Yoga Nidra Gives a Lot, Without Asking Much
Do you wish you could feel truly relaxed and held, for free, in just a few minutes?
My dear sensitive friends, imagine you are lying in real comfort, wrapped in a blanket, and you can feel every part of your body soften. A warm voice guides you toward rest. Nothing is demanded from you. You are even allowed to fall asleep. This kind of practice can change the course of a day, or a night, without you needing to push through anything.
In my last piece I wrote about asana yoga, the physical yoga practice, and what it can do for a sensitive nervous system. Today’s topic is my top practice for mornings, evenings, and sleepless nights: yoga nidra.
Yoga Nidra: rest without effort
Yoga nidra is a guided practice of deep rest, often called “yogic sleep.” You lie down, get comfortable, and follow a gentle voice that guides your attention through the body and the mind. The aim is not to “do it right,” but to drop beneath the busy surface and let the nervous system settle. Many people describe it as a state between waking and sleeping, where the body can rest deeply even if the mind is still lightly aware.
What makes yoga nidra different from many meditations is that it welcomes you exactly as you are. You can arrive tired, overstimulated, tense, sad, restless, or numb. You are not asked to sit up straight or keep your focus perfectly. You are invited to rest. Over time, this kind of rest can soften stress, calm the body, and help you feel more present again, not by effort, but by allowing the system to downshift.
It’s also why yoga nidra often overlaps with the modern term NSDR, non-sleep deep rest. The idea is simple: even a short period of guided rest can reset your inner state, the way a small pause can change the entire rhythm of a day. Yoga nidra also seems to do more than soothe. Research on yoga nidra and NSDR-style deep rest suggests it can support things like attention and even learning and memory performance, which makes sense to me: when my system finally downshifts, my mind works differently too.
A different kind of healing
Behind the paywall, I share how yoga nidra looks in my real life, why it’s especially supportive for highly sensitive women learning to rest, how it can actually change the course of your day and why it became one of my most reliable anchors for sleep, energy, and emotional balance.