CHAPTER 8
TURN INWARD
THE PRACTICE OF YOGA NIDRA, OR CONSCIOUS SLEEP
When you live with the day-to-day threat of direct combat, as warriors do when they’re deployed, you accumulate tension, a lot of tension. If you are an infantry warrior operating in hostile territory 24/7, your experience will most likely be different from that of someone who is in a support role, operating inside the wire at the FOB. Although danger can be delivered in different ways, it still creates constant stress, which can be substantial—whether it is the stress of constant ambushes and firefights or the stress of random mortar attacks.
Although people who have not served in the military may not understand what it means to be a warrior, we can all relate to the accumulation of tension. No matter who we are, we accumulate tension—not just warriors, but families of deployed service men and women, veterans, civilians, everyone. Whether we work like banshees or sit on the couch all day, whether we think too much or not enough, sleep or don’t sleep, whether we are kind or total SOBs—tension gathers, like dust, in every nook and cranny of the body’s physical, mental, emotional, and psychic sheaths.
We all experience tension, and we know how tension seems to gather force as it festers in our body or mind. If we have a stressful thought or a flashback, our stomach gets tense, then our head, then our neck and shoulders, and then every other system in the body. It’s not as if the rest of the body is clueless about what is going on. First we are tense, then grumpy, then perhaps depressed, then angry, then exhausted. The progression might be different for different individuals, but you get the point. The symptoms are mild at first: irritability, indigestion, irritable bowel syndrome, heartburn, headache, stiff neck and muscles, insomnia, and so on. But left ignored, any of these warning signs can lead to collective psychological distress, dis-ease, and all kinds of chaos and disorder in our professional, family, and social life. Either we do something about it, or eventually we deal with more serious illnesses and issues.
While the path of yoga addresses a whole lot more than simply creating relaxation, relaxation is the first step. If we want a more peaceful world, we have to learn how to relax and join our own body and mind in synchronicity. Everything you have been working on up until now in your practice—the third limb of asana, the fourth limb of pranayama through the breath work—has been essentially, “doing something about it!” All of the elements you are learning have come together to help you begin to alleviate tension and stress, and let go and relax. By training yourself to pay attention to the present moment through anchoring your attention to your movements and breathing, you are minimizing the seemingly uncontrollable, random wanderings of the mind, which, as you well know, can recreate unpleasant or stressful memories, or can jump ahead to worries about the future.
You have done a good deal of preparatory work that could be compared to digging up earth and taking out weeds to prepare for a garden plot. Now we’ll move into working with a powerful practice that will plant some seeds. This is an effective technique that both active duty and veteran military service men and women will appreciate having in their tool kit. I have taught this not only to warriors, but also to people in all walks of life, and everyone loves this practice of yoga nidra.
The word nidra means “sleep,” which is, ironically, not something we would ordinarily associate with yoga. We want to be conscious, aware, and not asleep when we do yoga. So why in the world would we want to do yoga nidra? When the word nidra is paired with the word yoga, as in yoga nidra, it means something a little different than just sleep. It means “sleep with a trace of awareness.” It is a guided practice of meditation, really, where you are lying down, motionless, and led into a very deeply relaxed state. It is a state of mind between wakefulness and dream sleep where the mind quiets down to the point where you are just about to fall asleep, but you don’t fall asleep. You maintain a link to consciousness. Maybe it sounds a little scary, but as my friend and student Suzanne Manafort, who directs the Mindful Yoga Therapy for Veterans project, says, “It is nothing creepy,” and it’s completely safe.
Yoga nidra is a way to experience the fifth limb of yoga: pratyahara. Pratyahara means “withdrawal” and refers to any practice that “pulls in” our senses. Instead of being drawn out and absorbed by the sights and sounds and smells of the world around us, or the memories fed to us by our thoughts, the senses look and listen inward and are used to explore the inner world of the present moment. It is really a remarkable experience, and once you are in an environment where you can feel safe and in control, you will find you are able to let go and settle into a deeply peaceful state of mind. It is a completely voluntary process and does not lead to diminished awareness, but to a super-aware, yet deeply peaceful, state of mind. What makes me think this is comforting, and perhaps even easy for a warrior, is that this skill of superawareness has already been developed. It isn’t that you want to eliminate awareness! That is exactly what we are trying to cultivate with yoga. The difference is that we want to be able to be in command of our awareness, control it, and use that ability with fine discernment.
