Using Yoga to Cure Insomnia

Practicing Yoga in general can be a good way of helping you to cure insomnia. Yoga exercises can help you beat stress, which is a common factor in sleep disorders.

Here is a simple but powerful method of using combination of Shavasana and Nidra Yoga meditation to overcome your insomnia problem.

Shavasana means “corpse pose” and it is a relaxation technique, in which the practitioner is more conscious of their body after having concentrated on certain vital zones. Like many of the poses in Hatha Yoga, it involves holding yourself still in that position and blocking out all thoughts, making it ideal as a cure for sleeping difficulties.

Shavasana can be performed on the floor as a meditation, but if your goal is to fall asleep, perform it in bed. Many authors who write about meditation advise you not to meditate while lying on a bed, as it can induce sleep, thus breaking your meditation. Since falling asleep is the goal of this exercise, we can safely ignore that rule.

Shavasana can be performed as follows:

Lie on your back in a supine position with your arms at your sides and your palms facing upwards. Make sure that your legs are slightly parted. Close your eyes.

Focus on your right arm. Visualize it in your mind's eye as best as you can and simultaneously feel the sensations that go through your skin, muscles, and bone in that arm. Feel the blood flowing through your veins. You do not have to spend too long doing this.

Inhale and clench your right hand into a fist, lifting your arm slightly from the floor or bed. Hold it, and then drop it on exhaling. Relax your arm completely and let it lie, as though it were dead.

Go through the same routine for your left arm, your right leg, your left leg, and then your torso from the base of your spine to the top of your skull. Tense, and then relax every part of your body in this order. When it is done, your whole body should feel completely relaxed. Take notice of the bed or floor below you, and how it makes contact with your body. Imagine yourself melting completely into the floor. Let the weight of your body surrender to gravity completely. Empty your mind of any distracting thought.

Eventually, one of two things will happen. Either you will fall asleep, or you will enter a state known as Yoga Nidra. Yoga Nidra means “Yogic Sleep.” This form of sleep is more like a trance. It is a state between wakefulness and being asleep, known as the hypnogogic state. During shavasana it can last for around twenty minutes, and like any other form of trance, you do not know that you have had it until you wake up from it. After a while of practicing this technique, I would sometimes find myself glancing at the clock when my concentration had been broken, to find that half an hour or longer had elapsed without me even knowing! This was not a bad thing, as sleep came almost instantly afterwards. Those who practice this on a hard floor, simply for relaxation find that after waking from Yoga Nidra, find that they feel more refreshed than they would have done after an ordinary night’s sleep.

Although shavasana is an effective technique for getting over a sleep disorder, it may or may not work immediately. If it does not help you get to sleep on the first try, keep on practicing for a few weeks. You may find that eventually your body, and simultaneously your mind since the two are both linked more deeply than you may realize, will get the message and slide into sleep more easily.

Try also one of Pranayama type of Alternate Nostril Breathing:

Sit comfortably in your bed and rest left hand on left thigh. Place right ring finger and thumb on either side of nostrils, lightly touching them but not constricting. Inhale and exhale, then close off right nostril with thumb and inhale through left nostril fully for 4 counts. Close off left nostril with ring finger and hold and retain the breath 4 counts. Release right nostril and exhale for 4 counts. Inhale deeply for 4 counts through the right nostril, close it off, and hold and retain the breath for 4 counts. Release left nostril as you exhale completely through it for 4 counts. Begin the cycle again, completing as many rounds as you like. Be sure to exhale through left nostril to complete your last cycle. Once you are done, relax both hands to your thighs and take a few deep breaths through both nostrils.

Here is another good link to yoga asanas which can help outsmart your insomnia :

http://www.yogajournal.com/article/practice-section/sweet-surrender-3/