Yoga Nidra Script to Help You Relax and Rejuvenate
Table of Contents
Yoga Nidra, also known as “yogic sleep,” is a meditative practice that can help to alleviate stress and tension, improve sleep, and promote overall relaxation and well-being.
This script below is designed to guide you through the practice, allowing you to fully immerse yourself in the experience and reap all of the benefits that Yoga Nidra has to offer.
If you are a yoga teacher, I highly recommend incorporating meditative practices such as Yoga Nidra into your yoga practice, as it’s a great way to help your student relax and de-stress.
Feel free to adapt the script to your preference, and you’ll also find a MindEasy YouTube video that follows the script if you want a reference.
Stages of Yoga Nidra
Yoga Nidra sessions generally follow a typical format of beginning with intentions setting, moving through a body scan, mindful breathing, and then finishing with some visualization.
This will vary depending on the teacher and the experience level of the students.
This script has six phases and should last around 20 – 30 minutes.
Sankalpas / Intentions
A Sankalpa is an intention that you will ask your students to make at the beginning of the practice. It should be a specific intention relating to their personal or spiritual growth.
Feel free to give some examples if you think it’s necessary.
Here are some ideas;
- I will achieve total health
- I will awaken my spiritual potential
- I will let go of that which no longer serves me
- I will quit smoking
- I will find peace of mind
Attention to Sounds
This section is designed to help students become relaxed and accustomed to their surroundings.
First, you will instruct them to observe sounds in the distance. Focusing on them in a non-judgmental way, moving between sounds whenever a new one is observed.
Slowly you will bring the observation distance closer towards the students, moving from outside to inside the building, and finally to inside the room.
Rotation of Consciousness
In the Yoga Nidra body scan, we move through the body in succession, rapidly focusing on each individual part of the body.
Body scanning in Yoga Nidra always follows a specific order, starting with one of the thumbs and then moving through each part of your body until you end with your toes.
Breath Awareness
In this script, the awareness of breath follows a count, a common practice in Yoga Nidra, but you can use any form of mindful breathing.
Counting does, however, refocus the mind after we’ve relaxed with the body scan, helping students avoid falling asleep.
Feelings and Sensation
During this phase, students will be asked to focus on the contrast between physical sensations like pain and pleasure and cold and hot.
These are sensations that are not typically felt together and helps stimulate different areas of the brain, creating new neural connection.
Visualization
In the final phase of Yoga Nidra, you’ll lead the students through a visualization designed to help them make contact with their unconscious minds.
In this script, we guide the students through a garden it can be changed to suit your practice.
You could have students visualize the stars at night, an endless desert, ect.
Repeat Sankalpla
At the end of the session, get your students to repeat their Sankalpa before gradually bringing them back to wakefulness.
Allow them to spend a few minutes in Savasana, absorbing their sense of tranquility before they carry on with their day.
You could also encourage them to write down any though or feeling they had during the practice so they can reflect on them later.
Preparation
To practice Yoga Nidra, students need to lie down on their backs in Shavasana, preferably on a yoga mat.
Students should wear comfortable, loose-fitting clothes and have a blanket at hand.
Make sure your room is suitably dark with the curtains or blinds drawn.
Feel free to light incense and have relaxing playing in the background.
Yoga Nidra Script
Please prepare for Yoga Nidra. Lie down in savasana or in an as comfortable position as you can possibly be.
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Keep your legs slightly apart, allow your feet to fall out to the side, arms away from your body, palms facing upwards.
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Take a few moments to make yourself even more comfortable; adjust your blanket, yoga mat, clothes, and hair.
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Is there anything you can do now to make yourself just 1% more comfortable?
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In this yoga nidra practice, you are functioning on the level of awareness…plus the level of listening. In dreams, you have no control, but in yoga nidra, you are the creator of your dreams.
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Say mentally to yourself, ‘I will not sleep’ ‘I will listen to the voice’ repeat to yourself, ‘I will not sleep.’
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Allow yourself to become calm and relaxed….take a deep breath, and as you breathe in, feel calmness spreading throughout your body.
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As you are breathing out, allow a deep relaxation to fall upon your whole body.
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We will now practice conscious hearing. Become aware of sounds in the distance. Become aware of the most distant sounds you can hear.
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Let your hearing go from sound to sound…searching out a soft sound and following it for a few seconds.
