30 minutes
SDS 450: Yoga Nidra
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Welcome back to the FiveMinuteFriday episode of the SuperDataScience Podcast!
Today I’m joined by Steve Fazzari, a yoga practitioner, and instructor.
I brought Steve on to discuss Yoga Nidra, something I enjoy but didn’t feel I could speak authoritatively about on my own. He’s been teaching yoga for 15 years and for the past 7 or so years teaching Yoga Nidra training for instructors through a 30-hour long course. Yoga Nidra is great for pretty much anyone as it doesn’t rely on flexibility or strength the way other yoga practices do.
Yoga Nidra has a lot of Steve’s favorite things about yoga—technique, brain physiology, philosophy — all the “coolest parts of yoga.” So, what is it? We tend to think of yoga solely as postures, but yoga itself simply means “union”, between you and your infinite potential. Postures and breathing exercises are just some of the ways we can reach this potential. Yoga Nidra is another tool towards this, involving us lying down with a goal towards deep conscious relaxation. Some say 20 minutes of well-done Yoga Nidra is the equivalent of 2 hours of deep sleep. This is beneficial because deep sleep is what stimulates growth, cell reproduction, and cell regeneration. And the older we get, the less deep sleep we can achieve each night. There are four major areas of the brain positively impacted by Yoga Nidra: the prefrontal cortex (the seat of cognitive function), the hippocampus (emotional memory), the temporal-parietal lobe (perspective and empathy), and the amygdala (the center of fight or flight response). The interplay between these areas is extremely important to our emotional health and stress levels.
So, how does Yoga Nidra function? Well, a group of participants would come to a studio where folks get comfortable on mats and go through a verbally guided session. The goal of Yoga Nidra is to pull focus away from the external world and funnel it internally. Steve achieves this by systematically guiding thought internally, focusing on body parts, and relaxing them. Visualization exercises allow the brain to relax and helps for intention manifestation. This is followed by rest in the mental space of awareness. Steve then leads his participants through another visualization and manifestation exercise to bring the mind slowly back online. The ideal time period for this is 15-45 minutes, depending on your mental capacity that day. Shorter than that can be rushed and too long can be demanding.
In the end, Steve offers ways to stay in touch with him and learn more about his yoga practice and offerings virtually.
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Podcast Transcript
Jon Krohn: 00:05
This is FiveMinuteFriday on Yoga Nidra.
Jon Krohn: 00:19
All right Steve, welcome to FiveMinuteFriday. Delighted to have you here for this very special FiveMinuteFriday, maybe the first time ever that there's been a guest on the show. And so I brought you on because I wanted to talk about yoga nidra, which we're going to explain what that is in a minute, but I didn't feel like I could speak authoritatively about yoga nidra. But I knew that you could. So tell us a little bit about yourself, a little bit about your background as it pertains to yoga and yoga nidra.
Steve Fazzari: 00:51
Hello. Well, thanks for having me, Jon. I'm really excited about this topic, and I'm really excited to share it with you and all your listeners. So I've been teaching yoga for about 15 years. I have been practicing and teaching yoga nidra for about seven or eight. About five years ago or so I started teaching yoga nidra trainings. And so I've developed courses. They are 30 hours long. I've written a book on yoga nidra. I think that this practice is incredibly significant. It's been really impactful in my own life, and I've seen how impactful it's been in other people's lives. And so it's something that I really feel passionately about sharing.
Steve Fazzari: 01:32
And so I teach a lot of different things in the realm of yoga, but yoga nidra is kind of my bread and butter. It's my favorite thing to really teach. And I think it is really impactful. I think that it's really beneficial for a lot of people, because yoga nidra is accessible basically to anybody. You don't need to know how to put your legs behind your head to get the deep benefits of yoga nidra. In fact, all you have to really be able to do is lie there and listen. And so just about anybody can do this and get really, really deep benefits from it.
