Deep Yoga for Deep Tension: Yoga Nidra Explained

Yoga in English, Kreuzberg BerlinDepending on where you are from or how far you are in your own personal yoga practice, you may not yet be familiar with Yoga Nidra. But with all the stress going on in the world, and more specifically, in our everyday lives, finding ways to relieve deep tension in our bodies and minds is becoming increasingly important. At our English Yoga studio in Kreuzberg, what unites us as a collective is that we end every class no matter which style of yoga (Hatha Yoga, Vinyasa Flow and Tantric Yoga) with a guided relaxation using techniques inspired by Yoga Nidra. We also have an audio collection of recorded relaxations here on our website!

Yoga Nidra is the practice of conscious deep sleep.  It is a specific yoga in and of itself where we learn how to relax deeply by practicing pratyahara, or detachment, with the eventual goal of attaining a state of inner peace. When we practice Yoga Nidra we enter a state of very deep relaxation in which we travel through the layers of our conscious, subconscious and unconscious minds.

3 Types of Tensions
When you think about your life, you may think that there are a million kinds of tensions around every corner, just waiting to cause you stress. But the tensions that people experience could be divided into three basic categories:

  • Muscular
  • Emotional
  • Physical

Muscular tensions arise from the body itself, the nervous system and through endocrine imbalance. Emotional tensions arise from the duality of emotions such as love/hate, joy/sadness, success/failure, which we are not able to express freely. This inability to express our emotions means that they become repressed and get deeply rooted in our unconscious. Mental tension arises from excessive mental activity. The monkey mind can be a whirlpool of fantasies, confusions, and oscillations of thoughts which when uncontrolled can become a source of real discomfort and pain.

Techniques
Some of the techniques used in order to cleanse these tensions include the rotation of consciousness, concentration on different sounds, opposite sensations, rapid imagery and visualization. Through the practice of yoga Nidra the practitioner undergoes a cleansing of mental, emotional, and physical tensions.

focus is a technique used in yoga nidra

Rotation of Consciousness
The rotation of consciousness involves taking the practitioner’s awareness to different parts of the body. It is said that wherever we center our attention it becomes the place where we also center our energy. Bringing ones awareness to each part of the body increases the energy in that part and allows the participant to identify and relax tensions there.

Auditory Focus
Often in our Yoga Nidra class we concentrate on different sounds. This technique helps the students to withdraw from the other senses (vision, taste, feeling, smells) and only leave one channel, the auditory one, open. The idea is that the participant stays aware of the directions coming from the instructor, but practices detachment from all other stimuli. This focus can increase a feeling of inner peace because when the mind is not getting overwhelmed with input, it is less likely to create intense mental fluctuations and more likely to be calm.

Opposite Sensations
Students are asked to focus on experiencing opposite sensations in Yoga Nidra. For example heaviness/lightness, sadness/elation, cold/warm. As previously said, emotional tension arises from the duality of emotions. By asking the student to temporarily experience emotions that they are not presently feeling, and then to experience the opposite emotion, this technique is used to neutralize emotions. This often allows the practitioner to go into a deeper state of relaxation, one that lies beyond the limitations of their emotional world.

lucid dreaming often occurs with yoga nidra practiceRapid Imagery
Rapid imagery involves a number of different things being named in quick succession and the student being asked to visualize each of them, then let them go so that they can move on to the next one. Because the mind tends to wander on its own and create its own fluctuations, this practice can help regulate this activity. For example when the image “waves breaking on a deserted beach” is given, then one could start thinking of the last time they were on the beach. They then think of who they were with, the emotions this caused and then start analyzing that past situation. But before this can happen in Yoga Nidra practice, the next image is given, considered and then asked to be released. It is a method of learning how to guide the mind so that we can learn to visualize and to release images that produce subconscious reactions. This, taken into our everyday life, can decrease our levels of stress and help us to achieve a more consistent sense of wellbeing.

 

New Prenatal Yoga Class in English – begins in September!

English Yoga Berlin’s Hatha Yoga teacher, Pinelopi, will be offering Berlin a new pregnancy yoga class in English.

