By Roy, founder Last updated 13/09/2026
Yoga nidra is having a moment in Australia, and most of what comes up when you search it is either a 45-minute YouTube recording or a page written for a yoga studio in another hemisphere. Neither answers the question people are actually asking, which is simple: does lying on your back listening to a voice for ten or twenty minutes help you get to sleep faster and wake less at 3am, and if so, how do you do it properly?
Here is the short version. Yoga nidra is a guided body scan done lying down. It is not exercise and it is not quite meditation. Four studies, one of them a randomised trial of 362 people, have measured what it does to sleep onset, night waking and cortisol. The effects are real and modest. Done in bed at the end of a wind-down, it is one of the cheapest things you can add to your evening, and it costs nothing but the ten minutes.
This page covers what yoga nidra is, how it differs from NSDR, what the research found, how to run a 10-minute and a 20-minute version, a short script you can record or read to yourself, and the free Australian recordings worth starting with.
What yoga nidra actually is
Yoga nidra means "yogic sleep". The modern method was put together in the 1960s and 70s by Satyananda Saraswati, who founded the Bihar School of Yoga in India in 1963 and published the technique as a book in 1976. He built it from older tantric practices, though historians point out that some of the structure looks a lot like Western relaxation therapy from the early 1900s. Where it came from matters less than what it is.
A session has a fixed shape, and every teacher runs some version of it:
- Settling. You lie on your back, arms a little away from the body, palms up, eyes closed. You are told you will stay awake and aware, which is a polite fiction if you are doing this for sleep, and we will come back to that.
- A resolve. Called a sankalpa. One short sentence, stated in the present tense, repeated at the start and the end. Secular versions skip it.
- Rotation of consciousness. The core of the practice. Attention is moved through the body one part at a time, quickly, in a set order: right thumb, second finger, third finger, and so on around the whole body. You are not tensing or relaxing anything. You are just noticing each part as it is named.
- Breath awareness. Counting breaths backwards, or feeling the breath move at the nostrils or the belly.
- Opposite sensations. Recalling heaviness then lightness, cold then warmth. This is the part beginners find odd, and it is often shortened or dropped in modern recordings.
- Visualisation. Simple images, or just watching the dark space behind the closed eyes.
- Return. The resolve again, then attention is brought back to the room and the body is slowly moved.
Traditional sessions run 30 to 60 minutes. The recordings people actually use, and the ones used in recent research, run 10, 11, 20 or 30 minutes. That distinction matters for the sleep question, so it gets its own section below.
Yoga nidra vs NSDR: same thing, different wrapper
If you have heard the term NSDR, non-sleep deep rest, it is worth clearing up. The term was coined by a Stanford neuroscientist in late 2021 and went mainstream through 2022. NSDR is a category rather than a technique: guided audio that has you lie still with your eyes closed and move attention through breath and body sensation, aiming for the state between waking and sleep. Yoga nidra sits inside that category, alongside self-hypnosis and plain body-scan recordings.
The practical difference is language. NSDR deliberately drops the sankalpa, the word "psychic sleep" and the yoga-community framing, so the same practice reads as clinical rather than spiritual. The body scan is the same. The breathing is the same. The lying-down-and-not-moving is the same. If the word yoga puts you off, search for NSDR and you will land on near-identical recordings. If you want the older, slower, fuller version, search for yoga nidra. Either way, for sleep purposes you are doing the same thing.
What the research says about yoga nidra and sleep
There is more evidence here than for most things people try before bed, and it is worth reading straight, without the marketing gloss that usually comes with it.
Sleep onset and night waking, measured in a sleep lab. A 2021 randomised trial in India followed 41 adults with long-running sleep trouble over eight weeks. Half were taught yoga nidra, half got a standard behavioural sleep program. The yoga nidra group got to sleep faster and spent less time awake after first falling asleep, and their sleep efficiency and self-rated sleep quality improved. Salivary cortisol dropped. The effect sizes were small to moderate, and follow-up sleep-lab attendance was patchy, which the authors acknowledged.
Deep sleep and total sleep in healthy people. A 2023 pilot from the same group trained 41 healthy men in a 20-minute yoga nidra practice for four weeks, with sleep-lab recording before and after. Wake after sleep onset fell by about 20 minutes, self-reported total sleep rose by about 25 minutes, and EEG showed more slow-wave activity in deep sleep. The limits: no control group, men only, and a small sample. It is a promising pilot, not a proof.
An 11-minute version, at scale. A 2020 study from Germany had a large online sample do an 11-minute yoga nidra audio every day for 30 days. Stress, sleep and wellbeing scores all improved. Everything was self-reported and there was no active comparison group.
The proper randomised follow-up. The same German team ran a 362-person trial published in 2025. Four groups: an 11-minute yoga nidra, a 30-minute yoga nidra, a 10-minute music recording, and a waitlist. Two months of daily practice, then a three-month follow-up, with saliva samples across the day to track cortisol. The 11-minute version lowered stress and rumination scores against the waitlist and came close to a significant improvement in sleep disturbance. People who practised regularly had lower total cortisol across the day and a healthier morning-to-evening cortisol curve. The effects were small. The authors said so.