Jon Krohn: 02:06
That's amazing. I didn't know that you enjoy teaching yoga nidra more than the other styles. You teach a lot of advanced yoga. So when Steve says that he's teaching, he's teaching people how to teach yoga. That's exclusively the yoga kind of teaching that he does. And I didn't know that, of all the kind of advanced practitioner courses, which must be hugely valuable for you as someone to be giving those classes as well as a student to receive those classes, those entire courses, I didn't know that yoga nidra was your favorite of all. That's huge.
Steve Fazzari: 02:40
Yeah. I mean, it's got a mixture of all of my favorite things. Like I talk a little bit about yoga philosophy and how it pertains to this. I talk about the applied technique obviously, and the theory behind the technique. I get to talk about the brain, which we're going to get into a little bit today, and brain physiology and brainwaves and all that kind of stuff. And so I think the aspects that come into play with yoga nidra are kind of, I think, the coolest parts of yoga. And so I just get really inspired teaching this. And I love sharing it because, I mean as I said, basically anybody can do it. And I think basically everybody could benefit significantly from doing it.
Jon Krohn: 03:24
Beautiful. So let's get into it. What is yoga nidra? What does it stand for? And also something that probably confuses people, it certainly would confuse me if I hadn't already also been studying yoga for such a long time, is that when you think of yoga, typically I think that means to people the postures, the physical postures. You think of the asana. Because when you sign up for a yoga class, that might be all that it says. It says yoga class. And you go in and it kind of feels like you're stretching, I guess. But that is only one part of the vast yoga ecosystem. So maybe, yeah, so explain that. Why is this called yoga? And also what yoga nidra means and what it is.
Steve Fazzari: 04:06
Cool. Great question. Yeah. Yoga, we tend to think of yoga as the postures in the Western world. When in fact the yoga itself, yoga itself just means union. To me, the way that I like to describe it is that the union is between you and your infinite potential. And so it's you recognizing what potential is at the core and how you can project that potential into your reality. And so the postures are one of the ways that we can access this understanding as our breathing exercises, as our meditations and concentration exercises. And so yoga nidra is just one of those styles of meditation, I would say. Typically we think of meditation as we sit there and we kind of do nothing. Yoga nidra is slightly different in that way. We don't sit, we lie down. And it's not self-directed, it's typically led.
Steve Fazzari: 05:09
So what yoga nidra is is the science of deep conscious relaxation. Something that you kind of hear as a tagline when people talk about yoga nidra a lot is that 20 minutes of yoga nidra is the equivalent to two hours of deep sleep. And so the science behind that is that we have three different components of our night sleep. We have light sleep, which is minimally beneficial. It has benefits, but not tons. We have REM sleep, which is when we would be dreaming. We're still kind of active, obviously, our mind is going. And so we're getting rested, but still not to the maximum capacity. And then we have deep sleep, and that is the smallest proportion of our night's sleep, but it is also the most impactful component of the night's sleep. And so that is where the most rest and recovery takes place.
Steve Fazzari: 05:59
There is a tendency for an age related decline in deep sleep. However, this is not guaranteed. And so science has shown that, with practice, you can increase the capacity of your deep sleep, your deep rested states. In as little as a month of practice, this can be increased quite dramatically. And so this is something that can be measured with brainwave states. And the relationship between the amount of deep sleep that you have and the quality of rest, the depth of rest, is quite straightforward. And so the more deep sleep you have, the more well rested you are and the more well recovered you get.
Steve Fazzari: 06:42
So again, the science behind the restedness in deep sleep is that, what happens when you get into deep sleep, is that the hypothalamus releases growth hormone releasing hormone, and that signals the pituitary to release growth hormone. And so the growth hormone, which is also known as somatotropin, stimulates growth, cell reproduction, and cell regeneration, among many other roles. And it plays a really crucial role in human development. Studies have suggested the growth hormone plays an important role in mental and emotional wellbeing, and maintaining a higher energy level. Adults with a deficiency in growth hormone have been shown to have higher rates of depression than those without. And growth hormone has been demonstrated to have the ability to improve cognitive function, including learning and memory.
