Yoga nidra is a deep relaxation technique that I have been doing. It's a guided meditation with the goal of achieving a state of "conscious deep sleep." It's as if your body is asleep but your mind is awake, though at a deep level - the 'thinking' part of your mind is not running wild, but you're aware of sensation.
One effect for me is a sense of extreme heaviness in the body. It is really quite extraordinary. Sometimes I feel vibration throughout as well. Coming out, my physical body is completely relaxed, much more so than after sleeping.
But the most interesting and significant thing is how the practice can affect my mind and behavior. After a session on Saturday, I found myself working on some tasks, including cleaning up my dresser, ridding out unneeded things I had accumulated, as well as starting to process video files from a concert last January that I had committed to putting on YouTube.
These were not complicated things, but they were things that I knew I needed to do but had procrastinated about for months. I attribute the yoga nidra session to taking my mind to a much more productive state - where I knew what I wanted and needed to do, and wasn't hindered by whatever part of my mind habitually diverts my attention from those things.
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