Yoga nidra can be thought of as a prelude to meditation. The practice will help to prepare you for the meditation techniques given in the next chapter. The process relaxes you. It is slightly hypnotic in the sense that, for most people, it guides the activity of the neurons of the brain to a slower frequency. This is the same thing that happens naturally when we fall asleep. The very moment of moving from being awake to being asleep can be precisely determined by physiological measurement of neuronal activity. The neurons are the brain cells and the very same guys we are trying to get to quiet down and stop the incessant mental noise they make when thinking is out of control. The brain really does slow down from the higher frequencies of thinking, for example, to the slower frequencies of sleep—whether light sleep, dream sleep, or deep sleep.
If you think of the exact moment when you fall asleep as a line drawn across a piece of paper, that line is called the sleep threshold (see figure 8.1). Just above the line we are still awake. Just below the line we have gone to sleep. All the various states of mental activity, whether thinking or sleeping, operate at different frequencies—the speed, or number of times per second, at which the neurons in the brain are firing, or going through their electrochemical reactions to process information. When we are frantically worrying or thinking, it’s like going at warp speed. When we are relaxed, just cruisin’, not thinking frantically, the activity slows down. When we fall asleep, it slows way down. This process is controlled by the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which used to be called the involuntary nervous system, and which we first talked about in chapter 2.
But as I have mentioned previously, things like neuro-feedback, also known as biofeedback, and meditation have shown us (and the world of medicine and science) that the processes controlled by the ANS are not so involuntary after all. As all of us who practice yoga experience, the mind can learn to control things like stress levels, respiration, heart rate, skin temperature, muscle tension, and brain wave activity. This is the level of control your yoga practice is slowly empowering you to have.
FIGURE 8.1 The state of yoga nidra (conscious sleeping) is a state of aware presence that can range from light to deep (7–1 cycles/second), depending on the experience of the practitioner.
When we enter the state of yoga nidra through the process of practicing yoga nidra, we are taking ourselves below the sleep threshold to the seven-cycles-per-second state of mind and lower, but we are not falling asleep.
In this way, yoga nidra is a state of mind between waking and dreaming. It is a practice that brings the deeper layers of our subconscious mind into conscious experience, and during which our consciousness travels through one layer of awareness to another, according to its capability and capacity. We actually tap into our subconscious mind—much like we dig a well to an underground aquifer to reach and pump up the water—and previously suppressed or buried material, which is the source of our psychological (and quite possibly) physiological pain, is brought up to the surface.
RELEASING TRAUMATIC SAMSKARAS (IMPRINTS)
When I travel, and my plane has to take off into thick cloud cover and flies into the gray cloak of complete opacity, I am always reminded of how deep-seated traumas and samskaras are released during yoga nidra. The total obscuring nature of the cloud cover is the perfect metaphor for how these suppressed memories or experiences are ultimately liberated.
When the plane takes off, you can see the ground for a while. Then the plane bumps around a little and ends up completely enveloped in clouds. It can be kind of a freaky situation. You know the ground is still down there, but you can’t see it through the swath of gray. While you are in the clouds, you get bumped around—you don’t know what is out there. But sooner or later, if you are climbing to 35,000 feet or so, you are going to rise high enough to see the clear, limitless horizon above the clouds. The samskaras that get released during yoga nidra do the same thing. As the memories and emotions come up from the dark recesses of our mind, they bump around, but they pass through the veil of obscurity and end up in the light.
