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Practise NSDR or Yoga Nidra

Listening to a guided relaxation practice, typically lying down and following spoken instructions through body awareness and slow breathing, for roughly ten to thirty minutes.

At a glance

  • Evidence: One small randomised trial in chronic insomnia found yoga nidra improved sleep, including on polysomnography, but it was tested against CBT rather than placebo.Sleep quality, sleep duration and insomnia symptoms · Limited certainty · Randomized intervention
  • What’s uncertain: The insomnia trial is small (41 participants), and polysomnography was repeated only in participants who volunteered, which introduces selection bias into the objective findings.
  • First step: Use a recorded guided audio; the chronic-insomnia trial used supervised sessions rather than unsupervised self-instruction.
  • Before you try it: Do not use NSDR or yoga nidra to replace treatment for chronic insomnia. All precautions
Read the full takeaway

Yoga nidra studies

NSDR is a rebranding of yoga nidra, a guided relaxation practice with a long tradition and a small modern literature. What exists is encouraging but slight: a randomised trial in 41 people with chronic insomnia found yoga nidra improved sleep, including objective polysomnographic measures, but it was compared with cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia rather than with a placebo. A large randomised trial of online yoga nidra found statistically significant improvements in wellbeing with effect sizes of d = 0.08 to 0.16, which are very small.

NSDR-specific evidence

The NSDR label itself has only acute trials: one found improved sleepiness, fatigue, stress and perceived recovery after a single ten-minute session, and another found NSDR did not improve outcomes relative to a nap.

Long-term evidence

There is no long-term trial of NSDR, no trial in a clinical population using that protocol, and no retrieved peer-reviewed source defines NSDR as anything other than the yoga nidra practice described above, so the honest summary is that structured guided relaxation is plausibly worth twenty minutes but the specific claim being marketed outruns the data.

A yoga nidra instructor guiding a sessionDiscussed byAndrew HubermanView statements ↓
SleepFocusStress & wellbeing20+ min · Easy · Free
Reviewed Sep 23, 2026
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Scientific evidence

What the research shows

Outcome assessments based on research, including its uncertainties and limitations.

Sleep quality, sleep duration and insomnia symptoms

Finding: Benefit supportedCertainty: Limitedstudies found a benefit from doing this

Evidence basis: randomised trials

One small randomised trial in chronic insomnia found yoga nidra improved sleep, including on polysomnography, but it was tested against CBT rather than placebo.

Population: 41 adults with chronic insomnia (20 CBT for insomnia, 21 yoga nidra) in a single-centre randomised trial conducted 2012-16; 362 adults randomised to 11-minute yoga nidra, 30-minute yoga nidra, music control or waitlist in the online trial; clinical studies summarised in a narrative review.

Research details

Summary

In a randomised parallel-design trial, 41 patients with chronic insomnia received either cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (n = 20) or yoga nidra (n = 21), with outcomes measured by sleep diary and polysomnography. Both interventions improved subjective total sleep time, sleep efficiency, wake after sleep onset, total wake duration and subjective sleep quality, and both objectively improved total sleep time and total wake duration; yoga nidra specifically showed marked improvement in the percentage of N2 and N3 sleep, and salivary cortisol fell significantly after yoga nidra (p = 0.041). The authors concluded that yoga nidra can be used for the treatment of chronic insomnia after supervised practice sessions. The larger randomised trial of online yoga nidra in a general adult sample included sleep among its psychological outcomes but reported effect sizes of only d = 0.08 to 0.16 for the 11-minute group against waitlist, which is at the very small end. A narrative review of the yoga nidra literature notes positive physiological changes across clinical studies but also observes that reductions in mild depression and anxiety did not extend to severe depression or severe anxiety in an experimental study.

Why this certainty

A randomised trial with objective polysomnographic outcomes is unusually good evidence for a relaxation practice, and its direction matches the small effects seen in the larger online trial, so this is not Very limited. It is held at Limited because the trial is tiny with partial objective data, no retrieved study compares the practice against a placebo or waitlist in an insomnia population, and the larger randomised trial's effect sizes are so small that they would not be noticeable to most individuals.