Steve Fazzari: 07:32
And so you can see that the more effectively you can release growth hormone, the more it can have wide reaching implications in your brain and your body at the cellular level, at the neurological level. There's a lot of different ways that this component itself is naturally supposed to be helping us heal and recover.
Jon Krohn: 07:55
Brilliant. Yeah. I was going to ask you about evidence-based benefits of yoga nidra, bit you've already nailed them on the head. So to kind of, I'll try to summarize some of the main points and you can catch the ones that I miss. So, as people age, they tend to have less deep sleep, which is the most restorative sleep stage. And so the older you get, the more that declines. I guess, the more that the quantity of it declines, or the quality as well?
Steve Fazzari: 08:29
The quantity, yeah.
Jon Krohn: 08:31
The quantity. I guess because you're measuring brainwaves, and so you get this particular characteristic delta wave, I guess, in deep sleep?
Steve Fazzari: 08:40
That is what mostly it.
Jon Krohn: 08:42
And so the number of delta waves, the periods of delta waves that you're having while you're sleeping, that quantity goes down as you get older. But, by practicing yoga nidra, studies have shown that with just a month of regular yoga nidra practice, you can end up with that decline becoming less than decline, or maybe being eliminated?
Steve Fazzari: 09:06
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And not only are we working with brainwaves and brainwave states, but we're also actually working with the components of brain structure. And so there are four major areas of the brain that are positively impacted through a practice of yoga nidra. They are the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is at the front of the brain. It's what differentiates us from the apes that we evolved from. We have a significantly larger prefrontal cortex. And the prefrontal cortex governs higher cognitive function. It's our emotional and social intelligence. It's what allows us to be more community-based. Empathy and insight, those kind of things, are governed by the prefrontal cortex. The hippocampus, which deals with emotional regulation, learning, and memory. The temporal parietal lobe, which deals with perspective, empathy, and compassion. Perspective in this scenario referring to your ability to separate yourself from your problems, your conditions, so that you're not defining yourself by, "I am my problems." Right?
Steve Fazzari: 10:13
And so these three areas measurably can be increased in gray matter, which is the capacity for neuronal activity, basically. And then the fourth component of the brain that is affected through yoga nidra is the amygdala. The amygdala is the fight or flight response center. And so when a stressor comes, the amygdala fires up. What happens when that occurs is that it kind of dampens the prefrontal cortex and other aspects of the brain, because it's not really important that you have empathy and social awareness when there is some sort of really acute danger. The problem is that, in this day and age, a lot of the stresses that activate the amygdala are things like financial issues or relationship problems or job stresses or something like that. And so these emotional stressors are something that we don't necessarily get away from, like we would have in previous times ran away from a predator and then gotten safe.
Steve Fazzari: 11:17
And so what happens is the amygdala is overactive. And so the amygdala being over-reactive dampens the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is what is your higher cognitive function. The amygdala is like the lower reactive mind. And so we have this impact of the brain where we're not actually as emotionally well-balanced, or we don't have as a tuned communication, because the stressors in our mind are tipping us into this fight or flight space. And so what happens is we don't necessarily reduce the size of the amygdala, but we normalize the function of the amygdala, because the amygdala obviously has incredibly important roles in our life. We just want it to be working properly. And so as we normalize the function of the amygdala, it reduces the inhibitory pathways towards the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex, as it's growing in strength through the increase in gray matter, is then sending its inhibitory pathways backwards towards the amygdala. And so the amygdala is reducing in its overreactivity. The prefrontal cortex is then able to increase in its functioning capacity.
Steve Fazzari: 12:30
And then that pathway is going back to then inhibit more of the amygdala and it's overreactivity. And so it's this cycle that allows the higher cognitive functions to take the driver's seat instead of allowing the amygdala to make all of the important decisions.
