A nap during the day is good for your health! Body Soul Yoga
As a yoga teacher, I know how good a yoga nidra relaxation feels and know I should be doing more! So every Saturday afternoon you will now find me resting in Savasana, (and my teen daughter joins in too) and we have face packs on and drift into a blissful yoga sleep for around 45 minutes. I would highly recommend it! It’s become our weekend spa yoga lockdown retreat treat!
Don’t feel guilty about taking a nap, yoga nidra, or siesta during the day! Daytime sleeping or dynamic sleep, could actually improve the health of your heart. and decrease your stress levels as well as improving your back health.
The Guardian reports: “Researchers at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania have found that dropping off for 45 minutes to an hour helps to lower your blood pressure after a stressful event.
Many of our highest achievers have long-proclaimed the benefits of taking a brief time-out from the stresses of the day. Winston Churchill first coined the term “power nap”, claiming that a daily afternoon sleep brought him the clarity of thinking he needed for wartime victory. “You must sleep some time between lunch and dinner, and no halfway measures,” he insisted. Margaret Thatcher famously ordered her aides not to disturb her between 2.30 and 3.30pm, so she could snooze; Bill Clinton did the same each day at 3pm. Other illustrious nappers include Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Johannes Brahms.”
Yoga nidra had proven health benefits. It is essentially a dynamic sleep, where the body relaxes but the mind remains aware. It allows us to turn inwards, away from outer experience. Yoga nidra allows us to release 3 types of tension, that we may not even realise we have: Muscular tension, emotional tension and mental tension. As you lie down stress is reduced on the physical body and beta brain waves lower considerably. As your breath deepens and you start to breathe into the belly, levels of the “feel good” hormone, Serotonin are released, and aplha, theta and delta brain waves increase.
Lying down on your back also has benefits for your spine too. While we lie down in a resting position, it is said that the spine spreads out or decompresses. Gravity and the weight of the body and head can actually compress cartilage in our spine and in other parts of the body, whether we are standing or seated. So, lying in a restful position on your back can therefore plump up the spaces between the vertebrae easing the spine and back pain.
However, if you do have back pain, don’t rest for too long, as it is better to keep moving rather than going to bed. If lying on your back with your legs straight is uncomfortable try raising your legs off the floor and resting them on the seat of a chair, with a 90 degree angle behind the knees, or pop a bolster under your knees.
Don’t feel guilty about taking a relaxation at the end of your yoga class or during a busy day. A nap is rejuvenating for the body, mind and soul. If you’d like a free yoga nidra relaxation or meditation online class from Body Soul Yoga then please get in touch to receive the link and we will send it to you via email. See you soon.
Faye x
