Yoga Nidra – The Meditation Style You Didn’t Know You Needed
- Brainz Magazine
- 3 days ago
- 10 min read
Written by Johnna Key, Spiritual Guide & Teacher
Johnna Key is known for her calming and serene voice when guiding meditations. She is the author of the newly published book, Making Space to Breathe, and YouTube channel, Journeys with Johnna.
Meditation isn’t too common a practice in Western culture. I began meditating while living in the States, but it was through my travels in Asia that I learned the depth of meditation and just how beneficial this practice is for just about everyone.
If you currently don’t have a meditation practice, allow this article to shift your perspective. And if you do have a meditation practice, can you allow this article to expand that knowledge?
As far as meditation goes, Yoga Nidra is nothing short of a miracle meditation style.
This practice is a guided meditation that rotates awareness of consciousness through the body, bringing forth a sense of deep relaxation and transitioning into an almost trance-like meditative state. The practice incorporates breathwork to calm the central nervous system and to relax overthinking thoughts. It also encompasses a visualization practice that opens your intuition and creates a desire to slow down in life to enjoy it.
The bonus portion of this guided meditation practice is the San Kalpa, the intention, which is the opening and closing of the practice and, in my opinion, the most powerful part. This portion of the practice plants a seed in the subconscious that begins to reprogram your way of thinking and being, leaving you with the desires of your heart and a new, healthier version of yourself.
My name is Johnna Key, a Yoga Nidra guide, and you can find many practices on YouTube at the channel Journeys with Johnna. In addition, I lead traditional yoga practices, am a public speaker, a trip-sitter, and the author of a spiritual guidance book, Making Space to Breathe.
Meditation changed my life, and Yoga Nidra took that change to a whole new level for me and for those who regularly practice this guidance.
My first encounter with meditation, before I was introduced to Yoga Nidra, was so transformative that there’s a Before and an After. This was just before I left the country for the first time on my own, with a one-way ticket to Asia.
The before
Before I left to travel through Asia and live out of a suitcase for a year, I developed a severe infection in a tooth. It took weeks to even discover the infection, as I walked around with a swollen face. Once I went to the endodontist and discovered the depth of the infection, I set out to heal it using herbs and meditation. I had never done this before, but my intuitive calling was too strong to ignore.
My tooth had an infection deep into the root, leading me toward jaw surgery and bone grafts instead of my adventures through Asia. I knew this challenge arose because of the grief I’d been processing for the previous four years. I took the opportunity to process the layers of grief from my divorce and CPTSD while meditating my way into healing.
Ten days later, I was getting the repair in my tooth and not the jaw surgery, complete with a compliment from the endodontist for having the “healthiest gums having been through such an infection.” I told her what I did, and she sat back and exclaimed, “That! That right there is what I want to prescribe to my patients instead of pills, but I’d lose my license if I actually tried to help them. I’m so happy you followed this holistic path to heal your gum. This is truly phenomenal.”
I’m not sure who was more shocked, her or me. I set out to experiment to see if my mind could heal my body, and it did.
This has forever changed my perspective on the powers of meditation for transformation.
As a meditation guide, it’s been exciting and humbling to watch regular practitioners heal themselves and overcome challenges through meditation.
The after
After this experience, I went to travel through Asia and live abroad for the next five years. It was also the last time that I was able to truly meditate with this much focus and capacity, not because I haven’t tried, but because my world and our world slowly turned upside down.
Meditating over the past few years has been a challenge for me. The world has landed itself in such chaos since 2020 that I needed to explore more meditative practices to help me find peace.
That’s when I discovered Yoga Nidra while living in Bali during my Yoga Teacher Training.
I walked into the meditation exercise filled with anxiety and tiredness from the previous night’s storm over the rice field. As I lay down to practice, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to lie still that long. My nervous system was very deregulated from the experience of traveling overseas and processing so many emotions from my CPTSD.
That Yoga Nidra meditation changed me. I still remember it almost word for word today, seven years later. I walked in feeling extremely anxious, and I walked out feeling at peace with a genuine smile on my face.