Jon Krohn: 12:50
Brilliant. Yeah. So four brain areas that we can see are positively impacted through conscious and deep relaxation, like yoga nidra. And in particular, you highlighted how this interplay, which is usually useful to us evolutionarily between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex, that amygdala in times past perhaps being only activated for brief periods of time. But today it can be active all the time because you're not getting that like on your Instagram posts from the person that you wanted to get the like from, and it's been several days now. And what's going on? And that whole time the amygdala's firing and taking over the prefrontal cortex and making you talk nonsense to all of your friends all the time, instead of getting on with things and enjoying life. So, brilliant.
Jon Krohn: 13:47
So that's a great summary of the benefits of yoga nidra. So to give us a little taste, so we have some sense. Okay, so we know that you lay down for yoga nidra. You know that there's not changing in postures or stretching like we would have with the yoga asana that we often associate with the term yoga. But maybe you can give us a sense. So what kind of circumstances? So we would typically, I guess, a group of people, a group of yoga nidra participants would come to probably a yoga studio, but it wouldn't need to be a yoga studio. And then maybe mats would be rolled out and you get comfortable on the floor, maybe on some blocks and bolsters. Put a blanket over top. And then people lay down and you guide them through, so verbally. So you have a verbal, maybe a script, or at least a guideline of something to describe. And maybe, yeah.
Jon Krohn: 14:53
So tell us, and correct me where I was wrong in the things that I was saying, but kind of feeling what that experience of yoga nidra is like as a participant, and then what you do as the person who's leading the yoga nidra session.
Steve Fazzari: 15:05
Yeah. Okay, great. So basically what happens is like a lot of our life we're in our really external awareness. And so what happens is, I mean, with yoga in general and with yoga nidra as well, is that we're trying to take our awareness from the external world and really focus that internally. And so what happens is that we have a continuum that we work on. And it transitions slowly from our more external reality to our more internal reality. And so you would lie down and, exactly as you said, you want to get comfortable. You don't actually really need anything. You don't need a mat if you don't want it, but a mat or blankets or bolsters, blocks, cushions, anything that you need to get comfortable. Because I mean, if you're uncomfortable, you're just going to be distracted by discomfort, and that's not going to be helpful.
Steve Fazzari: 15:57
So you lie down, you get comfortable, you try to remain still. And then I would lead you through the body. And as we're focusing on areas of the body, we're consciously inviting those areas of the body to relax and then letting them remain relaxed. And so we move through the whole body, the whole body starts to settle. And then we do a visualization exercise that helps to relax the brain. And in addition, not only does it help relax the brain, but it allows us to increase how vividly we can visualize things. And that is important in terms of being able to manifest, manifest intentions, whether they're tangible or intangible things that we want to create in our life. That's an important thing that we're trying to create with the practice of yoga nidra. How do we clear ourselves and then direct ourselves in a beneficial way?
Steve Fazzari: 16:55
And so we visualize. It's helping to increase our insight, ultimately. Our ability to form really clear pictures of where we want to go. Our mind is calming. And then we get to rest in the space of awareness itself, ideally. Sometimes it's hard to obviously shut everything off. But if we have created a conducive space for that, the body relaxes, the mind relaxes, we get to rest in awareness itself without that awareness having to be on something in particular. And then we rest in that space for a few moments. That's obviously a lot of healing and regenerative benefits in that period of time.
Steve Fazzari: 17:36
And then before we get too active again, we bring our attention back to the present moment. And that is when we start to focus on an intention. It can be obviously something tangible, like said. I like to think about qualities. I like to increase my patience, my compassion, something like that. And so you reflect on something that is beneficial. So you've recognized your potential, you've learned to in some way harness your potential. And then you start to learn how to direct your potential. And that's basically the kind of idea behind yoga nidra. After you've focused on your intention for a few moments, then you come out of it and the practice is complete.
Jon Krohn: 18:23
Beautiful. So how long would you recommend a yoga nidra session be? So what's your kind of ... I mean, maybe there's even like a longer ideal length. So is there some extreme yoga nidra length that might be ideal if people have time? And then what's kind of standard? What's the bare minimum amount of time you could do yoga nidra for on a regular basis and have some kind of impact?