Where: Gorlitzerstr. 39 at the  Kreuzberg Yoga StudioPregnancy yoga at English Yoga Berlin

When:  Mondays at 11.45-13.00 (first class on the 7th of September)

Who:  Pregnant people and whomever is interested in their process.

What: This is a soft balancing class that promotes mental and physical well being. All yoga poses (asanas) are adapted for the pregnant body. Pregnancy is not a moment to advance in the practice of yoga , but rather a moment to use the practice for feeling in tune with the body, listening to its queues, and a way to learn to respect the body’s limits. In this English prenatal yoga class, the students will learn how to stretch through yoguic asanas, breathe deeply during movement, as well as the use of good visualization and relaxation techniques. The class consists of 55 minutes of asanas and 20 minutes of relaxation.

 

Childbirth Has Its Own Plan

Berlin Prenatal Yoga Classes in English

photo by Fern

Historically, we humans tend to be creatures that like to plan. We like to know what will happen and how. We want to be prepared for everything. But when it comes to birth, especially when it’s our first time birthing, it is natural to be full of doubts and worry. One of the ways to deal with this worry is a tendency to over-plan. We make elaborate intricate detailed birth plans, we communicate them to our doctors or midwives, and we attach ourselves dearly to them.

Is that wrong? Not necessarily. But it is limiting. The more attached we are to a specific plan, the less flexibility we will have in the moment. If even one thing goes out of plan, we might have a panic, a massive disappointment and even go as far as disassociating ourselves from the rest of the birth – meaning that we would not be present at the birth of our child.

Should I not have a birth plan at all? The problem does not lie in having a birth plan or not having one. It’s about the over attachment we give to our plan. Sure, you can choose a way you would like things to go. And, probably, you should choose a way you would like things to go, so that when you are given a choice you know which choice to choose. You can have an idea of what it is that would suit you best. But you need to keep in mind, that birth has its own plan. And the challenge as a birthing parent is to be able to be flexible and remain present during the process.

Fortunately, in Berlin, you get many birthing choices. You can birth at home, in a Geburtshaus, in an anthroposophic hospital or a conventional hospital. All these choices offer their own philosophy to birthing. But regardless of which you choose, there tend to still be fears bubbling away in the subconscious. Will it be a canal birth or a caeserean birth? Will an epidural be needed or will you manage through the pain? Will it be an orgasmic birth (and no, this is no joke, they actually do happen for a few lucky ones!)? But the truth is you do not know what will happen during childbirth. As you do not know what will happen during life. Birth has its own plan… regardless of how much we try to pre-plan it.

So what if we took all that focus from trying to predict what kind of birth we will have, and put it into learning how to have flexible minds and how to be present at our child’s birth regardless of what will or will not happen? In our Berlin prenatal yoga classes we will explore techniques of how to keep an open mind during birth. We will use mindfulness techniques to learn how to be present during childbirth and parenthood. We will learn relaxation techniques, that when practiced often enough, will come natural to us in times of need. And although we will use lots of visualization techniques and positive thinking to keep us calm and grounded, we will try to not get over attached to only one way of birthing.

Our new English prenatal yoga class in Berlin starts in September 2015. Pinelopi has taught Hatha Yoga in English for 8 years now and pregnancy yoga to private students at home. After having being pregnant in 2013, she is now ready to offer pregnancy yoga to a small group at our Kreuzberg yoga studio.

Audio Relaxations: Free, Online, Accessible. Enjoy!

Enlish Yoga in Berlin

As yoga teachers, we see a lot of stressed out people, and we have the privilege of watching the profound transformation that can be brought about by an hour or two of practicing yoga. People leave our Berlin yoga classes with brighter eyes, straighter posture, deeper breathing, an easy smile and a calm, clear mind. Guiding people through this transformation is one the best things about teaching Yoga.

One of our goals, as teachers, is to offer students tools that they can use throughout their daily lives–not just in classes or on the yoga mat. We believe that intentional relaxation tools can be learned in classes and then practiced regularly at home, to the great benefit of the practitioners and everyone around them! Once we have learned the skills, we need to practice them, just like a new language or musical instrument. The more we practice, the easier it gets, and the more you practice intentional relaxation techniques, the more you will notice subtle but powerful changes in your everyday life and in your body.

