The guided relaxation practice known as yoga nidra has been linked in small clinical studies to improved sleep efficiency, deeper sleep and reduced nighttime wakefulness, offering a simple option for people who struggle to quiet their minds at bedtime.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
A guided relaxation practice requiring little more than a comfortable place to lie down may help some people sleep better, according to research examining yoga nidra, an established meditation technique that directs attention methodically through the body.
A Sept. 22 report by mindbodygreen highlighted yoga nidra as a potential option for people whose thoughts remain active at bedtime despite trying common sleep strategies such as reducing screen exposure and adjusting bedroom temperature.
Unlike approaches that require someone to deliberately “clear” the mind, yoga nidra typically gives the practitioner a sequence of simple instructions to follow. A recording may direct attention toward breathing, individual fingers, the face, limbs or other parts of the body while the person remains still.
The objective is generally deep relaxation rather than forcing sleep to occur.
That distinction may make the technique particularly appealing to people who find that trying not to think simply gives them something else to think about.
Emerging research provides some support for the practice, although the studies remain relatively small and do not establish yoga nidra as a replacement for established insomnia treatments.
Yoga Nidra Uses Attention Rather Than Trying to Stop Thought
Yoga nidra is commonly translated as “yogic sleep,” although practitioners generally remain conscious while moving into a deeply relaxed state.
Sessions can last from several minutes to considerably longer and usually involve lying down while listening to instructions that systematically move attention through bodily sensations, breathing and awareness.
The approach overlaps with what Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman has termed non-sleep deep rest, or NSDR.
Huberman coined NSDR as an umbrella term for practices that intentionally place the body and mind into a deeply relaxed state without requiring actual sleep. He includes yoga nidra, some forms of meditation and hypnosis within that broader category.
His description of NSDR emphasizes guided breathing and body awareness while lying or sitting comfortably with minimal movement.
For someone lying awake with racing thoughts, that structure offers a different task from attempting to suppress mental activity.
Rather than repeatedly checking whether sleep is happening, the person follows the next instruction.
Personal trainer Cassidy Kmetz told mindbodygreen that she uses a 10-minute guided NSDR session as a form of nervous-system reset.
“You hear the birds chirping, and you just begin relaxing every part of your body, and quite literally washing your brain to find that feeling of clarity,” Kmetz said.
For Kmetz, whose work involves high-intensity physical training, the practice serves as a deliberate transition into a calmer state.
Yoga nidra does not require specialized equipment. A person can use a guided recording while lying in bed, on the floor or elsewhere comfortably.
Small Insomnia Trial Found Improvements in Deep Sleep
One of the stronger studies cited in discussions of yoga nidra was a 2021 randomized controlled trial involving 41 patients with chronic insomnia.
Researchers assigned 21 participants to yoga nidra and 20 to conventional cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, or CBT-I. They evaluated sleep using both sleep diaries and polysomnography, the laboratory testing used to objectively measure sleep stages, while also examining salivary cortisol.
Both groups reported improvements in total sleep time, sleep efficiency, wakefulness after initially falling asleep and subjective sleep quality.
Objective testing also showed improvements in total sleep time and total wake duration in both groups.
Among participants practicing yoga nidra, researchers reported particularly notable improvements in N2 and N3 sleep. N3 is the deepest stage of non-REM sleep and is often referred to as slow-wave or deep sleep.
Salivary cortisol also declined significantly after yoga nidra.
The researchers concluded that yoga nidra could potentially be used in chronic insomnia after supervised instruction, while the small size of the study means the results need confirmation in larger trials.
The study is important because it used objective sleep measurements rather than relying solely on participants’ impressions.
It does not, however, establish that yoga nidra is superior to CBT-I, which remains an established first-line behavioral treatment for chronic insomnia.
Another Study Found 20 Fewer Minutes Awake During the Night
A separate study published in PLOS One examined yoga nidra in people who were new to the practice.
Researchers enrolled 41 participants and measured sleep, brain activity and cognitive performance before and after four weeks of yoga nidra practice.
After the intervention, sleep efficiency increased by approximately 3.6 percentage points.
Participants also spent about 20 fewer minutes awake after initially falling asleep, a measure known as wake after sleep onset.
Researchers detected an increase in delta activity during deep sleep and improvements across several tests involving reaction time, learning, memory and cognitive processing.