Steve Fazzari: 18:50
Oh, good question. I would say basically 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes or so. Those are kind of my boundaries. 15 minutes being the lower end. It's really hard, I would say it's pretty, almost impossible to get everything that needs to be done in 15 minutes without rushing through it. And if you're trying to do something relaxing and you're rushing through it in an intense pace, it's not going to be relaxing. So 15 minutes is the lower end for me. Half an hour, 25 minutes to 30 minutes to me is really great for if we have the time. And you have a typical population that may not be super experienced with it. Might even, people might be their first practice. 45 minutes is the upper echelon, I would say. I've done hour-long yoga nidras as well. I find the challenge with the longer yoga nidras is for practitioners who haven't done it before. It's hard to remain still for that period of time. And then if the body is pressing into the ground in some way it can get uncomfortable.
Steve Fazzari: 20:00
And so I find for more experienced practitioners, a 45 minute yoga nidra is really powerful. For less experienced practitioners, half an hour of it is really great. And then you come back and you're just like so uncomfortable. And that obviously detracts from the ultimate purpose of the practice. And so my kind of sweet spot is 25 minutes or so, 30 minutes. And yeah, I mean, you can adjust a little bit as you need, depending on how much time you have. But that middle zone, I think, is something that's great for beginners and advanced practitioners alike.
Jon Krohn: 20:39
Nice. I've had a couple of great yoga nidra sessions with Jes Allen, whom you know, so a Brooklyn based a yoga teacher. And she started the yoga nidra session with some asana. So maybe 15, 20 minutes of gentle poses, down dogs. And then that led into the nidra session. Do you ever do things like that?
Steve Fazzari: 21:06
Yeah, totally. I actually have weekly classes of yin and yoga nidra. So again, some gentle postures. I have done it with more advanced practices as well. It's again, it's that transition towards deep relaxation. If I'm like running around in the mountains all day and then someone says, "Okay, now sit down and relax, or lay down and relax completely," I'm probably not going to be able to do that. I'm way too activated. And so having something to like catch the attention and then lead it towards deeper relaxation is really important. And so having some postures or having some breathing exercises or something like that as a preamble to the practice is really great, because not everybody's going to be able to just like lie down and instantly start to turn off their awareness. So prepping your space and prepping your mental awareness for your ability to get into this space can only, I mean if done mindfully, can really only contribute to the depth of the practice in my opinion. So yeah, it can be really great to prepare yourself in, I mean, in any way that is necessary to get relaxed.
Jon Krohn: 22:23
I love how, for me, and probably the vast majority of listeners, the thing that we would be transitioning from before starting a yoga nidra practice would be probably like a busy work day, a commute, juggling family and a job. But for you, the example that came to mind was, "So let's say I'm running around in the mountains all day." And so maybe, so something we haven't explained to listeners is, where do you live, Steve?
Steve Fazzari: 22:51
I live in Whistler, BC. It's one of the outdoor activity hubs of the world. And so, I mean I have plans to go snowmobiling in about an hour, so that is a real reality for most people in my area. I forget sometimes that not everybody's like this.
Jon Krohn: 23:10
Yeah. Yeah. British Columbia, it sounds like a wonderful place to be. All right. So you've told us that 15 minutes would be the bare minimum for a yoga nidra practice. But to just give people like a sense of how a practice is led, can you give us a little taste? Like just a couple of minutes on what you would say when you're leading a session?
Steve Fazzari: 23:34
Absolutely. Okay. So initially I would just set the space, get people to lie down, give people the ability to grab blankets, bolsters, blocks, socks, something to put over or under the body to get comfortable. Maybe give a little bit of preamble, like I kind of talked about some of the benefits of yoga nidra so we have some context of why we're doing this. Once everybody is still and ready to go, then I start to direct their attention. So I would start with the left hand and I would relax the left hand. Maybe the components of the hand, if I really want to break it up. The fingers, the palm, the back of the hand. Then the left arm, going up the left arm, lower arm, elbow, upper arm and shoulder. I'd go down the side body into the left hip and buttock, left thigh, knee, calf and ankle. The left foot would relax. And then that would be left alone.