Limitations

The insomnia trial is small (41 participants), and polysomnography was repeated only in participants who volunteered, which introduces selection bias into the objective findings. Its comparator is CBT for insomnia, an active treatment, which is a strength for fairness but means the trial cannot show whether yoga nidra beats doing nothing, and the abstract reports no between-group statistics for most sleep outcomes. The online trial's effects are extremely small in absolute terms and come from a pre-recorded audio intervention rather than supervised teaching. No retrieved trial tested yoga nidra or NSDR as a treatment for insomnia against a placebo or usual-care control, and no retrieved source reports long-term follow-up beyond the trial periods.

Effect estimate

Yoga nidra showed marked improvement in the percentage of N2 and N3 of total sleep time, while both arms improved in subjective and objective total sleep time and total wake duration with no between-group statistics reported (Datta 2021, n = 41 adults with chronic insomnia); salivary cortisol fell significantly with yoga nidra (p = 0.041)

Sources for this outcome:

Acute stress, sleepiness, fatigue and perceived recovery

Finding: Mixed evidenceCertainty: Limitedstudies disagree, or the effect depends on who is studied

Evidence basis: randomised trials

A single ten-minute NSDR session improved perceived stress and recovery versus control, but a separate trial found NSDR did not beat a short nap.

Population: 102 physically active young adults (mean age 22) in a parallel-group randomised trial of a single 10-minute NSDR session; 60 physically active young adults (mean age 22) randomised to nap, NSDR or control; 362 adults in the online yoga nidra trial including stress and cortisol outcomes.

Research details

Summary

In a parallel-group randomised trial, 102 physically active young adults were allocated to a ten-minute guided NSDR protocol (n = 51) or a control condition (n = 51), with outcomes assessed at baseline, immediately, 20 minutes and 40 minutes after the intervention. NSDR produced significant group-by-time improvements in sleepiness (p = .009, partial eta squared = .03), fatigue (p = .001, partial eta squared = .05), stress (p = .005, partial eta squared = .04), lack of activation (p = .011, partial eta squared = .04), mental performance capacity (p = .008) and overall recovery (p = .014), with reaction time on the Simon task improved immediately after the intervention but not at later assessments, and the authors describe the cognitive findings as transient and the physiological findings as modest. A separate randomised study of 60 physically active young adults compared a 25-minute nap, a 10-minute NSDR condition and a control, and reported a significant group-by-time interaction for sleepiness, fatigue, readiness to perform and handgrip strength such that the short nap enhanced perceived readiness and reduced fatigue after a brief latency, whereas NSDR did not elicit significant effects under those conditions. The larger online yoga nidra trial found the 30-minute form exceeded the 11-minute form on some measures compared with both active and waitlist controls, including a flatter cortisol wake-up reaction.

Why this certainty

There are two randomised trials of the NSDR protocol itself, which is more than most habits in this catalogue can claim, and one of them found improvements across several perceptual measures. It is rated Limited rather than Moderate because the trials are acute and small, the outcomes are perceptual, and the trials contradict each other - one showing consistent benefits and the other showing none against a nap. Longer-term and clinical effects of NSDR specifically remain untested.

Limitations

These are acute, single-session studies in young, physically active volunteers, so they say nothing about whether the practice changes stress or recovery over weeks, and nothing about clinical populations. Outcomes are largely self-reported perceptual scales, and the reported effect sizes are small (partial eta squared .03 to .05). The two NSDR trials disagree directly with each other on whether the intervention works at all, and the second one found no significant effects. The online trial's cortisol findings are described by its authors as small effects, and a flatter cortisol wake-up reaction is not straightforwardly a benefit.

Effect estimate

Reduced fatigue after a single 10-minute NSDR session (p = .001, partial eta squared = .05) versus control

Sources for this outcome:

What people say

Who discusses this?

Public statements, with positions specific to each source and topic. These views do not determine the scientific evidence assessment.

What the research shows ↑

Practical steps and precautions

How to try it

  1. Use a recorded guided audio rather than reading a script yourself; the recorded-audio trials delivered the practice as guided audio, in one case online via pre-recorded files, while the chronic-insomnia trial delivered it in supervised sessions and its authors recommend supervised practice sessions first.
  2. Practise lying down in a place you will not be interrupted, and treat falling asleep as acceptable rather than as failure - yoga nidra is described as promoting relaxation with awareness of your surroundings rather than as sleep.
  3. Try the longer form if you can spare the time: in the randomised comparison of an 11-minute and a 30-minute version, the longer practice produced additional effects on some measures, including acting with awareness.
  4. Judge it on how you feel in the hours afterwards and over weeks of practice, not on a single session; the acute NSDR trial found cognitive effects immediately after the session but not at later assessments.

