You might have heard the buzz around yoga nidra as a tool to help you get more energy, better focus, and even less sleep. But should you believe the claims?
Below, we’ll dive into the science behind yoga nidra and share the potential health benefits, whether it can improve or replace sleep, and how you can use the RISE app to relax, drift off, and get better sleep and energy with more science-backed methods.
“We’re still learning about yoga nidra, but one thing we do know is it’s not a replacement for sleep," says Dr. Chester Wu. "It may help you relax and drift off, though. So, as long as you’re not skipping sleep, there’s no harm in giving yoga nidra a try.”
Dr. Chester Wu is double board certified in Psychiatry and Sleep Medicine, and provides sleep medicine services, medication management, and psychotherapy to adults at his private sleep medicine and psychiatry practice.
Yoga nidra, often referred to as "yogic sleep," is a meditative practice that promotes a state of deep relaxation and conscious awareness. Yoga nidra guides practitioners through systematic relaxation techniques and visualizations to achieve a state between wakefulness and sleep, said to promote physical and mental health.
It's is also an first referenced way back in 600 BCE.
The meditation technique involves lying in savasana — corpse pose on your back — with your eyes closed and following guided exercises, including visualization, a body scan (focusing attention on different parts of the body), intention setting, and breathing exercises.
Although it’s known as yogic sleep, it’s not designed to put you to sleep — although that may happen — and it definitely can’t replace sleep.
As one on the topic describes it, “practitioners of yoga nidra claim, however, that it is not a substitute for sleep, but that its benefits go far beyond that of relaxation.”
When practicing yoga nidra, you’re aware of your surroundings and move into a deep state of relaxation. This is said to be similar to the state of consciousness between waking and sleeping (hypnagogia).
Yoga nidra is closer to a form of meditation than more active forms of yoga you might be familiar with.
You might do a yoga nidra meditation for 30 minutes to an hour, although you’ll find practices of all lengths online.
Heads-up: Non-sleep deep rest, NSDR, is a term coined by Dr. Andrew Huberman that’s usually used to describe yoga nidra in a more generic, non-yogi way.
Studies have found several benefits of yoga nidra:
For sleep, studies show yoga nidra can help:
Some non-sleep benefits may help you sleep well, too. For example, less stress and better mental health can help you get more restful sleep (RISE users say stress and anxiety are the biggest barriers to a good night’s sleep).
It sounds promising, but more research is needed on the impact of yoga nidra.
It’s still a relatively new area of research, and studies on it are often small, vary in the yoga nidra protocols they study, use subjective sleep data (which can be inaccurate), and may not account for other factors (including other practices) that influence sleep. Plus, some studies are done on beginners, so it’s unclear whether the benefits continue the more you practice.
The number of YouTube videos and audio guides on yoga nidra has exploded as hype around the practice grows, so benefits will differ depending on whether you’re following a session led by a knowledgeable yoga teacher or not.
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Yoga nidra may help you sleep because it can help you unwind and relax. This can be useful before bed, if you wake up during the night, or during the day to lower overall stress levels.
Here’s what it’s been shown to do for your sleep:
Yoga nidra may help you sleep by causing a shift towards (promoting a relaxed state).
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