How To Sleep Effortlessly - by Hilary Jackendoff

COURSE

How To Sleep Effortlessly

With Hilary Jackendoff

In this 10-day course, you'll be invited to explore sleep as a letting go of the external world - an effortless journey inward. And any journey worth taking requires a little preparation. As you move through this course, Hilary will balance meditation theory and practice, guiding you through a range of techniques, primarily from the yogic tradition, to prepare for sleep, downshift your nervous system and teach you to easily let go of whatever tensions you may be carrying in your heart, mind, or body.

SleepStressStress & AnxietyVisualizationYogaSpiritualityYoga NidraBreathing Meditation

Meet your Teacher

Hilary Jackendoff
Los Angeles

Hilary Jackendoff is a New Jersey born, ashram-trained Yoga Nidra and meditation teacher. She began studying Tantric Yoga in 2008 and spent two years formally training while living at an ashram in Australia. Hilary is a senior teacher at The DEN Meditation in Los Angeles, where she co-created the studio’s Meditation Teacher Training program. Hilary offers Yoga Nidra Teacher Trainings, mentorship, and private online classes, and she’s been featured as a sleep meditation expert on Good Morning America. Hilary's teaching philosophy aims to demystify ancient wisdom, helping students realize that the spiritual doesn’t have to be so serious!

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10 Days

26.7k students

4.7 stars

16 min / day

Sleep

English

Lesson 1

Sleep as a Letting Go

The yogis took great care in preparing their bodies and minds for meditation and knew how to downshift their energy so they could turn fully inwards. We’ll begin this course by considering the similarities between the journey into meditation and our journey into sleep, so we can learn how to more easily prepare to let go of the external world each night. Note: There is no meditation practice in this lesson, as it simply creates the framework for the course.

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Lesson 2

Beyond Sleep with Yoga Nidra

In this session, we’ll explore Yoga Nidra as a way to let go of the tensions we’re carrying in the physical body. Yoga Nidra is becoming well known as a sleep meditation, and rightly so. But it has more to offer. The yogis view it as a journey through the koshas, granting us access to an embodied experience of the deepest layers of our being. While Yoga Nidra can help us fall asleep, it can also help us wake up.

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Lesson 3

The Power of the Mind

This session focuses on harnessing the power of the mind to create a felt sense of relaxation in the body, allowing us to move easily into sleep. But the technique we’ll practice, though deeply calming, has far greater potential. Through our embodied experience, we’ll begin to understand that what we think directly impacts what we feel – a revelation that, when internalized, can accelerate the processes of self-transformation, healing, and letting go.

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Lesson 4

Peaceful Vibrations

In this session, we’ll practice a yogic breathing technique that was first described in 14th century texts. You’ll learn how the breath can be used to quiet the mind and regulate the nervous system, creating a deep feeling of peace in the body that can help you navigate a stressful day and then fully settle in for a night of restful sleep.

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Lesson 5

From Effort to Ease

Today we’ll work with two powerful, profoundly simple practices that activate the parasympathetic nervous system – our relaxation response. These practices require a little bit of effort, but they bring about a deep sense of ease in both body and mind. We’ll begin by learning an accessible technique that psychologists use to treat anxiety and insomnia before exploring a foundational breathing practice that can quickly settle your energy throughout the day or late at night.

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Lesson 6

Be With What Is

So often in our lives, we believe that more effort will yield better results. But if you’ve struggled to fall asleep, you know that the more you try, the less sleep you’ll get. In this session, we will practice simply being with what is, gradually releasing any learned patterning that seeks to change the present moment. As we release this desire to change what is, we cultivate trust in the body’s wisdom. From here, we can easily access effortless sleep.

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Lesson 7

Quieting the Mind

In our journey towards sleep, a busy mind can be quite an obstacle. And usually, telling the mind to stop thinking does not work very well. In this session, we’ll explore mantra as the yogic solution to a ruminating mind. In Sanskrit, the word ‘mantra’ translates to ‘the force that liberates the mind from its bondage.’ Mantras are a simple and powerful tool to shift the mental energy without suppression, granting us access to a peaceful night of sleep.