To this end, we have developed an online library of audio recordings that you can use in the privacy of your own home, to practice your intentional relaxation skills. The recordings are taped copies of 20 minute relaxation sessions that we give at the end of our English-language yoga classes in Berlin. Each recording consists of a short introduction, a progressive relaxation exercise, a visualization exercise and some aural stimuli. Every recording is different and they are all the products of our own creative processes, dreams, lives and yoga practices. They are anti-copyrighted: you are welcome to share them, but please do not make money off of them—a lot of personal energy and time has gone into each visualization and we’d like to keep them separate from the money economy!

The first page contains 5 free recordings and is available to everyone online, free of charge.

After that, if you are interested to have more, send us an email and we’ll send you the password to the password-protected page, where you can access the entire library. If you are a regular English Yoga Berlin student, then you are automatically entitled to access the library: listen out for the monthly password after your next class!

Spring Cleaning with Pranayama

Photo by Fern

Breathing is the first thing we do when we are born, the last thing before dying. Our breath is the main vital force that keeps us alive. So, it is a good thing to ask: How is your breathing doing? Besides the fact that of course you are alive, how are you breathing? Are you exploring your breath in its full potential?

At the English Yoga Studio we invite you to experience a very particular and ancient modality of the Pranayama Breathing technique. A powerful exercise that will help you unblock tensions lodged in your body, this work is designed to help you to connect deeply with your vital creative energy. A real resource of wellbeing, this is an opportunity to relax, learn more about yourself and open the way to big fun and inspiration in your life!

 

Join our first Pranayama workshop and breathing circle on Sunday April 28, at our Yoga Studio in Kreuzberg.

Time: 16:00 – 17:30

Teacher: Rakel Sosa

Cost: 20 €

Click here for more details about this and other Berlin yoga workshops.

Layers: Yoga Nidra Techniques Explained

In our last blog an Intro to Yoga Nidra, we talked about this valuable technique of conscious deep sleep. With muscular, emotional and mental tensions to calm, and the conscious, subconscious and unconscious layers to sort through, Yoga Nidra must employ different methods to get through all these potential areas of stress to bring us positive change in our lives.

Rotation of Consciousness
The rotation of consciousness involves taking the practitioner’s awareness to different parts of the body. It is said that wherever we center our attention it becomes the place where we also center our energy. Bringing ones awareness to each part of the body increases the energy in that part and allows the participant to identify and relax tensions there.

Auditory Focus
Often in our Yoga Nidra class we concentrate on different sounds. This technique helps the students to withdraw from the other senses (vision, taste, feeling, smells) and only leave one channel, the auditory one, open. The idea is that the participant stays aware of the directions coming from the instructor, but practices detachment from all other stimuli. This focus can increase a feeling of inner peace because when the mind is not getting overwhelmed with input, it is less likely to create intense mental fluctuations and more likely to be calm.

 

Opposite Sensations
Students are asked to focus on experiencing opposite sensations in Yoga Nidra. For example heaviness/lightness, sadness/elation, cold/warm. As previously said, emotional tension arises from the duality of emotions. By asking the student to temporarily experience emotions that they are not presently feeling, and then to experience the opposite emotion, this technique is used to neutralize emotions. This often allows the practitioner to go into a deeper state of relaxation, one that lies beyond the limitations of their emotional world.

Rapid Imagery
Rapid imagery involves a number of different things being named in quick succession and the student being asked to visualize each of them, then let them go so that they can move on to the next one. Because the mind tends to wander on its own and create its own fluctuations, this practice can help regulate this activity. For example when the image “waves breaking on a deserted beach” is given, then one could start thinking of the last time they were on the beach. They then think of who they were with, the emotions this caused and then start analyzing that past situation. But before this can happen in Yoga Nidra practice, the next image is given, considered and then asked to be released. It is a method of learning how to guide the mind so that we can learn to visualize and to release images that produce subconscious reactions. This, taken into our everyday life, can decrease our levels of stress and help us to achieve a more consistent sense of wellbeing.