Steve Fazzari: 24:33
Then the right hand, I'd break it up similarly. Again, fingers, palm, back of hand. The lower arm, elbow, upper arm and shoulder. Side body on the right side, right hip and buttock. Thigh, knee, calf and ankle, right foot. Then the whole back, all the muscles in the back, releasing of tension. Easing and settling. The belly and the chest softening. Relax the throat and the neck, the jaw, cheeks, eyes, temples, forehead and scalp. And then the body is settling deeper and deeper into relaxation, letting it remain relaxed, letting it remain without too much awareness or attention. Sensory input and sensation can be settled.
Steve Fazzari: 25:22
And then I would lead a visualization. So you imagine yourself maybe sitting on a dock in the moonlight, the lake around you still, the moonlight reflecting off the surface of the lake. The trees and the mountains all around. And the coolness and the calmness and the serenity of this space, allowing yourself to be absorbed in that energy, to be absorbed into the scene, to be settled into that serenity.
Steve Fazzari: 25:55
And then after a few moments of calmness and allowing people to settle into that space, ultimately the visualization kind of settles for a moment and you might be able to go beyond the visualization and just rest in relaxation and space itself. And then I'll invite people to come back to their conscious awareness, but to remain still for just a little bit longer. And then draw their attention to some sort of intention. It'd be something tangible that will serve your better interests, or it can be something intangible like a quality. Patience, compassion, discipline, something like that. Focusing on an intention for a moment or two.
Steve Fazzari: 26:41
And then once they have that intention clear, they can set it to the side for the time being. But you can always bring it back if they forget what is important and what they're trying to cultivate, what they're trying to manifest. An intention is like a seed. And the more attention you bring to it, the more you're watering and caring for that seed, the more it can grow. We have that, we come back towards our seated position and we wrap up the practice.
Jon Krohn: 27:10
Wow. That was amazing, Steve. Thank you so much for the introduction to yoga nidra, as well as that fast forward through what a session might be like. Perhaps we can have you back on the show soon to provide a full yoga nidra session for listeners to enjoy some time when they're definitely not driving. So listeners, let me know if you liked me changing things up by having a guest appear on a FiveMinuteFriday episode. And let me know if you'd like Steve to come back and guide us through a yoga nidra session. You can tag me in a post on LinkedIn or tweet at me on Twitter, where my handle's @JonKrohnLearns to provide me with your feedback. And so Steve, how can people find you online or reach out to you, or maybe find yoga nidra sessions of yours?
Steve Fazzari: 28:02
Okay, great. The main place that you can find me is on Instagram @stevefazzari. S-T-E-V-E F-A-Z-Z-A-R-I. You can also find me at www.stevefazzari.com. There is a yoga nidra that you can go in there. You just place your email in there and you get access to the download. And so those two places are where you can find me. More information on additional offerings will be found there. Instagram will have details on some live classes occasionally that happen, trainings that take place that I lead. And so if you want to stay upstate, those are the two places that you can find me most. Yeah.
Jon Krohn: 28:50
Nice. And there was probably a time pre-COVID where all of your offerings would have been in British Columbia, Canada, but now probably all of your offerings are available online. And so listeners anywhere in the world could do a yoga nidra session with you, or even do a 30 hour yoga teacher training with you.
Steve Fazzari: 29:08
Yeah. It's actually been great. I have students who live kind of all over the world and people who live in the Netherlands and Germany and kind of Asia that have been able to study with me, which before they would have had to travel all the way over here, which is, I mean, not the end of the world, but doesn't necessarily fit into everybody's capacity at all times. And so there has been a shift to increased accessibility, which I think is a beautiful thing that we've gotten out of this challenging time. So, yeah.
Jon Krohn: 29:42
Totally. Well, thank you very much, Steve. And I'm confident we'll have you on for that longer, for that full yoga nidra session soon. Either way listeners, I'm looking forward to seeing you again on another episode of the SuperDataScience podcast.
Steve Fazzari: 29:57
Thank you for having me.
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