Managing mood with Yoga Nidra on YouTube
Illustrations by Jennymarie Jemison /Medicinal Media.
by Megan Ross
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How a single YouTube yoga video is helping me meditate, manage my mood, and take care of my mental health
I was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder during a mixed episode in the spring of 2021. Prior to that, I had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after I suffered debilitating trauma during the birth of my son. For some time, these two diagnoses fed into each other: flashbacks could push me further into a mood episode, while a mood episode could cause me to fixate on my experiences during childbirth.
But in addition to the Bupropion, Aripiprazole, and Sertraline that I swallow each morning after breakfast is another tool in my mental health arsenal: Yoga Nidra.
Directly translated from Sanskrit to mean “Sleep Yoga,” Yoga Nidra differs from Hatha or other traditions. There is no movement and no exercise. Instead, you are seated or lying down in Savasana (corpse pose) during which you undergo a guided meditation. There's a method to this madness.
According to an article on the effects of Yoga Nidra on mental health and overall wellbeing, “Yoga Nidra works by gently guiding you through four main stages of brain wave activity: beta, alpha, theta, and delta.” In a randomized clinical trial, it was found that “Yoga Nidra appears to regulate [the] hypothalamus, in a way resulting in decreased sympathetic (excitatory) nervous activity and increased parasympathetic (inhibitory) function.” It follows then that Yoga Nidra might assist in addressing anxiety associated with a mood episode or PTSD.
Yoga for PTSD
Since 2006, an adapted form of Yoga Nidra known as iRest, developed by Dr. Richard Miller, has even been prescribed to US veterans returning from war to treat PTSD. While I have not fought in combat, I too have found Yoga Nidra to be a non-intrusive means of centering myself in my body and relearning to inhabit my limbs, my spine, and my mind after an experience that greatly troubled me. In turn, this has helped me to manage the mood episodes that could be triggered by reliving my memories of childbirth.
I’m not alone.
I spoke to Amy Weintraub, founder of the LifeForce Yoga Healing Institute and author of Yoga for Depression (Broadway Books, 2004) and Yoga Skills for Therapists: Effective Practices for Mood Management (W.W. Norton, 2012), who is a pioneer in the field of mental health and Yoga Nidra. “The research shows that Yoga Nidra is an effective adjunct treatment for PTSD,” she explained. “My students who have had a history of trauma find that it has helped them in their recovery.”
According to an article by Esther N. Moszeik, Timo von Oertzen, and Karl-Heinz Renner for Current Psychology, “Empirical studies on Yoga Nidra confirm positive effects on various physiological and psychological criteria such as insomnia, addictive behavior, chronic diseases, pain therapy, pregnancies, geriatrics, asthma as well as disorders of the cardiovascular system (e.g., Satyananda Saraswati 2009).”
The authors go on: “As examples for qualitative studies and case studies Datta et al. (2017) show positive effects of Yoga Nidra on chronic sleep disorders and several others find positive effects on PTSD for veterans (e.g. Stankovic 2011) and women with sexual assault experience (e.g. Pence et al. 2014).”
Mood management magic
The science seems to support my theory that Yoga Nidra may indeed be an effective therapy for regulating the nervous system and stabilizing mood.
“Although there is no research on the effectiveness of Yoga Nidra for this specific diagnosis,” Weintraub said, “My experience teaching thousands of students has provided me with anecdotal evidence. Not only does Yoga Nidra regulate the central nervous system and facilitate a deep physical relaxation, but it balances the mood. It does so by first attending to the body and the breath and then working with the opposites of emotion and belief. We cultivate the observing mind, so when rajas (anxiety, hypo-mania, mania) is present, we can locate it in the body, breathe into it, and then explore its opposite. Eventually, from a wider, more spacious state of mind, we can find the middle ground, and balance is restored.”
Sink into your skin
My Yoga Nidra video of choice is this one from Jennifer Reis, who is the creator of Divine Sleep® Yoga Nidra. Her gentle intonations on YouTube have accompanied me to my dreams almost every evening for years, calming me during mixed episodes and reconnecting me to my body when PTSD has done everything it can to disconnect me from it. “Relax your whole body,” she says, and I exhale languidly, bringing my attention to my thumb, my forefinger, and my palm with each gentle command. The deepening mental journey is paired with a growing awareness of the body: tension dissipates, breath fills my lungs to capacity. I slowly sink into my skin. Lotus flowers bloom. My heart fills with emerald light, my eyes, amethyst. For a moment, all is well; all is as it should be.
