Holistic Approach
  • July 2025

Have you heard my secret weapon to combat Jet lag?

There is lots of advice out there about how to manage jet lag. From changing the time on your watch to local time at your final destination, to waking up earlier when traveling east, to traveling with special lights to support your circadian rhythms.

Many scientists have invested a lot of time and energy in identifying small things that will make a difference and help you to assimilate into your new time zone more quickly and effectively.

However, while these are all helpful pieces of advice, they miss the fact that disrupted sleep patterns are the root cause of jet lag. When traveling west we are lengthening our day and when traveling east we are shortening it, both of which have implications on our sleep schedules. 

My strategy for managing jet lag is therefore to go to the root cause of the challenge and to manage sleep patterns. 

What is Yoga Nidra?

Yoga Nidra – otherwise called Sleep Meditation, is my secret weapon for jet lag. 
Sleep meditation is both a deep relaxation and meditation technique. It uses body, breath and awareness exercises to relax our bodies to the point where our bodies think we are falling asleep and the sleep reflex kicks in. When this happens, we catch the wave of a sleep cycle and our own bodies guide us effortlessly to the low brainwave frequencies normally only experienced in sleep. 
Time spent in Yoga Nidra is equivalent to two or three times the normal sleep time. Strategically using Yoga Nidra to manage your sleep, to get a full night’s sleep on a flight or to have a power nap when you arrive at your destination, means that you more easily assimilate into your new time zone.
The powerful practice of Yoga Nidra can help us to manage our sleep patterns so that we get the requisite hours of sleep when we’re supposed to and helps us to be alert and awake when we need to be.


Grainne - About

Yoga Nidra can be done any time, anywhere, making it the ultimate flexible tool in your wellbeing toolkit.

How does Yoga Nidra help?

Yoga Nidra boosts productivity and supports wellbeing when:

  • You’re suffering from jet lag: Yoga Nidra supports you in bringing your body into sync with the new time zone by either having more sleep hours during your flight or by enabling you to stay up later by having the ultimate power nap. 
  • You have difficulty falling asleep at night or returning to sleep when you wake up:  Yoga Nidra guides you back into a sleep cycle and also strengthens and restores the body’s falling asleep reflex, improving the quality of your sleep over time. 
  • You feel physically or mentally tired and need an energy boost: Yoga Nidra is a deep relaxation technique that activates the parasympathetic nervous system, recharging your battery and giving you energy to get things done. 40 mins in Yoga Nidra is equivalent to 2-3 hours of normal sleep.
  • You’re stuck on a problem and find yourself going around in circles: Yoga Nidra guides you to lower brainwave frequencies where the mind is quieter, and you can access greater creativity, focus and concentration. When Einstein said, it takes a different mind to solve the problem than the mind that created it, this is what he meant.

 

Yoga Nidra can be done any time, anywhere, making it the ultimate flexible tool in your wellbeing toolkit. All you need is your phone to access a recording and a window of time where you won’t be interrupted, plus some headphones if you are not in a private space.

The more you practice, the more impactful the practice will be, both in terms of how you experience the practice and how the practice impacts on how you show up in your everyday life.

Disrupted sleep is the root cause of jet lag and also a key contributor to poor performance. Yoga Nidra allows you to take control of your sleep, and to have all the benefits of sleep at your fingertips, ensuring that you are always rested and ready to show up at your best.  

Get in touch to learn more or have a conversation about how I can help you. 

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Grainne’s support made a remarkable difference to my wellbeing. She helped me manage burnout during a crisis and provided tools to make me feel resourced and supported.

Grainne has been instrumental in helping me balance my work and home life more effectively. She gave me frameworks, offered thoughtful questions, and relevant resources that helped me feel grounded while managing competing priorities, making this balance not just achievable but sustainable.

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‘Beyond Brainstorming: Unleashing Collaborative Innovation’ was a real game-changer for our team! Grainne McAnallen and Andrea Langlois created a space that went far beyond conventional ideation, guiding us through powerful techniques that shifted our perspectives and unlocked new levels of creativity towards a shared challenge.

Their unique approach, blending group dynamics with deep, purpose-driven exploration, helped us connect not just to ideas but to each other in a deeply transformative way.

We left the session feeling re-energized, together stronger, and equipped to tackle a challenge, and future challenges with fresh insight and innovative thinking. 

This experience is a must for any team ready to take their collaboration to new heights.

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My coach Grainne guides and nurtures all of me, as a leader and as a human being.

I am the co-lead of a team of 89 FTEs in Europe, going through an internal change process in Europe and I highly appreciate Grainne’s professional background. She knows what I am talking about when I tell her about the challenges in my leadership role.

Her powerful coaching enables me to look at my challenges from different angles. I love the unique mix of tools and methods Grainne brings to our sessions – always showing up with her heart and mind. She lives her values and her teachings. We structure my organigram, we put major topics or colleagues into constellations so that I can see more clearly where I stand thus being able to act in a more thought through way. Grainne guides me through Yoga Nidra sessions that empower me on stressful days. I particularly enjoy it when Grainne takes me on a visualization journey that enables me to go so much deeper and discover hidden solutions.

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While the value of our work goes far beyond finances, the increased clarity, confidence, and effectiveness in my role have positively influenced my professional growth and long-term earning potential. 

I communicate more clearly, manage challenges more calmly, and approach complex situations with a solutions-focused mindset.  I understand people more and speak to them in terms they understand.

I feel less overwhelmed, more grounded, and better able to manage stress. Grainne’s approach helped me build resilience rather than simply pushing through pressure.

I highly recommend Grainne to anyone looking to develop professionally while maintaining balance and wellbeing.

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Grainne and Mark [Harrod]’s work with our senior leadership team at The Young Foundation created a genuinely safe and productive space for us to work on some of the key issues relating to culture and ways of working, both within the leadership team and more widely.

I can wholeheartedly recommend their approach, their professionalism, wisdom and empathy in this work.

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Grainne skilfully helps individuals and teams tap into a hidden energy, resource, wisdom and power to reach new levels of productivity and performance. 

She brings a wealth of her own knowledge, wisdom and techniques to resource the people she supports and does so with a calmness and energy that is always welcomed. 

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Grainne has a super style, she is an individual who puts individuals at ease whilst also being able to ask the questions which will open up both the individual and team thinking.

She also has an innate curiosity and therefore researched all the key information which would enable us to consider some key questions and get some key answers!

She is a skillful influencer as not everyone on the team was originally supportive of our approach but now recognise the value of the work we have done.

I think the proof is in our results, we have surpassed our wide ranging goals.

Personally I am truly grateful to Grainne for her support as initially I was the person driving this change, the great thing is that it is now owned by the team which speaks for itself.

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