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Move your attention from sound to sound…without attempting to identify the source.
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Gradually bring your attention to closer sounds…to sounds outside this building…and then to sounds inside this building…to the sounds inside this room.
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Now develop your awareness of this room…without opening your eyes, visualize the four walls, the ceiling, the floor, and your body lying on the floor. See your body lying on the floor.
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Become aware of your physical body lying on the floor…total awareness of your entire body lying in perfect stillness on the floor.
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Your body is lying on the floor…become aware of all the meeting points between your physical body and the floor.
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Become aware of the natural breath; become aware of the deep, natural, spontaneous breath.
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Keep on listening to me, and know that you are breathing (PAUSE).
The practice of yoga nidra begins now…say mentally to yourself, ‘I am going to practice yoga nidra. I will not sleep. I am going to practice yoga nidra.’
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This is the time to make your resolve, your Sankalpa (PAUSE) Simple resolve….try to let one come naturally to you. State your resolve clearly, with feeling and awareness, three times.
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Now we will rotate consciousness through the different parts of the body, as quickly as possible; the rotation of awareness jumps from point to point. Mentally repeat the name of each part after me and simultaneously become aware of that part.
The practice always begins with the right-hand thumb….Right-hand thumb, 2nd finger, 3rd finger, 4th finger, 5th finger, palm of the hand, back of the hand, wrist, lower arm, elbow, upper arm, shoulder, armpit, waist, hip, right thigh, knee, calf muscle, ankle, heel, sole, top of the right foot, big toe, 2nd toe, 3rd toe, 4th toe and 5th toe
Left-hand thumb, 2nd finger, 3rd finger, 4th finger, 5th finger, palm of the hand, back of the hand, wrist, lower arm, elbow, upper arm, shoulder, armpit, waist, hip, left thigh, knee, calf muscle, ankle, heel, sole, top of the left foot, big toe, 2nd toe, 3rd toe, 4th toe and 5th toe.
Right shoulder, left shoulder, right shoulder blade, left shoulder blade, right buttock, left buttock, the spine, the whole of the back together
Crown of the head, forehead, right eyebrow, left eyebrow, the eyebrow center, right eyelid, left eyelid, right eye, left eye, right ear, left ear, right cheek, left cheek, nose, tip of the nose, right nostril, left nostril, upper lip, lower lip, both lips together, chin, jaw, throat, right collar bone, left collar bone, right chest, left chest, middle of the chest, navel, abdomen, lower abdomen.
The whole of the right leg, the whole of the left leg, both legs together….whole of the right arm, the whole of the left arm, both arms together….whole of the back.. the whole of the front… the whole of the head…together…legs, arms, back, front. Head, together…the whole of the upper body together…the whole lower body together…the whole of the body together
Repeat 2 times, decreasing the speed
Develop awareness of the whole body…and become aware of the quiet space occupied by the body. Become aware of the body..and the space that is occupied by the body…body and space.
(long pause)
Become aware of the whole body and the floor, the body in relation to the floor..and at the same time, become aware of the meeting points of the body and the floor.
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These are very subtle physical points between the body and the floor.
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Feel the meeting points between the back of your head and the floor….shoulder blades and the floor…the elbows and the floor…the back of the hands and the floor…the buttocks and the floor…the calves and the floor..the heels and the floor.
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Awareness of all the meeting points between the body and the floor, the sensation of these points simultaneously, evenly.
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Go on feeling these points clearly and distinctly. Please do not sleep.
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Switch your attention to your eyelids…the narrow line of meeting points between the upper and lower eyelids.
Feel the sharp points where they meet
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Intensify your awareness between the eyelids
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And then the lips … center your attention on the line between the lips, the space between the lips.
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From the lips, we go to the breath, drawing your attention to the natural ingoing and outgoing breath.
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Feel the breath moving along the passage between the navel and the throat…on inhalation, it rises from the navel to the throat, on exhalation, is descends from the throat to the navel.
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Be completely aware of the respiration, navel to the throat, throat to navel….do not try to force the breath, just awareness.
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Maintain your awareness and, at the same time, start counting your breaths backward as follows:
‘I am breathing in 54; I am breathing out 54; I am breathing in 53, I am breathing out 53; I am breathing in 52, I am breathing out 52’ and so on from 54 to 1. Count to yourself mentally as you follow the rise and fall of your breath from navel to throat and back again (pause). Total awareness of breathing and counting
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The breathing is slow and relaxed…please continue counting.
