Top 9 Benefits of Yoga Nidra Stages for beginners

Top 9 Benefits of Yoga Nidra Stages for beginners

Top 9 Benefits of Yoga Nidra Stages for beginners:The explosion of studies supporting the advantages of meditation also apply to yoga nidra, because yoga nidra is a kind of meditation.Both meditation and yoga help activate the relief response and improve the functioning of your nervous system and endocrine system, which affects your hormones.

Both meditation and yoga nidra help cells regenerate and repair, and each help decrease anxiety and improve your mood.Women tell me all the time how practicing yoga nidra meditation has positively impacted their family life.One mother who was checked out of her life due to exhaustion now practices yoga nidra and says that she is using more loving speech to herself, her children and her spouse, and parenting from a more peaceful place.

In general, another woman who felt imprisoned by her anxiety tells me she is now ready to lead a full life together with her family from a calm place.It’s clear to me that ladies get their family and freedom back when they practice yoga nidra regularly.

What Is Yoga nidra?

Yoga is derived from a Sanskrit word 'Yuj' in verb form, which means to unite or to join. Yog is its noun form and means union. It is concerned with the union of the individual soul with the Absolute or Divine soul. It is a science of development of an individual's consciousness.

Yoga is the 'unification of Atma with Parmatma'. It also means the unification of physical, mental, intellectual and spiritual aspects of human being. The following definitions can be beneficial to understand the meaning of yoga:

• “Checking the impulses of mind is yoga."-Patanjali
• "Yoga is attaining the pose." -Maharishi Ved Vyas
• "Yoga is spiritual Kamdhenu." -Swami Sampurnanand
• "The knowledge about Shiva and Shakti is yoga." -Agam
• "Oneness of man with God is known as yoga." -Shri Bharati Krishna Tirtha
• Lord Krishna says, in Bhagwad Gita. "Skill in actions or efficiency alone is yoga.

Read: Explain The Importance Of Yoga And 12 Benefits Of Yoga

Relaxation Techniques For Improving Concentration - Yoga Nidra

Nowadays, human life has become fast and hectic. Every individual is trying to adjust in this fast changing world but all in vain. Ultimately, human beings are facing various mental or psychological problems. Yoga, as a technique of pratyahara, not only provides relaxation to body and mind but also has a number of benefits. Yoga is usually referred to as 'Yogic sleep'.

It is a systematic method of guided relaxation that has a profound effect on body and mind. Yoga nidra also means ‘Psychic sleep', i.e., sleep with complete awareness. In the practice of yoga nidra, the body sleeps but the mind remains awake. In psychology, the state of yoga nidra is called a state between sleep and wakefulness. Yoga is performed in the posture of shavasana, with the eyes closed. In fact, yoga nidra is a very powerful physical and mental relaxation technique.

Stages of Yoga Nidra

The complete of yoga nidra consists of the following stages.

1. Preparation: Get ready for yoga nidra. Lie down on your back on the floor and adopt the pose of Shavasana. In this position, the body should be straight from head to toe. Legs should be slightly apart and arms should be a little away from the body. Palms should be upwards. Feel comfortable in this position. Close your eyes and take a deep breath.
2. Intention (Sankalpa): Take a resolve or sankalpa according to your own wish. It should be short, clear and positive. For example, sankalpa may be 'I will enjoy complete health or I will ever be cheerful', etc.
3. Body Rotation: At this stage, awareness is rotated through the different body parts in a systematic way, which leads to complete relaxation in a systematic and organised manner. The rotation of awareness is started in proper sequence, i.e., right side of the body, beginning with the right hand thumb and ending with the little toe of the right foot.
4. Then, left side of the body, from the left hand thumb to the little toe of the left foot; back of the body, from the heels to the back of the head and lastly the front of the body, from forehead to individual facial features to the legs. In this way, the whole body is relaxed.
5. Breath Awareness: At this stage, you simply become aware of the natural breath without doing any effort to change the flow of the breath. It gives a deeper relaxation and awakens higher energies that can be directed to all the parts of the body.
6. Opposites or Feelings and Sensations: At this stage, allow yourself to experience feelings and sensations. Usually it is practised with pairs of opposite feelings like heat and cold, pain and pleasure, love and hate, etc.
7. Visualisation: This stage induces mental relaxation. It develops self awareness and relaxes the mind through removal of disturbing material, controls the mind and strengthens concentration ability. In fact, it is done by visualisation of variety of different images, objects or situations.
8. Sankalpa: Once again sankalpa mentioned in the second point is repeated thrice with complete dedication.
9. Return or Finishing the Practice: This stage is important because if you move fast out of yoga you can feel discontented and uncomfortable. At this stage, awareness is externalised slowly so that you can be aware of the external location, sounds, objects and persons.

Benefits Of Yoga Nidra

The main Benefits of yoga nidra are stated below.

1. Reduces Tension: Nowadays, most people remain under stress and tension which usually create a number of physical and psychological problems. Modern psychology as well as yogic philosophy believes that there are three kinds of tensions-muscular, emotional and mental tension-which can be progressively reduced through regular practice of yoga nidra.
2. Relaxes the Mind: The brain is the linking mediator between mind, body and emotions. In fact, during the process of yoga nidra the awareness of the body stimulates the brain. When the awareness is rotated on the different parts of the body, it induces both physical and mental relaxation. Also, when awareness is rotated repeatedly, there is a good flow of pranic energy in the brain, which ultimately relaxes the mind. 
3. Awakens Creativity: Regular practise of yoga helps in making a bridge between the conscious and unconscious mind. Slowly the individual becomes tuned with the unconscious workings and then the power of creativity automatically awakens.
4. Increases Memory and Learning Capacity: The technique of yoga nidra is helpful in increasing both learning and memory capacities. When yoga nidra is used in education, both hemispheres of the student's brain are involved in learning the subject, whereas in classroom teaching, the left hemisphere functions more.
5. Counteracts Stress: The practice of yoga nidra helps in building up the coping ability to counteract stress.
6. Manages Psychosomatic Diseases: When tensions, conflicts and frustrations of the mind manifest in the form of physical symptoms, those diseases are termed as, psychosomatic diseases. Yoga nidra aims at releasing the suppressed and repressed conflicts from the unconscious, thereby relaxing the mind.
7. Cures Cancer: As a technique of meditation, yoga nidra can be adopted as a therapeutic model in the treatment of cancer.
8. Helps Healing: In the practice of yoga nidra, the subtle bioplasmic energy, prana, is awakened and mobilized throughout the body. Gradually, this conscious imagination activates the self-healing capacity and thereby actual healing takes place in the patient. This kind of healing is termed as pranic healing. In yoga, healing can also be initiated on the mental plane. When the body is visualized to be in perfect health over and over again, the inherent potency of the mind actually starts healing.
9. Promotes Willpower: Yoga helps in building up willpower and optimism in an individual because it is sowed in the subconscious and unconscious mind repeatedly.

So, the technique of yoga nidra has preventive, promotive and curative values. In our present modern lifestyle, where psychological and psychosomatic problems are on the rise, the technique of yoga nidra may serve as a real boon for mankind.