Thomas Edison, who had virtually no formal education, was granted 1,093 patents for inventions that ranged from the lightbulb, typewriter, electric pen, phonograph, motion picture camera and alkaline storage battery.
Was it his practice of sitting in his rocking chair every afternoon, holding a large stone in his palm?
Edison would rock himself to sleep only to be jolted awake when the stone hit the floor.
In this way, he would access lower brainwave frequencies, normally only experienced during sleep; brainwaves associated with greater creativity, focus and concentration.
Edison clearly valued the ability to access lower brainwave frequencies.
Sadly, he did not appreciate that the Yogis had developed a practice over 5,000 years earlier that would have helped him to do this more efficiently.
NSDR (Non Sleep Deep Relaxation) or Yoga Nidra, is both a relaxation technique and a meditation technique. It is the sister science of Yoga postures and was developed by the Yogis to quiet the mind and support living at lower brainwave frequencies, also referred to as higher states of consciousness.
Yoga Nidra consists of a series of body, breath and awareness techniques designed to relax the body to the point where the body thinks it is falling asleep. At this point, the sleep reflex kicks in and the sleep cycle guides the body into a sleep cycle, accessing the alpha, theta and delta brainwave frequencies.
The Yogis appreciated the potential of sleep to support entering deep states of meditation. During the sleep cycle, brain wave activity drops from the typical 100cps in the waking state to less than 4cps in the deep sleep state.
Most experienced meditators report accessing deeper states of meditation in Yoga Nidra because when we fall asleep, our bodies effortlessly enter lower brain wave frequencies as part of the sleep cycle.
Each time you practice Yoga Nidra, your body takes you on a sleep cycle and provides the opportunity for you to practice staying awake at lower brainwave frequencies. Over time, you stay conscious for more of the practice, which means that you are staying conscious at lower and lower brainwave frequencies, frequencies that equate to greater creativity, focus and concentration.
And when you lose consciousness, you are giving your body all the benefits of sleep.
In this way, the practice is a win-win.
“It takes a different mind to solve the problem than the mind that created it”. Einstein
Why Yoga Nidra?
Yoga Nidra supports us to access ‘the different mind’ Einstein referred to when he said “it takes a different mind to solve the problem than the mind that created it”.
The practice was designed to support the experience of lower brainwave frequencies while also building the scaffolding, strengthening the neural pathways and muscIe memory associated with those frequencies, to make a permanent shift.
In this way, Yoga Nidra is the perfect tool at the perfect time to create the 21st Century Mind and to gain the insights needed to solve many of our pressing challenges.
I am delivering an experiential session at ESRAD 2025 (The European Society for Research in Adult Development) on June 12th. Sign up today for my session to get some more theory, to experience a live Yoga Nidra session and to have the opportunity to ask questions about the practice.
Find more details here: https://ESRAD2025ExperientalSession.eventbrite.co.uk
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