Awaken the feeling of heaviness in the body, the feeling of heaviness
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Become aware of heaviness in every part of the body.
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You are feeling so heavy that you are sinking into the floor.
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Awareness of heaviness, awareness of heaviness.
(long pause).
Awaken the feeling of lightness, awaken the feeling of lightness
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A sensation of lightness and weightlessness in all parts of the body
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Your body feels so light that it seems to be floating away from the floor.
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Awareness of lightness
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The experience of cold. Awaken the experience of bitter cold in the body
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Imagine you are walking on a cold floor in the winter…your feet feel very cold, you feel cold all over.
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Awareness of coldness, awareness of coldness.
(Long pause)
Awaken the sensation of heat, awaken the experience of heat. The whole body is hot; the whole body is hot…you feel hot all over.
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Recollect the feeling of heat in summer when you are out in the sun with no shade…heat all over the body, heat all around the body.
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Awareness of heat.
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The experience of pain concentrates and tries to remember the experience of pain.
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Any pain you have experienced in your life, mental or physical, recollect the feeling of pain (long pause)
Recollect the feeling of pleasure, any kind of pleasure, physical or mental.
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Recollect this feeling and relive it; make it vivid….awaken the feeling of pleasure
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Check that you are awake. Are you drowsy or sleepy?…. Make sure that you are not sleeping. Say to yourself: ‘I am awake.’
Withdraw your mind and concentrate on the space in front of your closed eyes, the space we call chidakasha.
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Imagine before you a transparent screen through which you can see infinite space….a space that extends as far as the eyes can see.
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Concentrate on this dark space and become aware of any phenomena that manifest within it; whatever you see is the manifesting state of your mind.
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Continue your awareness of this space but do not become involved. Practise detached awareness only.
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Imagine yourself in a park in the early morning…the sun has not yet risen, and the park is deserted, except for yourself.
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It is a beautiful park, calm and peaceful…walk across the springy grass…listen to the birds whistle and call as they welcome in the new day.
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There are gardens of flowers, roses, yellow, pink, red, purple…smell their fragrance ad see the early morning dewdrops on their petals. Nearby the rose garden is a fish pond…goldfish swim in and out amongst the water lilies, see their graceful movement in the blue-green water.
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You walk between trees, beautiful trees… bare trees and trees with leaves, wide-spreading trees, and tall stately trees. There is a clearing between the trees…in the clearing is a small temple with an aura of light around it.
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Go to the door, it is cool and dim inside. You sit down on the floor, close your eyes, and become still…a sense of deep peace and harmony envelops you as the sounds of outside fade into the distance.
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Continue your awareness of meditation inside the temple…stay there for some time until peace and harmony pervade
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Bring your awareness back to chidakasha, bring your awareness to the dark space you see in front of your closed eyes.
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Actually, this space can also be visualized in the front of the forehead, so if you want to explore it a little, you can shift your gaze slightly upwards…but do not strain.
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Watch the darkness that you see before you very carefully, with detachment, and do not become involved.
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Rest your mind in this warm and friendly darkness…if any subtle phenomena manifest, for example, colors or patterns, simply take note of these and continue with your awareness.
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If thoughts occur, let them come and go but continue watching the dark space, continue with this detached awareness.
Now, remember your resolve, your Sankalpa. Repeat the same resolve you made at the beginning of the practice in the same words and the same attitude. Repeat your resolve now three times clearly, with feeling and emphasis.
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Become aware of your breathing. Become aware of your natural breathing.
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Awareness of breathing..and awareness of relaxation.
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Develop awareness of your physical existence
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Become aware of your arms and legs and your body lying stretched out on the floor.
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Become aware of meeting points between your body and the floor.
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Develop awareness of the room..walls..ceiling….noises in the room and noises outside the room…take your mind out…become completely external.
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Lie quietly for a few moments and keep your eyes closed. Start moving your body and stretching yourself. Please take your time and do not hurry.
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When you are sure you are wide awake, sit up slowly and open your eyes. The practice of yoga nidra is now complete.
Griff Williams
MindEasy founder & meditation teacher
Griff Williams is an accredited meditation teacher and founder of MindEasy. He spent 12 years working as a London firefighter before changing paths to pursue building MindEasy. He received his diploma in meditation teaching from The British School of Meditation.
