Yoga Nidra Meditation - An Amazing Technique You Can Practice Daily For Deep Relaxation & Stress Relief

Here is a simple Yoga Nidra meditation technique that you can use for achieving a complete relaxation and stress relief. It involves rotating your awareness and consciousness through various body parts and organs alternatively.

This technique of Yoga Nidra will help you to recognize the points of stress and tension in your body. You can then easily relax them by directing your awareness towards those parts. It rejuvenates your whole body and makes you fresh and lively in a very short period of time.

Yoga Nidra Meditation - The Technique

This simple Yoga meditation technique involves 6 steps. It helps to achieve a total body relaxation. During the meditation, try to focus your attention and awareness on the body, rather than on the breath.

Each body part shall be relaxed alternatively. During nidra meditation, we shall view our body as an object and our mind as an instrument for directing our flow of consciousness towards the various body parts.

This sleep meditation is to be practiced in shavasana or the corpse pose. It means lying down on our back as we do while we sleep.

Make sure to keep a distance of around 1-1.5 feet in between your legs. Your hands should not be touching the waist or lying on the stomach, but should be kept sideways with the palm facing upwards.

It would also be helpful if you imagine that Prana (the vital life force) is flowing through the body parts as you direct the flow of your awareness towards each part. This will help you achieve a greater revitalization, rejuvenation and relaxation after each session of practice.

Step 1 -- Toes, Feet and Legs

We begin Yoga Nidra meditation by relaxing our feet and legs. Take a few deep breaths as you begin and continue to breathe freely during the yoga meditation.

Start by bringing your awareness towards the toes on your left foot -- one by one, starting from the big one to the smaller ones.

Then shift your awareness towards -

- the sole

- the ankle

- the calf muscles

- the knee

- the knee joint

- the thigh

- the pelvis

Be aware of the sensations arising in the muscles, ligaments, bones and joints as you rotate your awareness through your body. Feel the sensations such as warmth, coolness, itching, gentle vibrations, stiffness, pain, etc. as you move along each part. This simple act of watching those sensations gently releases all the tensions and brings about a deep relaxation.

Repeat the same process along the right leg. You can also rotate your awareness up and down through your legs a couple of times. This will enhance your level of relaxation.

Step 2 -- Abdomen

Bring your awareness towards the rising and falling of your abdomen. Watch from within the inward and outward movement of the area around your navel as your inhalations and exhalations take place.

You can see your muscles being deeply relaxed and regenerated. The breath also gradually becomes deeper and this gives a lot of stress relief. You will feel a great degree of calmness and relaxation by this time.

Step 3 -- Buttocks, Back & Spine Area

Bring your awareness towards your buttocks and the upper and lower back area. Gradually feel the sensations arising in the spine, coccyx, cervical vertebrae, and disc joints and move your attention towards the spinal cord area.

You can feel the sensations such as the touch of the mattress, on which you are lying, feeling of warmth, gentle vibrations, etc. Just remain a passive witness and you shall find that all stress is gradually vanishing.

Step 4 -- Chest

Bring your attention towards the upward and downward movement arising in your chest. You can feel the sensations of the heart beating and the relaxation arising in the muscles.

Gradually bring your awareness towards -

- the left portion of the chest

- the right portion of the chest.

Step 5 -- Hands and Arms

Bring your attention towards your left-hand fingers, starting from the thumb towards the little finger. Then shift towards the palm, the back portion of your hand and then bring your awareness towards the wrist.

Then move towards -

- the elbow

- the forearm and

- towards the upper arm.

Repeat the same process along the right arm.

Step 6 -- Head, Neck and Shoulders

Bring your attention towards -

- the upper portion of your head

- back portion of your head

- forehead

- left and right eye brow

- left and right eye

- left and right ear

- nose

- lips

- cheeks

- chin

- throat and neck

At the end of Yoga Nidra meditation, gently move your fingers, toes and feet a bit, take a few deep breaths while still lying down, open your eyes gently and exhale as you sit up. This will help to bring back awareness to your body in a very gentle and smooth manner.

Yoga Nidra Auto-Suggestion -- An Easy & Effective Way to Enhance Relaxation

The use of auto-suggestion along with the practice of Yoga Nidra meditation technique goes a long way to enhance relaxation and stress relief.

It is very easy and simple to include it as a part of the Yoga Nidra meditation. After you practice each sequence, just focus on each organ as a whole and repeat the auto-suggestion statement mentally.

For example -

"I relax my toes, I relax my toes, and my toes are totally relaxed."

"I relax my feet, I relax my feet, and my feet are totally relaxed."

You can repeat this autosuggestion on various body parts. It provides a deep relaxation and stress relief.

Similarly, you can also make use of different types of positive statements such as -

"I am achieving greater success everyday" or

"I am becoming more peaceful and healthier everyday".

These positive statements that are repeated mentally at the time of Yoga Nidra meditation go deep into our subconscious mind and bring a lot of positive results for our overall well being.