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Whenever you search YouTube for yoga nidra videos, you’re confronted with literally a whole bunch of search results. Most feature soothing or hushed voices. Some lull you with an array of sounds within the background. Most are intended to downregulate your vibe while some are designed specifically to induce sleep.

Just about all of those yoga nidra YouTube videos share textbook yoga nidra: They encourage you to search out a cushty lying position, just like Savasana, listen as someone’s voice coaxes your awareness to your physical body, and let yourself be drawn right into a somewhat altered state of consciousness.

Yet there’s only considered one of these yoga nidra YouTube videos that has been listened to greater than 12 million times, finally count. Its title, quite simply, is “Yoga Nidra 20-Minute Guided Meditation,” and the video relies exclusively on the voice of a British yoga teacher set to a subtle backdrop of ambient music.

What’s Yoga Nidra, Exactly?

The practice of yoga nidra dates back to ancient yoga texts. Although the term translates to “yoga sleep,” what it summons in practitioners just isn’t quite sleep and it’s not exactly traditional meditation. As an alternative, it’s largely considered an in-between state between waking and sleeping that’s been the topic of considerable scientific research because the Sixties.

A lot of studies have explored the physiological changes within the brain and the body during yoga nidra. The outcomes repeatedly indicate that the practice has positive effects on sleep, anxiety, depression, low back pain, hormonal imbalance, blood pressure, response and anticipation times in athletes, and so far more.

Yoga nidra has also drawn attention for its role in neuroplasticity, which is the strategy of forming recent connections as a part of the educational process. Andrew Huberman, professor on the department of neurobiology at Stanford School of Medicine, has extensively studied the role of yoga nidra and other types of non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) in learning. The neurobiologist has explained in several interviews, including with Tim Ferriss and in an appearance on the Wealthy Roll podcast, that yoga nidra also helps us change into higher at turning off our thoughts.

As contemporary research continues to explore the precise state of consciousness that takes place during yoga nidra, it supports the wisdom inherent in the traditional tradition.

What’s So Special About This Yoga Nidra YouTube Video?

Yoga teacher Lizzy Hill hadn’t been attempting to crack the YouTube algorithm when she uploaded the her yoga nidra video to the web platform seven years ago. She’d recorded the category as a parting gift for her students before she and her husband moved back to the UK from Spain.

“I taught several yoga classes in Spain and I used to finish each with a shortened nidra,” says Hill. When students learned she was leaving, they expressed concern that “Nobody could make us calm down the way in which you’ll be able to.” Staying wasn’t an option. So Hill got here up with a compromise.

“My husband played in a band, and he had recording equipment, so I asked, ‘Do you’re thinking that we could do a category?’ I wasn’t excellent with technology, but I knew that in the event you put it on YouTube and gave everyone the link, they’d have the opportunity to access it,” says Hill.

They and everybody else on YouTube. “It just grew and grew,” says Hill, who recalls being astounded that individuals would take the time to message her their appreciation. “I might say, ‘That is crazy. How has this change into so big? It’s just little old me.’”

That was when it had 4 thousand views. Her acclaim grew when Indian singer, songwriter, and record producer Armaan Malik mentioned her video. And, Hill explains, then Huberman mentioned yoga nidra during a Wealthy Roll podcast interview a couple of years ago that was listened to by thousands and thousands.

Currently, Hill’s video has greater than 70 thousand likes and two thousand comments, many from users who depend on the yoga nidra YouTube video repeatedly—some as repeatedly as every night for 4 years, in response to the comments.

Other frequent users include a mom whose young son couldn’t sleep until she played Hill’s video for him, university students during exam time, those undergoing chemotherapy, and a therapist who benefited so profoundly from the practice that she shared it with clients as additional support for anxiety, PTSD, and depression. A university is currently using the video in its research on the advantages of meditative types of deep rest.

And one regular listener inadvertently memorized Hill’s narration from listening to it so often and was in a position to recite it to herself, word for word, in a MRI scanner to calm her claustrophobia.

Many commenters mention they appreciate the simplicity of the narration. Hill attributes that to her own teacher. After graduating from formal yoga teacher training in 2001, she later sought additional training within the Sivananda variety of yoga from teacher Sharon Fisher. A big a part of that training, she explains, was yoga nidra.

A commonly expressed sentiment is “I attempted one million yoga Nidra videos. That is the most effective.” Other commenters are more explicit of their appreciation for what it offers, akin to “I feel like I just unlocked my body from stress and thoughts in my brain,” said one user. And “I feel less physical anxiety and more ease being me,” explained one other. Nearly all of comments on her video end with “Thanks, Lizzy.”

And, now and again, someone expresses a little bit more specifically what the video means to them, as in“If everyone on this planet did this session once a day, it will be a a lot better place to live.”

Hill is adamant that the magic just isn’t her. “That is the facility of yoga nidra,” she says. “This practice is just incredible. It’s easy. It’s powerful.”

Her followers may argue along with her modesty. Hill released one other yoga nidra YouTube video, one designed especially for sleep, a little bit greater than a yr ago. It’s already drawn near one million views and, not surprisingly, much appreciation. Hill intends to release one other yoga nidra recording within the months to return. Within the meantime, there’s still the classic.

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