This meditation is one that I believe, if we began to practice more often, could quickly change the world. As a collective, we are concerned with the world moving forward, and believe me, I am too. I’ve spent many days and nights worried or thinking about what our future holds, so much so that I continue to get off or stay off social media for months or even years.
We all need more tools to help us find peace during life’s challenges.
I’ve been a dedicated practitioner of this practice for years. It’s been the tool that’s helped me pull myself from burnout, ease the overthinking and anxiety in my body. Mostly, it’s calmed my nervous system out of fight or flight and slowly into thriving. I live at peace instead of in anxiety, and I cannot even put into words how amazing that feels in the mind and body. I’m not the only one who’s struggled in these areas, which is why it’s led me to present this meditation as often as I can.
How does yoga nidra differ from regular meditation?
Yoga Nidra gives a busy mind something to do while it’s meditating.
Traditional meditation is where the practitioner is sitting, usually in a cross-legged position, hands in the lap or on the knees, straight back, eyes closed, mind clear. If you can get the mind clear, that is. Recent years have proved this to be the greatest challenge for many of us.
This is an advanced style of meditation that’s awarded immediately to a few, many need time to work up to this style of practice.
I hear all the time from people, “I can’t meditate, my mind is too busy.”
There’s a reason for that. Oftentimes, when one hasn’t worked up to a traditional style of practice and immediately attempts to learn to meditate by sitting and forcing their mind to be still, the mind will take that opportunity to get really loud.
Anything that you’ve been avoiding, distracting, or ignoring will come to the forefront of your mind for you to be able to address it. The mind essentially says, “Oh, finally you’re still and quiet, please listen to me! Okay, number 1…” And it snowballs from there. The practitioner, who’s unknowingly begun their meditation on Level 9, gets frustrated, removes themselves from the practice, and it’s a while before they attempt meditation again, or they give up altogether.
The mind is the same as the body, it needs to be prepped and trained, not expected to do unrealistic things it hasn’t trained for.
Let’s say you decided Friday afternoon that Saturday morning you’re running a marathon for your favourite charity. You sign up, you pay the fee, you’re willing and present, yet you haven’t trained for the event. The body lacks the calories needed to sustain the run, you’re already dehydrated, and it’s only 6 am. You force yourself into the journey rather than listen to the screams of your body. It’s only twenty minutes into the run and already your legs are like jelly, your lungs are burning, and your vision blurs. You stop. You feel defeated, discouraged, a failure. You go home and don’t try again.
IF, however, you’d taken months or even a year to train for the event, your body would be ready to endure the long run it’s committed to and willing to work through the challenges you know lie ahead. You’ve prepared, you’ve practiced, so it’s not as defeating as it could’ve been had you not put in the gentle and slow-burn practice time.
In the yoga community, we love to say, “Practice makes Practice.” Perfection isn’t achieved, it’s only more layers of growth to practice through.
In the practice of Yoga Nidra, the practitioner lies down in the Savasana pose (on the back, arms and legs relaxed), eyes closed, with blankets or a pillow for comfort, to listen and follow directions. Through an upbringing of learning to listen and follow instruction, this can immediately land your mind into a muscle memory it’s already familiar with, allowing the Yoga Nidra meditation practice to be a gentle landing rather than a forceful push of the mind.
Letting the body lie down gives the rest that the body needs to heal, softening the posture to prevent frequent adjustments. As the mind follows the direction of the guide, the body is sleeping and simultaneously healing itself where it requires healing, without the practitioner needing to be hyper-focused on the task.
Scientists are newly studying the effects that Yoga Nidra has on the body, only to discover that this practice can boost the dopamine in the brain by up to 65%! This is a huge increase and one of the reasons I feel it’s a meditation style that could change our world. I go into detail on my YouTube channel about the benefits of a dopamine boost. I’d be honored if you checked out those videos to learn more about boosting dopamine.