Precautions

  • Do not use NSDR or yoga nidra to replace treatment for chronic insomnia. The only randomised trial in insomnia compared it with CBT for insomnia, which is the established first-line treatment, and the trial itself says the practice should be used after supervised sessions.
  • Avoid practising while driving or in any situation requiring alertness; the goal of the practice is a relaxed state and trials report increased sleepiness after the acute sessions.
  • If you have a history of dissociation, trauma or psychosis, introduce prolonged body-awareness and guided imagery practices with a clinician's guidance rather than alone, since the retrieved literature does not establish safety in these groups.
  • Keep expectations modest: the largest randomised trial found effect sizes of d = 0.08 to 0.16, and a separate randomised comparison found NSDR produced no significant effects relative to a short nap.

References

Yoga nidra practice shows improvement in sleep in patients with chronic insomnia: A randomized controlled trial.

Datta K, Tripathi M, Verma M, Masiwal D, Mallick HN · The National medical journal of India · 2021

Randomized controlled trialVerified from abstract
Open original source

The Effects of an Online Yoga Nidra Meditation on Subjective Well-Being and Diurnal Salivary Cortisol: A Randomised Controlled Trial.

Moszeik EN, Rohleder N, Renner KH · Stress and health : journal of the International Society for the Investigation of Stress · 2025

Randomized controlled trialVerified from abstract
Open original source

The Origin and Clinical Relevance of Yoga Nidra.

Pandi-Perumal SR, Spence DW, Srivastava N, Kanchibhotla D, Kumar K, Sharma GS, Gupta R, Batmanabane G · Sleep and vigilance · 2022

Narrative reviewVerified from full text
Open original source

Time course of perceptual, cognitive, physical and physiological responses to a single non-sleep deep rest session in physically active young adults.

Boukhris O, Suppiah H, Kerkeni M, Holt A, Driller M · Applied psychology. Health and well-being · 2026

Randomized controlled trialVerified from full text
Open original source

Comparing the effects of a short nap and non-sleep deep rest on perceptual, cognitive, and physical performance in active adults

Boukhris O, Suppiah H, Driller M · medRxiv · 2026

Randomized parallel-group trial (preprint)Verified from abstract
Open original source

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Editorial history and review method

Revision 3 · Approved for publication · Codex (publication approval explicitly authorized by site owner; category migration)

Prepared and checked with AI. Publication approval does not imply independent expert review. Request a correction.

Applied the group-2 audit. The sleep effectEstimate was a within-group salivary cortisol p value presented as a sleep effect; it now states the N2/N3 improvement, records that both arms improved with no between-group statistics, and keeps the cortisol result as secondary. Implementation 1 no longer claims every trial delivered guided audio: the recorded-audio trials did, while the insomnia trial delivered supervised sessions and its authors recommend supervised practice first. moszeik-2025 had accessLevel full_text with fullTextAvailable true although DOI 10.1002/smi.70049 has no Europe PMC record and the facts came from the Crossref abstract; the flag is corrected to abstract/false. The verdict no longer asserts the podcast origin of the NSDR label, which no peer-reviewed record supports, and instead says no retrieved peer-reviewed source defines NSDR separately from yoga nidra. Second reviewer must decide whether the sleep outcome should stay Benefit supported: under the controlled vocabulary a within-group improvement in both arms of a 41-patient actively-controlled trial plus d = 0.08-0.16 in the larger trial could be read as Mixed evidence. Also re-check whether the 30-minute form's apparent superiority, which rests on secondary outcomes of one trial, should be stated at all. Publication release 2026-10-04: site owner authorized a bounded AI audit and release of this exact revision. See docs/release-audit-2026-10-04.md for source-check findings and limits. No independent health-professional or peer review is claimed. Category migration 2026-10-04: removed the separate goals field; categories: Sleep, Focus → Sleep, Focus, Stress & wellbeing. Research assessments, sources, guidance, precautions, and evidence review dates are unchanged. This revision awaits publication approval; no new evidence review is claimed. Publication approval 2026-10-04: site owner explicitly accepted all current category-migration revisions for deployment and requested that remaining limitations be retained in docs/content-review-backlog.md. Approval applies to this exact content revision. No new evidence review, independent expert review, or clinical validation is claimed; existing precautions and disclosures remain in effect.