Photo Credit: WeHeartIt
Yoga Nidra, also known as ‘yogic sleep’, is becoming widely popular due to the significant benefits that stressed individuals are experiencing through it. Yogic sleep is a guided form of meditation that takes you to a point just above sleep, and anyone can do it. It takes you to a point where your body can experience true relaxation. In this day in age, most individuals never get out of fight-or-flight mode, activating the heightened stress response in the body. Between working, raising a family, the stresses of everyday life, and trying to work on yourself, everything is stressing us out on a cellular level – all the time!
While you might think you’re lying there doing nothing on the yoga mat, this isn’t the case. As you start to drop deeper into the meditation, the body begins to soften in all ways. It lets your awareness drop as far as the deepest delta brainwave state, which the majority of the population never reaches. Since all other activity is shut off, this is the most restorative state for the body. It is here where the body can increase serotonin, oxytocin, and human growth hormone. It is also here where the body decreases cortisol, soothes chronic pain & depression, and releases anxiety. Whatever you are struggling with, Yoga Nidra can help. All of this can be achieved in a 40 minute Yoga Nidra class, equivalent to 3.5-4 hours of deep sleep.
“Yoga Nidra is release of all doing, all effort to be anywhere but where you are. It is a subtraction of doing. In the absence of doing, you notice you are already whole.”-Yoga Nidra, The Art of Transformational Sleep
We’re always multitasking; thinking of the next thing to do, and the next place to be. We are never truly in the present moment. When you come for a Yoga Nidra class, you are giving yourself a gift that can and will change your life. If you want to truly reap its benefits, it has to become a practice. By taking just one class per week, you will start to notice differences in your day-to-day life.
Yoga Nidra with Sound Healing
In Yoga Nidra classes at the Village, they incorporate the use of sound with Alchemy Crystal bowls, infused with gemstones, minerals and precious metals. Participants receive the benefits of everything that is infused in the bowls – physically, mentally and emotionally. Sound is important in Yoga Nidra because most people have a lot going in their mind, and it can be very difficult to let go and relax. The beauty of sound is that it does it for you immediately. Your mind cannot go against the sound and vibration of the crystal bowls or the gong. It may try, but the sound will always win. You hear it with your ears, but it is also affecting the entire body. It will often leave you in such a blissful state that it is hard to explain or imagine. It’s working the body on a cellular level.
Come and experience this incredible, one-of-a-kind class at Village Health Clubs and Spas. For more information on memberships and class times, visit villageclubs.com.
