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When you search YouTube for yoga nidra videos, you’re confronted with literally hundreds of search results. Most feature soothing or hushed voices. Some lull you with an array of sounds in the background. Most are intended to downregulate your vibe while some are designed specifically to induce sleep.
Almost all of these yoga nidra YouTube videos share textbook yoga nidra: They encourage you to find a comfortable lying position, similar to Savasana, listen as someone’s voice coaxes your awareness to your physical body, and let yourself be drawn into a somewhat altered state of consciousness.
Yet there’s only one of these yoga nidra YouTube videos that has been listened to more than 12 million times, at last count. Its title, quite simply, is “Yoga Nidra 20-Minute Guided Meditation,” and the video relies exclusively on the voice of a British yoga teacher set to a subtle backdrop of ambient music.
What is Yoga Nidra, Exactly?
The practice of yoga nidra dates back to ancient yoga texts. Although the term translates to “yoga sleep,” what it summons in practitioners is not quite sleep and it’s not exactly traditional meditation. Instead, it’s largely considered an in-between state between waking and sleeping that’s been the subject of considerable scientific research since the 1960s.
A number of studies have explored the physiological changes in the brain and the body during yoga nidra. The results repeatedly indicate that the practice has positive effects on sleep, anxiety, depression, low back pain, hormonal imbalance, blood pressure, reaction and anticipation times in athletes, and so much more.
Yoga nidra has also drawn attention for its role in neuroplasticity, which is the process of forming new connections as part of the learning process. Andrew Huberman, professor at the department of neurobiology at Stanford School of Medicine, has extensively studied the role of yoga nidra and other forms of non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) in learning. The neurobiologist has explained in several interviews, including with Tim Ferriss and in an appearance on the Rich Roll podcast, that yoga nidra also helps us become better at turning off our thoughts.
As contemporary research continues to explore the exact state of consciousness that takes place during yoga nidra, it supports the wisdom inherent in the ancient tradition.
What’s So Special About This Yoga Nidra YouTube Video?
Yoga teacher Lizzy Hill hadn’t been trying to crack the YouTube algorithm when she uploaded the her yoga nidra video to the online platform seven years ago. She’d recorded the class as a parting gift for her students before she and her husband moved back to the UK from Spain.
“I taught several yoga classes in Spain and I used to end each one with a shortened nidra,” says Hill. When students learned she was leaving, they expressed concern that “No one can make us relax the way you can.” Staying wasn’t an option. So Hill came up with a compromise.
“My husband played in a band, and he had recording equipment, so I asked, ‘Do you think we could do a class?’ I wasn’t very good with technology, but I knew that if you put it on YouTube and gave everyone the link, they’d be able to access it,” says Hill.
They and everyone else on YouTube. “It just grew and grew,” says Hill, who recalls being astounded that people would take the time to message her their appreciation. “I would say, ‘This is crazy. How has this become so big? It’s just little old me.’”
That was when it had four thousand views. Her acclaim grew when Indian singer, songwriter, and record producer Armaan Malik mentioned her video. And, Hill explains, then Huberman mentioned yoga nidra during a Rich Roll podcast interview a few years ago that was listened to by millions.
Currently, Hill’s video has more than 70 thousand likes and two thousand comments, many from users who rely on the yoga nidra YouTube video regularly—some as regularly as every night for four years, according to the comments.
Other frequent users include a mom whose young son couldn’t sleep until she played Hill’s video for him, university students during exam time, those undergoing chemotherapy, and a therapist who benefited so profoundly from the practice that she shared it with clients as additional support for anxiety, PTSD, and depression. A university is currently using the video in its research on the benefits of meditative forms of deep rest.
And one regular listener inadvertently memorized Hill’s narration from listening to it so often and was able to recite it to herself, word for word, in a MRI scanner to calm her claustrophobia.
Many commenters mention they appreciate the simplicity of the narration. Hill attributes that to her own teacher. After graduating from formal yoga teacher training in 2001, she later sought additional training in the Sivananda style of yoga from teacher Sharon Fisher. A large part of that training, she explains, was yoga nidra.
A commonly expressed sentiment is “I tried a million yoga Nidra videos. This is the best.” Other commenters are more explicit in their appreciation for what it offers, such as “I feel like I just unlocked my body from stress and thoughts in my brain,” said one user. And “I feel less physical anxiety and more ease being me,” explained another. The majority of comments on her video end with “Thank you, Lizzy.”
And, on occasion, someone expresses a little more specifically what the video means to them, as in“If everyone on this planet did this session once a day, it would be a much better place to live.”
Hill is adamant that the magic is not her. “This is the power of yoga nidra,” she says. “This practice is just incredible. It’s simple. It’s powerful.”
Her followers may argue with her modesty. Hill released another yoga nidra YouTube video, one designed especially for sleep, a little more than a year ago. It’s already drawn close to a million views and, not surprisingly, much appreciation. Hill intends to release another yoga nidra recording in the months to come. In the meantime, there’s still the classic.
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