very calming voice :) Thank you x

lovely yoga nidra

I love how you structure your Yoga Nidra scripts!

Best yoga nidra I've tried.

This is my favorite sleep meditation. The tone, pacing, and style of instruction all work really well for me, and the progressive muscle relaxation at the beginning is just the right length.

I have terrible insomnia and I’ve tried countless sleep meditations. This one works. Thank you..

Love it !! I get the best sleep when I listen to this Yoga Nidra track

What a lovely Yoga Nidra. Thanks Maria. Namaste 🙏

Very restful and relaxing and beautiful voice , at times a little too close to microphone . Thank you and namaste 🙏🏻

Thanks for sharing your meditation. I easily fell back to sleep with it. I have used your longer one several times and like it very much. I think I will be using this one frequently too. I like the normal sound of your voice. At first the background music was a little distracting but I got used to it as it went on. Overall I enjoyed this meditation very much. Thank you.

Incredibly helpful! The background music got on my nerves a bit at first, but then I stopped resisting and was asleep in seconds, so I guess it's got a hypnotic function. And the positive effects lasted throughout the night, many thanks!

Maybe you could have two versions, one with and one without music? Since we don't seem to all have the same needs...

Wonderful voice,delivery & practice ! But i doze off for sometime & then wake up & can't fall asleep again. Thanks for the calmness & the quiet that envelopped me.

A no-nonsense meditation that is not slow in its delivery. This is perhaps useful for me at times when I need to get to grip with myself and listen to a definite body scan. Unlike some, I found the background soothing and her voice very relaxing. I fell sound asleep too 💤 🙏🏻

One of the best! My gratitudes Maria. Namaste. 🙏