The boost in dopamine within the brain is what gives this practice the most powerful healing benefits, such as alleviating the weighted symptoms of depression, anxiety, or overwhelm, promoting falling asleep faster and staying asleep longer, easing symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and ADHD, regulating the nervous system, and reprogramming perspectives in the mind and body.
This is where the San Kalpa comes into play, reprogramming the subconscious patterns within the mind and body. When you “plant the seed,” the meditation practice is what nourishes that “seed” to grow.
For example, if your San Kalpa was, “I am at peace,” then over time, while using this intention, the “seed of peace” is planted in the subconscious. As you practice more often, the “seed of peace” grows and flourishes. Before you know it, you’re in a situation that would normally stress you out, yet you find yourself remaining calm and at ease with yourself. The situation at hand may be one of high stress, but with a fresh perspective, you’re more equipped to manage it with ease and a calm disposition.
The way in which I help people with this is to recalibrate the nervous system to become more on track to where you need to be, bringing peace to the mind and body, and letting go of attachments to the outcome.
Our world right now is on fire. The vast majority of us are walking around with deregulated nervous systems that are causing mental and physical health issues to multiply and magnify. Many want to heal and want to help the world, yet feel stuck or powerless to do so.
We have a collective internal programming to help others in need, which is why so many of us are deeply affected by the injustices of the world. We each gain something of value for ourselves when we can help another, it’s woven into the fabric of who we are as a collective group.
However, despite this desire to help others, we’ve lost the fact that one cannot help another when one hasn’t taken time to help themselves first. I grew up with the saying, “You can’t pour from an empty cup,” meaning if you have nothing to give, you need to refill what can be given.
In this case, I’m referring to your physical and mental energy. If you’re overwhelmed, depleted, stressed, not sleeping, sick, overthinking, living in fear, the list is long, you cannot healthily give from these spaces because you need to give to yourself first.
They teach us this on the airplane. If you’re traveling with a child or are a caregiver, and in the event the survival masks come down, you are instructed to put your mask on first! Why? Because if you need to mask another, in the time it takes you to figure it out and not panic, the mask is fumbled, and you’ve passed out with both masks in hand. You have to give yourself the gift of survival first before you can help another with their survival.
In my healing journey, I’ve come to accept that I cannot save the world. It’s not my mission, and it’s not my journey. Very few of us will ever be on that path. Many of us, however, are on the path to help heal ourselves, our families, and our communities. This is where the impact happens that will ripple out to have a global effect, one person at a time.
I learned long ago that, though I cannot save the world, I am certainly capable of saving myself. Though you may not be the one to save the world, I know you’re capable of saving yourself.
Not only are you capable of saving yourself, but you’re worth it! You’re worth the effort to heal the spirit, mind, and body.
Saving yourself involves working on your nervous system, how you present yourself in the world, and how you feel about yourself, rather than worrying about how others perceive you. It also entails healing your body from the inside out.
One way to begin doing that inside-out healing is with Yoga Nidra.
Pull yourself out of the doom scrolling, distractions, or fear of the present or the future. Put yourself into a space of healing and remain calm through life’s many challenges and changes.
As more of the world wakes up to its lack of sovereignty and increase of control, there will be more and more of us working to stay at peace through the chaos.
I hope you’re one of the ones standing beside me, living and vibrating in peace rather than the program of anxiety.
Read more from Johnna Key
Johnna Key, Spiritual Guide & Teacher
Johnna Key is a certified Yoga, Meditation guide, & Spiritual Teacher, leading others to calibrate their nervous system and ease overwhelm within the mind. Derived from her experience in the Western medicine system as a child and divorce from a narcissistic relationship as an adult, Johnna has learned and implemented tools to heal the mind, body, & spirit from traumatic experiences to exit karmic loops and generational patterns. Her passion is teaching others to find self-acceptance for their experiences and the emotions or perspectives that can surface. It's her passion to help others to calm a busy mind, ease the tension in the body, and learn to meditate to find joy and self-worth in the journey we call life.