When we are enveloped in the murkiness, it is hard to remember that the sun is still shining, waiting for us to come into the light again. But, as we gain altitude, we break through the clouds into clarity. In the light, in a safe and controlled setting, we can permit these samskaras to spontaneously rise to the surface. In this place of feeling good about ourselves, we can look at these images and past traumas, examine them, and allow then to harmlessly arise through the cloud cover and out into the vast emptiness of space, where they are neutralized and dissipated. Through the use of specific images and archetypes, used by the guide, these impressions can be liberated and harmlessly and painlessly dissolved.
Unlike asana and pranayama practice, in yoga nidra it is not necessary to concentrate—in fact, you should not try to concentrate. You just keep your mind moving from point to point and, as you are guided through the process, allow yourself to dwell momentarily in the experience of the present. Trying to concentrate just ends up blocking the natural flow of consciousness as it spirals through deeper and deeper layers of awareness. If you just follow the instructions of your guide, you will find that you are able to deeply relax and open up your heart to new possibilities and visions. In the same way you melt iron and then cast it into the shape you wish to create, in yoga nidra, the mind can melt and be recast with good and creative impressions. It is an excellent practice to use if you are trying to remove a bad habit and replace it with a healthier one.
So why do we want to do this?
1. It is relaxing. It trains the body and mind to drop anxiety.
2. It puts us in a place where we are extending our conscious awareness a little deeper than just the state of being relaxed and awake (as you saw in figure 8.1). We aren’t thinking, but we aren’t asleep.
3. It puts us in a safe and receptive place where the thick, rusty, old buildup of protective resistance falls away and prana begins to flow in its place. The mind is melting, and we are open to positive and creative impressions.
4. It helps to open the subconscious and unconscious levels of the mind. (Yes, that is a good thing!) This helps us release deeply stored traumas, the samskaras, or imprints, that have been eating away at our health and well-being.
5. It can help us to sleep. If insomnia is an issue, this process can lead us to the sleep threshold and over into restful and restorative sleep.
6. It helps us prepare for meditation by further training the brain and making it possible for us to look deeper into the subconscious levels of our mind.
7. Research is beginning to validate that it can help to restore impaired biorhythms (the basic rhythms of life, like sleeping, eating, maintaining energy levels). Disruption of these normal body rhythms can result in difficulty sleeping, forgetting to eat, feeling exhausted, mood swings, and so on.
PLANTING SEEDS BY SETTING AN INTENTION
Yoga nidra is a guided practice wherein the practitioner is led through the process by a teacher or by an audio recording. Instructions are given directly and simply, and there is a logical progression to the sequencing of directions. The instructor is only a guide. He or she simply delivers the technique. This is not persuasion or hypnosis or auto-suggestion. The student is learning to bring about his or her own state of relaxation by following the spoken instructions. That is why we have offered a guided audio recording that you can access by visiting SoundsTrue.com/YogaforWarriors/YogaNidra.
Yoga nidra is generally practiced lying down. The eyes are closed and the body is instructed to settle into stillness for the duration of the guided segment. The process of yoga nidra is generally divided into a number of segments. Like the many meditation techniques of different traditions, the techniques for teaching yoga nidra can vary slightly, but basically they follow a general format. There is the stage of preparation, then general physical relaxation, followed by the introduction of what is called in yoga sankalpa, or a “resolve” or “intention.”
Having intention is thought to be one of the most important aspects of yoga nidra and a valuable means of training the mind. Yoga nidra is an extremely receptive state of consciousness, and the sankalpa is a short mental statement that we create for ourselves to heal an imbalance or to achieve a greater purpose in our life. It is impressed on our subconscious mind (by us) when it is sympathetic and sensitive to suggestion. The stating of our intention is like planting a seed deep in the subconscious. It will eventually sprout, grow, and burst forth, manifesting at the conscious level and bringing change in your life. No trauma or fear or habit is so deeply rooted that it cannot be changed.
