General Guidelines For Practicing Yog Nidra

1 - Kirti Tarang Pande

Official Website, Instagram, Twitter

Mandala Courtesy: Bhavana Agarawal, Instructor, Home Yogis' Home

1. Yog Nidra is usually practiced for 1 or 2 ghatika, i.e. 20 or 40 minutes.
2. Light and loose clothes should be worn for the practice.
3. There are separate Yog Nidra practices for – therapy, learning and for spiritual progress.
4. The practice rooms should be quiet, well ventilated, the temperature should be neither hot nor cold, and semi dark.
5. Television, music, mobile and other forms of distractions should be turned off before starting this practice.
6. Shavasana is the recommended posture for Yog Nidra. This minimizes touch sensations by eliminating contact between the limbs of the body. Fingertips are extremely sensitive organs of tactile sensations, therefore palms are turned upwards. In order to, eliminate the sight stimuli, eyes are kept shut.
7. During the meditation, the instructions should be followed with gentle awareness. Please do not concentrate or hold your breathe.
8. Staying awake is the most important aspect of Yog Nidra.
9. While focusing of sound, no sensory impressions are to be forcibly excluded. Thoughts should not be forcibly excluded. On application of force, just like a wild horse, mind too gets disturbed and restless. The best way out is- not to accept or reject any sensory impression or thought. If sensory impressions are coming, allow them to come, if thoughts are coming let them come, just don’t pay any attention to them. After sometime, mind loses interests in external world and automatically becomes quiet. This methid of calming the mind is called Antar Mouna. It prepares the consciousness to practice Yog Nidra.


Want to know more? Read...

1. Nyasa Tantra and Yog Nidra
2. What is Yog Nidra
3. How to stay awake during Yog Nidra?

On unrelated note, suggested reading:

1. Orgasm and Yoga



2. Yoga Kit for Surviving Heartbreak

How to stay awake during Yog Nidra?

- Kirti Tarang Pande
Official Website, Instagram, Twitter

Mandala Courtesy: Bhavana Agarawal, Instructor, Home Yogis' Home

At beginner’s level, it’s very common to fall asleep. That’s why at Home Yogis’ Home before initiating a practitioner into Yog Nidra, we start with ‘Antar Maun’ meditation. This prepares the mind of the practitioner how to rest in a relaxed awareness without falling asleep.

However, if you’re practicing ‘Antar Maun’ sincerely and regularly for some time and still struggling with staying awake, then I suggest that you try the following steps:

1. Take a cold shower before practice.

2. Instead of Shavasana, practice in a sitting posture with support to keep the spine straight.

3. Take a resolve before entering the practice- I will stay awake.

How to deal with falling asleep at beginner’s level?

With love, patience and acceptance.

Initially, while practicing Yog Nidra you will fall asleep. So don’t stress too much about. Just maintain this awareness that full benefits of Yog Nidra can only be experienced by staying awake. It is more powerful that way.

So, always enter the Yog Nidra with a resolve- “I will stay awake throughout the process”, eventually, this resolve with turn into reality.

However, till that happens, treat your mind and practice with love and patience. We are not training our mind, we are transforming it by becoming its friend and just hanging out with it.

If you are practicing it with a trained teacher, who have nothing to worry because a trained teacher knows- when you’re falling asleep and how to bring you back without pulling you out of deep relaxation.

If you’re practicing it with a recording, like the one on Home Yogis’ Home’s youtube channel, then a little effort is required from your side.

When you fall asleep while listening to it; let the recording play anyway. This will work at unconscious level. Then, replay the recording first thing in the morning after waking up, with direct attention. This will create a bridge between your unconscious and conscious mind.

In fact, Swami Satayananda Saraswati propounded this as a very effective learning method.

Want to know more? Read... 1. General guidelines for practicing Yog Nidra
2. What is Yog Nidra
3. Nyasa Tantra and Yog Nidra

On unrelated note, suggested reading:

1. Orgasm and Yoga

2. Yoga Kit for Surviving Heartbreak