I Tried Yoga Nidra and NSDR to Try and Fix My Sleep

When you go through most of life struggling with insomnia, you learn a lot about sleep. But just when I think I’ve heard of every hack for getting a solid night of shut-eye, the algorithm serves up another sleep innovation. This time, it was something seemingly oxymoronic: a relaxation technique called “non-sleep deep rest” or NSDR.

Basically, NSDR involves pretending to sleep, which can trigger a state of deep relaxation; some claim one hour of the practice equates to four hours of sleep. If that sounds too good to be true, learning that the term was coined by Andrew Huberman certainly didn’t ease my skepticism. The 50-year-old podcaster’s claims have been largely lampooned for perpetuating conservative-coded pseudoscience. But when I’m desperate enough to sleep, I will try almost anything except Ambien (I sleepwalk and raid the fridge).

Like many other popular manosphere concepts, NSDR was appropriated from eastern culture. Yoga nidra, which roughly translates to “yogic sleep,” is essentially the same thing as NSDR. (Huberman’s brand of NSDR has been described as a “Westerner-friendly term for the ancient Eastern practice.”) According to yoga therapist Alison Reaume, a longtime practitioner of yoga nidra, it’s a guided meditation practice that “activates the parasympathetic nervous system, the same system utilized in sleep, and has been known to slow breathing and reduce muscle tension.”

But Reaume has one important caveat: “It does not put you into deep or REM sleep.”

Dr. Alex Dimitriu, a psychiatrist and sleep medicine specialist, agrees that no matter what you call it, NSDR or yoga nidra, it is definitely not comparable to real sleep, let alone four hours of it. On the other hand, that does not mean that non-sleep deep rest is bad; it’s just being misrepresented online.

“Yoga nidra is not a replacement for actual sleep, but it is a better alternative to lying there stressed,” Dimitriu explains. With the guidance of Dimitriu and Reaume, I decided to test out the technique for a month.

How to Do Yoga Nidra or NSDR

Performing yoga nidra is pretty simple. You simply lie down in a corpse pose (savasana) with your eyes closed. (I’ve been to enough yoga classes to know this is my favorite “exercise” after a tough night.) In a class setting, a teacher like Reaume, who runs weekly yoga nidra sessions in British Columbia, would then guide you through the deep relaxation practice.

“It gives the mind a structured focus and actively guides the body toward relaxation,” says Reaume. “Even though the person remains awake, the internal state is very different from wakeful struggle.”

There are many free yoga nidra videos available on YouTube, as well as plenty of NSDR-specific options. The biggest difference between performing one of these exercises with a guide and just lying there is that in the former you’re being taken through a visualization exercise, like, say, the rainforest, which offers “progressive relaxation to reduce anxiety and calms the mind,” Dimitriu says. Given the variety of options, I opted to listen to both yoga nidra and Huberman-narrated NSDR videos for comparison.

This Superfruit Could Help Reset Your Sleep Cycle

Eating two of these an hour before bed goes a long way

Putting Yoga Nidra and NSDR Into Practice

Like most new habits, the challenge at first was remembering to do yoga nidra or NSDR when I was already tired and not anticipating any sleep issues. To make up for those forgotten nights, I decided to substitute napping with this technique as well. I don’t nap every day, but I occasionally need one after a late-night bout of insomnia (and the attendant doomscrolling).

The hardest part about this is that in my many years of struggling with insomnia, I’ve learned that simply lying there can increase sleep anxiety. So, before I got a firm handle on the visualization and meditation process, both yoga nidra and NSDR felt like I was walking into a trap. For this reason, Dimitriu recommends limiting this practice to 20 minutes per night (or during a nap). If you can’t fall asleep after 20 minutes, he suggests doing something relaxing, away from screens.

“The key here is to not get frustrated or stressed out in bed when you cannot sleep,” he says. The bottom line is, you don’t want your bed to be associated with stress. “Lying there stressing out breaks this relationship and leads to worse sleep.”

Maybe I’m partial to more traditional yoga, or just not a fan of Huberman’s voice, but I responded better to yoga nidra meditations than the NSDR videos. That said, I could see Huberman’s style being preferable to anyone who’s averse to a breathy, granola-yogic tone. It’s really a matter of preference: to each their own.

What was most surprising was that I found yoga nidra the most restorative as a nap replacement. As much as napping can be necessary for functioning after a sleepless night, it can cause something called “sleep inertia,” or a temporary state of confusion, fogginess, and reduced alertness and performance. Admittedly, a few yoga nidra sessions turned into afternoon naps by accident, but on the days I meditated and relaxed without passing out, the process was a game changer. I would not say it was equal to four hours of sleep, but it did leave me feeling more energized afterwards. This makes sense, as intentionally shifting into a parasympathetic state allows the body time to recover and replenish energy, as well as digest and absorb nutrients.

Funnily enough, this type of sleep-adjacent relaxation was most effective when I got enough sleep the night before. Perhaps that is why even yogis like Reaume agree with sleep experts that yoga nidra and NSDR are “best utilized as a complementary practice alongside other sleep practices, but shouldn’t be substituted for sleep itself.”

Is Yoga Nidra a Sleeper Hit?

Admittedly, I didn’t expect yoga nidra or NSDR to miraculously cure a lifetime of sleep problems, but I was ultimately surprised by how the effects worked in practice. The guided meditations were helpful, but by the end of the month, incorporating them into my bedtime routine had started to feel more like a chore than a sustainable micro-habit.

This might appeal more to someone who enjoys having a more elaborate nighttime routine. I need all the motivation I can muster to brush my teeth and do basic skincare at the end of the day, so I personally don’t see a new 20-minute task sticking.

The real appeal of non-sleep deep relaxation for me is that it’s another way to get a midday boost, alongside tactics like jumping in place, short workouts, long or short walks, or an ill-advised late-afternoon cup of coffee. Going forward, I will likely lean on yoga nidra meditations during the energy slump that follows lunch.

My main takeaway is that NSDR was most effective when I’d already had enough sleep and resisted a 3 p.m. caffeine fix. That’s the interesting but annoying thing about new habits — they can benefit your well-being when you’re consistent, but the perks rarely happen in isolation. In order to notice any positive, meaningful changes from regular yoga nidra practice, you also need to have other healthy practices in place.

Meet your guide

Lauren Vinopal

Lauren Vinopal is a writer based in Chicago. She specializes in reporting expert-driven fitness, nutrition and mental health content, as well as the intersection between wellness and culture. Her work has been featured in Fatherly, Mel Magazine, Slate, Vice, Men’s Health, Men’s Journal, GQ, Psychology Today, and more.