Yoga Nidra
Mini Library
Welcome to Breathing Space Yoga’s Mini Library of Yoga Nidra Relaxation/Meditations.
I created this mini library of ten of my favourite Yoga Nidra’s, recorded for my classes, to celebrate ten years of teaching and Breathing Space Yoga.
I hope that you enjoy listening to them and the benefits they bring.
Love Sarah x
To enjoy over 30 more Yoga Nidra’s on my full Yoga Nidra Library you can purchase a pass to access them here £15. The Yoga Nidra’s on my full library are also downloadable so you can use them on other devices. (The ten nidras in this mini library are also there to download).
How to enjoy Yoga Nidra
Anyone can enjoy Yoga Nidra. As a minimum you need a comfortable place to lie down – this could be on a bed or sofa or on the floor with cushions and blankets. That’s it. You then just listen. You can follow all of my guidance and be comfortably, happily aware of your body and mind at rest. You are welcome to drift in and out, and enjoy a period of rest with my support in the background. You can even choose to drift off to sleep. Yoga Nidra is about enabling you to let go of physical and mental stress and encourage your sympathetic nervous system (fight, flight freeze) to dial down and your parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest) to dial up - promoting balance and helping you to reset.
A bit about Yoga Nidra
Yoga Nidra means ‘yogic sleep’. It is an effortless, guided yoga relaxation and meditation practice that anyone can do, by themselves with an audio recording, or with the guidance of a teacher in person. It is usually done lying down in stillness using blankets and cushions as support. But you can practice sitting up if you wish.
Yoga Nidra brings you to a deeply relaxed state of mind and body, whilst you are still awake. You float between consciousness and unconsciousness being aware of the resting state of the body and mind as it is happening in the moment. This state between sleep and wakefulness is called the hypnogogic state in psychology.
“Within that state, guided visualizations help support the body to rest and recover, while the mind is settled and ordered, and the heart can open. ”
The practice promotes deep healing and very profound rest, physically, mentally and emotionally. It systematically enables the body to restore to a balanced state of homeostasis. As you progress through yoga nidra the body resumes optimal functioning of the digestive system, breath and heart rate – you can often hear rumbling as the gut relaxes, a settling into deep breathing and tensions fall away including headache.
Yoga nidra adapts to the needs of the individual. It optimises sensory perception, refines emotional intelligence and helps you to become happier no matter what issues you are dealing with.
“Even if you sleep – just lie down, cover yourself up... When you think you have no time – that’s the day you need to do it more than ever. Count up the minutes spent dithering and re-doing, listing and planning and procrastinating and failing and feeling like death and you’ll find that the time can be better used lying down to a yoga nidra. Even if the mental, emotional or physical energy makes it really uncomfortable and you’re bouncing and squirming between floor and blanket… the magic will happen. Clarity and calm will arise. Sanity remains or is restored. ”
Yoga Nidra for insomnia and other sleep issues
Yoga Nidra is a wonderful way to support better sleep and to help overcome sleep issues such as insomnia. A yoga nidra can be specifically created for supporting sleep by guiding you into deep rest and then offering you the choice to continue into sleep, rather than bringing you back out of the practice. Practising yoga nidra in bed as you settle for sleep, or when you wake in the night not only has the potential to settle you into sleep, but also enables the body to rest deeply. So if sleep does not come, the body has at least had chance to recharge.
Practising yoga nidra daily helps the body to learn to relax fully, this helps the body and mind to become familiar with relaxation and thus over time the body may settle to sleep more easily.
Ten Yoga Nidra's to Celebrate Ten Years of Teaching
Yoga Nidra for Inspiration
In this yoga nidra we make space for inspiration and creativity. Whilst we cannot will inspiration to come to us - we have to let it find us- making some space can help make room for a whisper of an idea, a solution or a way forward.
Everything I need is Already Within Me
In this nidra I invite you to use this simple affirmation ‘Everything I need is Already Within Me’ - or an affirmation of your choice. A little dose of positivity and hope.
Summer Sunshine Nidra
This yoga nidra celebrates the abundance of summer, evokes the feeling of summer through your rest and brings the warmth and light of the sun into your day.
Seeds of Potential
In this yoga nidra you are guided into a deep sense of ‘being’, letting go of doing. You are invited to listen for any seeds of wisdom that are uncovered in your ‘being’ space, and to plant seeds of potential as you rest.
Simple Yoga Nidra bringing awareness to the body
In this yoga nidra there is a focus on staying with the body and finding a gentle awareness of the body at rest.
A yoga nidra to create space through the body
This yoga nidra will invite you to explore the space throughout your body in which to rest it was created for the Wisdom for Working Mum’s ‘Thrive Summit’
A Winter Retreat Yoga Nidra
A cosy nidra to help you relax in mid-winter, with an invitation to enjoy time in a little winter cabin retreat.
A yoga nidra for transition
With an autumn equinox theme this nidra invites you to explore breath transitions and the transition of the seasons.
A starry nidra for deep rest amd to settle you to sleep
A creative nidra for deep rest and sleep with the guidance to sleep.
Take a journey to a favourite place in this yoga nidra
A creative yoga nidra with a journey to a special place for release, rest and hope
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