Put those together and the honest summary is this. A short, daily, guided body scan reliably nudges cortisol down and helps people get to sleep a bit faster and wake a bit less. It is not a switch. It is a small, cheap, repeatable lever, and the daily part is what makes it work. Nobody in any of those trials did it once.
Why the 10 minute vs 20 minute question matters
The two versions people search for most are "yoga nidra 10 minutes" and "yoga nidra 20 minutes", and it is a fair question, because the two are doing different jobs.
The 10 or 11-minute recordings are the ones with the biggest trial behind them. They work because they are short enough to do every single night, and consistency was the one thing every study had in common. If you are choosing between a 20-minute practice you will do twice a week and a 10-minute one you will do nightly, the 10-minute one wins.
The 20-minute version is what the sleep-lab pilot used, and it is the length most teachers treat as the practical minimum for the full effect. The reasoning is that the first part of any session is spent settling, and a longer recording gives the deeper stages room. That settling claim is teacher experience, not a measured finding, so hold it loosely.
A sensible way to run it:
- Start with 10 minutes, in bed, lights off, for two weeks. The aim is the habit, not the depth.
- Move to 20 minutes on the nights you have the time, which in practice means the nights you got to bed on time.
- Never trade sleep for practice. If it is already late, do the 10 and stop.
Do it in bed, and let yourself fall asleep
Most yoga nidra instruction tells you to stay awake throughout. That is the right advice if you are practising in the afternoon for rest and focus. It is the wrong advice if you are practising for sleep.
For sleep, the recording is a runway, not a destination. Lie in the position you sleep in, or on your back if that is comfortable, arms relaxed and a little away from the body. Start the audio, follow the voice, and if you are asleep before the visualisation, that is the practice working, not failing. Teachers who take the sleep use seriously say exactly this, and the SBS recording linked below is framed the same way.
Two practical notes. Do not do it straight after a big meal, because you will drop off before the body scan has done anything and wake up uncomfortable an hour later. And use a recording that ends quietly rather than one that "brings you back" with a bright voice and a bell, because for sleep you want the ending to be a fade.
Three things beginners get wrong
These come from teacher experience rather than the trials, so treat them as advice, not findings.
- Holding the breath during the body scan. The rotation through the body is fast and people tense up trying to keep pace. Let the breath stay natural. If you notice you have stopped breathing, exhale slowly and rejoin wherever the voice is.
- Trying. Trying to stay awake, or trying to fall asleep, both put you in the wrong state. The job is to follow the voice and rest at the edge. Whatever happens next happens.
- Doing it twice and deciding it does not work. Every study that found something ran for weeks of daily practice. Give it a fortnight before you judge it.
A short yoga nidra script you can use tonight
If you would rather not depend on a recording, this is a 10-minute version you can read into your phone's voice memo app in a slow, flat voice, or simply talk yourself through in your head. Pause for a breath between lines. The body rotation is the long section, and it should be brisk, one part per breath.
Lie on your back. Let the arms rest a little way from the body. Let the feet fall apart. Close the eyes.
Feel the whole body lying on the bed. Feel the weight of it. There is nothing to do now.
Bring attention to the right hand. Right thumb. Second finger. Third finger. Fourth finger. Fifth finger. Palm. Back of the hand. Wrist. Forearm. Elbow. Upper arm. Shoulder. Right side of the chest. Right hip. Right thigh. Knee. Calf. Ankle. Heel. Sole of the foot. Big toe. Second toe. Third toe. Fourth toe. Fifth toe.
Bring attention to the left hand. Left thumb. Second finger. Third finger. Fourth finger. Fifth finger. Palm. Back of the hand. Wrist. Forearm. Elbow. Upper arm. Shoulder. Left side of the chest. Left hip. Left thigh. Knee. Calf. Ankle. Heel. Sole of the foot. Big toe. Second toe. Third toe. Fourth toe. Fifth toe.
The back of the head. The back of the neck. Between the shoulder blades. The whole of the back. The lower back. The buttocks. The back of both legs.
The top of the head. The forehead. Both eyebrows. The space between the eyebrows. The eyes. The nose. The cheeks. The lips. The jaw. The throat. The chest. The belly. The whole front of the body.
The whole body. The whole body lying still.
Now notice the breath. You are not changing it. Feel the belly rise and fall. Count the breaths down from ten. Ten, breathing out. Nine, breathing out. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Feel the body heavy. Heavier. Sinking into the bed. Now feel it light. As if it could float.
Look into the dark space behind the closed eyes. Just watch it. Whatever appears, let it pass.
The whole body is resting. The breath is slow. There is nothing left to do tonight.
Stop there. For sleep, there is no return section. If you are recording it, let the audio run silent for a minute at the end so nothing jolts you.
Free Australian recordings worth starting with
You do not need an app subscription. Three good free options, all Australian:
- SBS Audio. The Great Minds meditation series has a yoga nidra episode led by Sagar, a Melbourne hatha yoga teacher with three decades of practice. Free on SBS Audio and podcast apps, and it takes the falling-asleep question in its stride.