The findings suggest yoga nidra may influence more than a person’s subjective sense of relaxation.
But this study also had important limitations. It involved a small sample, lacked the scale of a large multicenter trial and examined changes over only four weeks.
That makes the results promising rather than definitive.
Meditation Research Shows Measurable Physiological Changes
Yoga nidra also fits within a broader body of research suggesting meditation and related relaxation practices can produce measurable physiological changes.
A classic review published in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews described meditation as a possible “wakeful hypometabolic integrated response,” drawing on studies that observed changes in metabolism, circulation, hormonal activity and electroencephalogram patterns during meditation.
The review discussed reductions in metabolic activity occurring alongside maintained or altered brain activity, supporting the concept that profound relaxation does not necessarily mean the brain simply switches off.
More recent research has continued examining how meditation practices affect brain networks, autonomic regulation, stress and attention.
The evidence varies considerably depending on the meditation technique, experience of the practitioner and outcome being studied, so findings from one form of meditation cannot automatically be applied to yoga nidra.
Still, the broader research supports the biological plausibility that structured relaxation practices can alter stress physiology and states of arousal.
That may matter for sleep because insomnia is often associated with hyperarousal — a state in which the brain and body remain too activated when a person is trying to rest.
Why a Guided Body Scan Could Help
The appeal of yoga nidra for people with racing thoughts may lie partly in its simplicity.
Many people with difficulty sleeping become trapped in a cycle of monitoring themselves.
They think about tomorrow’s responsibilities, check whether they feel sleepy, worry about how little time remains before morning and then become increasingly alert because they are worried about being awake.
Yoga nidra replaces that open-ended mental activity with a repetitive sequence.
A guide might ask a person to notice the right thumb, then another finger, then the palm, the wrist and gradually other areas of the body.
The person is not required to solve a problem or achieve a particular thought state.
Attention simply moves to the next instruction.
That resembles elements of focused-attention meditation, in which practitioners repeatedly direct attention to a chosen object or sensation rather than attempting to eliminate thoughts completely.
When attention wanders, the individual returns to the exercise.
The practical effect may be particularly useful at bedtime because the practice can be performed in the same position from which the person intends to sleep.
If sleep occurs before the recording finishes, there is generally no reason to restart or complete the exercise.
Trying Yoga Nidra Can Be Simple
For someone interested in trying the practice, a brief guided recording may be the easiest starting point.
Ten minutes can provide enough time to become familiar with the structure without making the technique feel like another lengthy bedtime obligation.
A person can lie comfortably, close the eyes and follow the recording through breathing or body-awareness instructions.
Headphones are optional.
People should not assume they are performing yoga nidra incorrectly simply because thoughts continue to arise. The practice generally involves redirecting attention rather than eliminating thought.
Likewise, falling asleep is not considered a failure when the exercise is being used specifically as a bedtime aid.
Finding the right recording may require experimentation because pacing, voice and background sounds that relax one person can irritate another.
More experienced practitioners sometimes perform yoga nidra without a recording after learning the sequence, although guided instruction can make it easier to maintain attention.
Evidence Remains Encouraging but Limited
Yoga nidra is inexpensive, physically undemanding and generally accessible, giving it several practical advantages over interventions requiring equipment or extensive training.
The available studies provide reasons to investigate it further.
A randomized trial in chronic insomnia found improvements in deep sleep, total wake time, sleep quality and cortisol. Another small study found greater sleep efficiency, approximately 20 minutes less wakefulness during the night and improvements in several measures of cognition.
Those results do not yet show that yoga nidra reliably makes everyone fall asleep faster or that it can replace clinical treatment for persistent insomnia.
The research base is still small compared with the evidence supporting treatments such as CBT-I.
People experiencing chronic insomnia, significant daytime impairment, loud snoring or breathing interruptions during sleep may also have conditions that require medical evaluation rather than relaxation techniques alone.
For people whose principal bedtime problem is difficulty disengaging from thoughts, however, yoga nidra offers a low-cost experiment with relatively little barrier to entry.
Instead of struggling to force the mind into silence, the practice gives it something deliberately simple to do while the body settles toward sleep.
And for some people, the research suggests that transition may be enough to improve not only how rested they feel, but measurable aspects of sleep itself.
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