Exercises Before Yoga Nidra

Yoga Nidra is full-body relaxation in a state of mental awareness. The term means "yogic sleep," and it happens during a guided meditation that releases all tension and stress in a 20- to 45-minute session. Yoga Nidra may follow a regular yoga class or be used as a stand-alone practice to wind down at the end of the day. Warming up and chilling out with a few asanas or a breathing session first enhances Yoga Nidra's benefits.

  1. Warm Up

    • Yoga Nidra promotes a state of complete relaxation for mind and body, but the challenge is to remain aware and not drift off into dreaminess or sleep. In Yoga Nidra, thoughts do not just drift. Guided meditation leads the mind, activating all regions of the brain. A gentle series of Sun Salutations in advance warms up stiff muscles and gets the energy flowing evenly throughout your body. Attention to each move, from Mountain pose to Downward-Facing Dog, clears the mind in preparation for the deep focus to follow. Prefacing a Yoga Nidra session with Sun Salutations creates a flow from body awareness to physical relaxation followed by mental awareness in a state of mind relaxation.

    Loosen Up

    • Shake out most of the tension you unconsciously hold in your spine and shoulders with some slow Cat-Cow poses before slipping into Yoga Nidra. Kneeling on all fours on the mat and slowly rounding and arching the spine stretches your back, opens your shoulders and relieves stiffness, allowing you to sink deeply into Yoga Nidra. Follow the combined pose with a reclining isometric body scan, squeezing and releasing muscle groups from your feet through your legs, core, upper torso, hands and arms, neck and face. Harvard Medical Center reports that yoga slows the heart rate, lowers blood pressure and increases the body's ability to adapt to stressful conditions easily. Use asanas and light exercise to eliminate a layer of tension and restore suppleness to your spine. Then explore the alert tranquility of Yoga Nidra.

    Breathe Into It

    • Pranayama, or yoga breathing, reconnects you to peaceful consciousness as it calms mind chatter and eases anxiety. A few minutes of deep diaphragmatic breathing increases the even flow of prana, or life-giving energy, throughout your body, putting you in a serene frame of mind and activating your brain's "relaxation response." Lie on your back with knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Place one palm on your belly and breathe deeply in and out, noticing how your hand rises and falls with the breath. Do this for eight to 12 breaths, slightly lengthening the inhale and the exhale each time so you are breathing slowly and expanding and contracting the lower belly, diaphragm and rib cage each time.

    Let It All Go

    • Savasana, or Corpse pose, is the end-of-practice relaxation on the mat used to integrate all the work of a yoga routine and release any remaining tension in the body. It is also the ideal position for Yoga Nidra. Swami Jnaneshvara Bharat, a Yoga Nidra meditation teacher, says asanas like Corpse pose make it easier to turn within and develop one-pointed focus during a "yogic sleep" session. Lie on your back, feel your pelvic bones sink into the floor, let your feet and legs fall open and lift the base of your skull with both hands, releasing your neck before lowering your head to the mat. Raise both arms overhead, relax your shoulder blades and float your arms down along your sides, palms up. Focus on deep, slow breathing for about five minutes before beginning Yoga Nidra.