Equanimity Yoga

The Science of Sleep & Yoga Nidra 🔬

Ever wondered why Yoga Nidra is so effective for sleep? There's some fascinating science behind it — and it goes well beyond simply relaxing.

During a Yoga Nidra session, brain activity shifts into alpha waves — the same slow, calm waves your brain produces just before you fall asleep. With regular practice, your brain becomes better at accessing this state naturally at bedtime, making it easier to drift off without the usual mental chatter.

But it goes deeper than that. Yoga Nidra has also been shown to reduce cortisol — the body's primary stress hormone — and to increase levels of dopamine in the brain. High cortisol at night is one of the most common reasons people struggle to sleep; it keeps the body in a state of alertness even when we're exhausted. By actively lowering cortisol, Yoga Nidra helps break this cycle.

Studies have also found that the practice activates the parasympathetic nervous system (our 'rest and digest' mode), reducing heart rate and blood pressure while promoting the conditions your body needs for deep, restorative sleep — including the production of melatonin, the sleep hormone.

Perhaps most powerfully, Yoga Nidra can also enable you to access the theta brainwave state — a deeply receptive state usually only experienced briefly as we fall asleep. Spending time here during practice can help process stress and emotion, leaving you lighter and calmer when bedtime comes.

My next Yoga Nidra class is on Wednesday 1st April at St Thomas Church Hall, Exeter 7pm to 8.15pm. £10. Drop me a message or email [email protected] to book.

🌿 The Slow Thaw

Something has been moving through us this month. Something slow, deep, and quietly transformative. As we reach the Spring Equinox, it's worth pausing to honour how much has been happening beneath the surface.

We opened the month under the Blood Worm Moon — a full moon and a total lunar eclipse. Eclipse energy cracks things open. It stands between your old story and your next chapter and asks: what are you finally ready to release?

Then came Friday the 13th — not a day of bad luck, but an ancient day of feminine power. A reminder that your intuition, your cyclical nature, your capacity for magic are not weaknesses to be managed. They are gifts to be reclaimed.

Through all of it, Mercury has been retrograde in Pisces — slowing us down, dissolving old stories, asking us not to charge forward but to go inward. To feel rather than think. To get honest about what we truly want.

This has not been an easy month to push. And that has been the point.

Because on March 20th, everything shifts at once. Mercury stations direct. The Equinox arrives. Light and dark balance — and then the light begins to win.

This is the true new year. If your January intentions quietly fell away, they didn't fail. They were waiting for the right conditions.

Those conditions are here. You have been composting. You have been thawing. You have been, without perhaps realising it, getting ready.

Now it's time to grow. 🌱✨

What seed are you planting this equinox? Drop it in the comments 👇

🌙 If you struggle to switch off at night your nervous system might need more than a dark room and a good intention. Yoga Nidra is a guided practice of conscious deep rest that works directly with your body's stress response. Session by session, it helps your nervous system learn to genuinely let go — so that by the time your head hits the pillow, your body actually knows what to do. No effort, no straining, no trying to 'empty your mind'. Just guided rest that does the work for you.

I offer small, intimate Yoga Nidra classes on the first Wednesday of every month in Exeter. My next class is on Wednesday 1 April at St Thomas Church Hall, Exeter 7pm to 8.15pm. £10. Drop me a message or email [email protected] to book. Quality rest is something everyone deserves. ✨