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Lesson 8

The Energy Cleanse

Sometimes, sleep can be particularly elusive for reasons that we can’t quite pinpoint. Some nights, it feels as though we are holding on to the day, and some nights, it seems like the day is holding on to us. In this session, we’ll learn a simple, subtle practice drawn from the yogic tradition of energy healing that will help you journey into sleep with a clean and clear energy body – a hot shower for the soul.

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Lesson 9

The Cave of the Heart

The yogis say that when we rest deeply in the heart, the movement of the mind ceases and the world grows silent. In this session, we’ll explore our relationship to this innermost space, sometimes called our ‘sacred center.’ The world encourages us to live from the mind, but when you learn to access this ‘cave of the heart,’ you may discover a profound stillness and silence that has the potential to fundamentally transform your life – and your sleep – forever.

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Lesson 10

Integration and Review

For our final session, we’ll come full circle, recalling the embodied experience of the work we did together and reminding ourselves of the 'why' behind each practice. When we take the time to reflect on both methodology and theory, we build a deeper, more personal relationship to the tools we’ve learned, making it far more likely that we’ll integrate them fully into our daily lives and build a lasting pattern of deep, effortless sleep.

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Ask your teacher

This course includes 139 community questions and 50 audio replies from Hilary Jackendoff. The community classroom and teacher audio replies are only available via the app.

139

4.7 (736)

Recent Reviews

Tulip

January 25, 2026

Excellent!

Candice

June 22, 2025

This has been life changing!

Peter

April 27, 2025

Calming, soothing voice was the highlight.

Dinky

January 27, 2025

Excellent series. Thoughtful and well designed.

LouAnn

January 9, 2025

Such great info! I believe I fell asleep during each of them. Looking forward to listening again and again!

Eva

December 3, 2024

Very helpful and very lovingly guided! I immediately fell asleep way quicker and sleep better throughout the night. Even though I used to already use sleep meditations, this really changed the game for me. Also the first tome that I could actually observe my natural breathing instead of controlling it. I would definitely recommend this course to anyone and I want to thank you so much for this amazing journey! I would be very interested in a transformational course where we use some of the techniques which you mentioned can be used for that purpose. Lots of gratitude 🙏🏼💖

Wendy

November 28, 2024

Absolutely beautiful. Great tools and soothing voice 🙏♥️

Charis

October 18, 2024

Really well done, introduced me to some new techniques that I didn’t know. Keep up the great content.

Faith

September 19, 2024

Helped me to quieten the monkey mind and release tension in my body before sleeping. I still need to practice the methods and meditations so will repeat the course as I found it so helpful.

Daniel

September 8, 2024

Fell asleep every night before the 15 mins was up

Lucy

August 4, 2024

Loved this course - heartfelt guidance and simple yet profound techniques. It’s given me, someone who’s suffered with insomnia all of my adult life, hope. So thank you ♥️🙏

MaryAnn

May 14, 2024

Thank you for this informative course. I will listen again to help make them a natural part of relaxing to sleep. Thank you 🙏 ❤️

Brenda

April 16, 2024

This course has really helped me sleep!!! Thank you!

Diane

March 25, 2024

Helpful and soothing and empowering. Thank you!

Deborah

February 25, 2024

Best course I on sleeping I have ever taken. A whole different way of looking at sleep.

Meredith

January 9, 2024

Thank you this was amazing

Ann

November 22, 2023

Thank you for sharing your knowledge. A practical guide for relaxing and winding down the nervous system. These practices have turned my life/sleep around. 🙏🧡

Nelson

November 3, 2023

Course is excellent and she is absolutely marvelous

Marijo

October 24, 2023

Thanks a lot for sharing a wide variety of proven technics! Your just, simple and practical descriptions along with your guidance into the experiences afterwards make your course a wonderful toolkit to bring peace, rest and sleep when the insomniac nights arise…

Wes

October 10, 2023

Excellent oourse. Thank you

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