- ABC Listen. Classic FM's Classicflow program has a session called Full Body Listening: Yoga Nidra, led by Lara Zilibowitz with sound design by Benny Holloway. Gentle, well produced, and it ends quietly.
- Insight Timer. The biggest free library of yoga nidra recordings anywhere. It was started in California but has been run from Sydney since 2014, and the free tier is genuinely free. Filter by length and you will find hundreds of 10 and 20-minute options.
On YouTube, the recordings that keep coming up are from Ally Boothroyd, Jennifer Piercy and Lizzy Hill. None of them are Australian, all of them are good, and Lizzy Hill's has been played well over ten million times for a reason. Pick one voice you like and stay with it. Switching recordings every night undoes the point, which is that the practice becomes automatic.
Where yoga nidra fits in a wind-down
Yoga nidra is the last step, not the whole routine. If you are still on your phone until the moment you press play, you are asking ten minutes of body scan to undo two hours of blue light and a scroll through the news, and it will lose that fight most nights.
The routine that makes the practice work is the one we set out in the wind-down guide: a cut-off time, screens down, lights low, a cool room, and a fixed last step that tells the body the day is finished. If you have never built one, start with a routine you will actually keep, which is short and anchored to something you already do every night. If you have ever gone to bed tired and then lain there wired, that pattern has its own page, and yoga nidra is one of the cheaper things worth trying against it.
Where the practice slots in is simple. Wind-down done, glass of something on the bedside, lights off, press play, follow the voice.
Common questions
Is yoga nidra the same as meditation? Not quite. Most meditation is done sitting, with an alert posture, and the aim is to stay present. Yoga nidra is done lying down and the aim is to rest at the edge of sleep. If sitting meditation has never worked for you at night, yoga nidra is worth a try precisely because it asks for less.
Can I do it during the day? Yes, and a lot of people use it as a 10-minute reset in the afternoon instead of a coffee. For that use, stay awake, and give yourself a few minutes before driving or doing anything that needs full attention, because dropping into the deeper stages can leave you groggy for a bit, the same as a nap would.
Does falling asleep during it mean I did it wrong? For sleep purposes, no. For a daytime practice, it means you are short on sleep, which is useful information.
How long before I notice anything? The trials ran for four to eight weeks of daily practice. Give it two weeks nightly before you decide.
Is 10 minutes enough? For sleep, yes. The best trial evidence is for an 11-minute daily practice. Twenty is better if you have it, but only if it does not push your bedtime later.
Who should be careful? Anyone with unresolved trauma. Lying still with the eyes closed and turning attention inward can bring up difficult memories or a sense of detachment in some people, and there is a whole line of trauma-informed teaching built around that risk. If that is you, practise with a teacher who knows it, or with a recording that gives explicit permission to open the eyes and stop. Yoga nidra is a complement to professional care, not a replacement for it, and it is not a replacement for sleep itself.
Where Settl sits in this
Yoga nidra is a good example of the kind of thing Settl is built to sit alongside. It is a nightly practice, it works through repetition rather than force, and it does its best work at the end of a proper wind-down. That is exactly the frame we designed the product around: one scoop in cold water, before bed, as the fixed last step of the evening, so the body gets the same signal every night.
The scoop carries seven actives at doses printed on the ingredients page and on the tub, including 3,000mg of glycine, 200mg of L-theanine and 146mg of elemental magnesium from magnesium glycinate, on an electrolyte base that holds hydration through the back half of the night. No melatonin, so no morning fog. No proprietary blends, no hidden numbers. Packed in Sydney, in a TGA-licensed GMP facility.
If you want the pairing, it is this. Wind down, mix the scoop, drink it, lights off, press play on a 10-minute yoga nidra. Two small things, done the same way every night, aimed at the same four outcomes: get to sleep faster, wake less at 3am, sleep deeper, wake up refreshed.
Cheers, Roy
Sources: Datta et al, randomised trial of yoga nidra against a behavioural sleep program, with sleep-lab measurement, National Medical Journal of India, 2021; Datta et al, yoga nidra and sleep in healthy novices, PLOS One, 2023; Moszeik, von Oertzen and Cristea, "Effectiveness of a short yoga nidra meditation on stress, sleep, and well-being in a large and diverse sample", Current Psychology, 2020; Moszeik, Rohleder and Renner, four-arm randomised trial of 11 and 30 minute yoga nidra with diurnal cortisol, Stress and Health, 2025; Pandi-Perumal et al, "The origin and clinical relevance of yoga nidra", Sleep and Vigilance, 2022; Bihar School of Yoga and Satyananda Saraswati, Wikipedia; Oura, "Non-sleep deep rest"; Sleep Foundation, "Yoga nidra"; Yoga International, "How to practice yoga nidra without falling asleep"; SBS Audio, Great Minds yoga nidra episode; ABC Listen, Classicflow "Full Body Listening: Yoga Nidra"; Insight Timer company history; trauma-informed yoga nidra components paper, PubMed 39690521. This article explains the general research picture in plain English and is not medical advice. If sleep is a persistent problem, talk to your GP.