Our intention should be a positive statement, and it should be directed at reaching the whole-life pattern, not only physically but also mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. We use it to help with our total transformation. It is stated simply, in the first-person, present tense, as if it were already occurring. Sometimes the idea for a sankalpa can pop nicely into our mind as we are moving into yoga nidra. Other times, it can set us off thinking, Well, maybe this or maybe that, trying to decide what the here-all, end-all, be-all best resolution might be. Uh, not a good idea. Give a little thought to what you are trying to work on in your life, before you start your yoga nidra practice. Maybe healing, maybe calming, maybe changing, whatever. Following are a couple of examples that might work for you, but feel free to create your own.
“My mind and body are in perfect synch.”
“I trust the wisdom of my body.”
“I am committed to living a life of perfect health.”
“I am calm.”
“I am rebuilding my life and moving toward greater light.”
“I am healing and regaining health for the benefit of all beings everywhere.”
The setting of intention is generally followed by rotation of consciousness, body awareness, breathing, visualization, repetition of the intention, and finishing. This is a basic out-line of the way yoga nidra is most frequently taught.
INTEGRATING YOGA NIDRA: NO WORRIES
So at this point, you may be wondering when exactly you are supposed to do yoga nidra, and how you are going to fit it in with asana, pranayama practice, and the soon-to-come meditation practice. No worries. First of all, just go ahead and keep working your way through this entire book. Try all the practices—do each of them for a few days or weeks and see what you like and what works for you. Don’t be in a hurry. Imagine you are on a long canoe trip, cruisin’ down a gentle, slow-running stream or river in your part of the world. You paddle a little, pull into shore, hang out on the banks under overhanging trees. It is all quiet and peaceful. Birds sing. Maybe you see a moose, if you are in Vermont or Minnesota. Maybe you see a wolf or an eagle, if you are in Alaska. Breath by breath. Just easy. Try all the yoga practices.
I do think that it is important to do a little asana three to four days a week, at least. It helps you to get grounded and stable; it is great in general for strength, flexibility, balance, agility, and all around good health.
Whether you do yoga nidra or not, and especially if you do yoga nidra to help with insomnia, I happen to believe it is important to have a busy, daily program of asana and other physical exercise, like hiking or biking or swimming, or whatever works for you. Breathe. Get the body moving and keep it moving, so that when you rest, you rest, and it isn’t a jittery, restless type of rest. It’s real rest! I also think it is important to set aside a little time for a pranayama or meditation practice. Perhaps, five minutes of pranayama in the mornings to get you going—before work or before asana, maybe even before tea or coffee or teeth brushing. Then five to ten minutes of meditation in the evenings when things have quieted down.
Some people use yoga nidra regularly. Others respond better to doing langhana, or exhale-lengthening, before bedtime, or three-part yoga breathing. Some veterans prefer meditation. You will need to figure out for yourself what works and what doesn’t work for you. I would definitely give this practice a try. You might want to use the audio that is offered online. Listen to it when you have time to lie down and relax for thirty or forty minutes, or when you need to relax. Before bed is good, but anytime is okay, if it helps you to ramp down an experience that is pushing the boundary of manageable.
Like asana and pranayama, the practice of yoga nidra will become a part of your yoga toolbox. It can now become one of several practices that you can use to help balance out your nervous system. It is a little different from some of the other yoga practices. Yoga nidra is a passive practice, one in which you are led through the process by an outside guide. It is not generally a practice that you would lead yourself through, although it can be done. Most of the warriors that either I, or some of my students work with, find it an incredibly helpful practice. I know many veteran and non-veteran yoga students who just love yoga nidra, and listen to a tape every night before going to bed, or in bed (after whatever it is they plan to do once they get to bed), to help put them to sleep. They may or may not fall asleep during the yoga nidra practice, but they find it much easier to sleep after the relaxation-inducing process of the practice.
When I can’t sleep at night, I remember the techniques we do in meditation. If that doesn’t work, I listen to a yoga nidra recording. It is the only thing I’ve found that really works. When I wake up, I feel rested instead of constantly groggy.
LINE INFANTRY VETERAN, Operation Enduring Freedom
The Give Back Yoga Foundation offers a free Yoga Nidra CD or download to all veterans. See givebackyoga.org.