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Ever have trouble falling back to sleep, especially when you're at work or those first day or

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couple days when you're finally off duty?

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Wake up at three or four o'clock in the morning and just can't fall back asleep even if you're

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not at work.

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Well today we got a quick hitter episode that's full of resources for you and we're going

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to expand on a different type of yoga called Yoga Nidra.

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Welcome to the Firefighter Craftsmanship Podcast where we coach you to deal with the stressors

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of the job as a first responder as well as how to thrive off duty.

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My name is Kevin Housley, a Human Performance Coach and a Firefighter since 2005.

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I've been able to coach over a thousand emergency responders on ways to be more resilient, better

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prepared for the job and how to be happier and healthier at home.

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So let's get to it and talk about Yoga Nidra.

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And Yoga Nidra has gotten a lot of press lately.

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We did an episode with Emily Hightower where we talked about Yoga Nidra that's linked in

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the show notes and then last episode with Olivia Mead from Yoga for First Responders.

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We got into the leads about Yoga as a practice and what Yoga actually stands for and how

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it allows us to tap into our nervous system through tools like our breath.

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It really has nothing to do with stretching initially.

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And now today we're going to talk about a different type of yoga which has no stretching

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at all.

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You actually just lay there and listen to a vocal script.

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It's called Yoga Nidra and even more recently than that Dr. Andrew Huberman has gotten a

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lot of exposure for non-sleep deep rest.

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And you can check out some of his stuff or I have some links in the show notes on non-sleep

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deep rest and what that means and how to do it.

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And it's essentially just a version of Yoga Nidra.

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So Yoga Nidra for those of you that aren't familiar with it is somewhat like a form of

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progressive muscle relaxation and sometimes it's even referred to as local sleep.

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And so it has been identified as a sleep replacement practice but the brain wave analysis of that

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you're not actually fully asleep.

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But it does create rest and relaxation.

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It creates parasympathetic tone meaning rest and digest.

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It calms your nervous system down and that's all shown through multiple studies.

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I have some studies linked in the show notes that you can deep dive if you would like.

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And a big thing that it does is it helps slow your respiration rate down.

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So for those of us in emergency services we are exposed to different sorts of things throughout

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our careers throughout our shifts throughout the different cycles or jobs that we have

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within our emergency services.

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And not all of them are 911 call related by any means.

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So one of the problems with emergency services and for us as emergency services personnel

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is we are exposed to different things which can create hypervigilance which means we really

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can't turn our brain off.

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We have a very, very small window of tolerance and a reminder for the window of tolerance.

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So I'll have a window of tolerance podcast episode that we did in the show notes as well.

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But the window of tolerance is that space between the sympathetic nervous system, fight

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or flight and the parasympathetic nervous system, rest or digest.

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And we want a nice big wide window of tolerance because it means that we're more resilient

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and are able to adapt to different stressors.

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And so some of us do a great job with stressors on the job.

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We do a great job processing and succeeding and crushing it when the 911 call comes in.

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And then we do a really bad job in other areas of our life, things like driving down the

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road or when we walk into the house maybe our relationships suffer a little bit because

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our window of tolerance is very, very small and we don't have a lot of resilience towards

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different sorts of stressors.

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And so all of us that have had little kids understand what this means and some of you

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are currently living that reality right now and you might snap it a little kid for doing

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something that just little kids just do like leaving the cap off the toothpaste or whatever

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drawn on the wall, you understand my point.

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So the window of tolerance, we have a nice big window of tolerance and we have a good

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wavelength between that sympathetic nervous system and that parasympathetic nervous system

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were more resilient to stress.

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And this is essentially what heart rate variability is measuring is how resistant can it forecast

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you being resilient and resistant to different types of stressors.

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So those of you that are wearing wearable technology, whoop, apple or a ring, all those

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sorts of things that measure HRV heart rate variability.

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That is a pretty good snapshot to your window of tolerance and you can watch how that is

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impacted throughout your career throughout different shifts, different call types.

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And most importantly, how you're reacting and adapting and your parasympathetic nervous

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system versus sympathetic nervous system is reacting to sleep debt.

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So yoga nidra is a good way for us to attack sleep debt.

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It doesn't replace sleep by any means, but it can help us refocus, calm down and fall

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asleep, fall back asleep or take that quick power nap that safety nap.

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And so in the show notes, I'm going to have a script that's linked to and the big thing

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for yoga nidra for me, it's really just progressive muscle relaxation where you lay there and

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you literally just listen and follow the script of the voice that's talking to you.

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The really big key that I found with yoga nidra specifically is finding a voice that

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doesn't make you go completely insane or piss you off.

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And so if you have a yoga nidra script that you're listening to and the voice just irritates

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the crap out of you, it's probably not going to relax you.

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So the one that I have linked, which is a Spotify link in the show notes is a voice

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that doesn't drive me completely insane.

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If it does drive you insane, you can simply Google yoga nidra script, yoga nidra audio,

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you can jump on YouTube.

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The problem with YouTube is sometimes there's commercials that interrupt you in the middle

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of your yoga nidra practice.

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You can also find them on Pandora Spotify, tons and tons of really, really easy to access

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resources out there.

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Cool thing about yoga nidra is it's pretty heavily studied through peer reviewed scientific

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research.

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And there's a good study here called the effectiveness of a short yoga nidra meditation

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on stress, sleep and well-being in a large and diverse sample by I'm going to butcher

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their name, Mozik Von Ortzen and Heisen's renner.

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That study will be linked in the show notes from 2020 where they did a yoga nidra study

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which just using an 11 minute yoga nidra meditation practice.

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And the meditation group which had a sample size of 341 participants.

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So it wasn't just a super, super small study size by any means.

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Those 341 people that went through the meditation group, the yoga nidra group showed lower stress,

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higher well-being and improved sleep quality after the intervention.

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The meditation group had a stronger impact on the reduction of negative affect than on

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the increase of positive affect and also a stronger effect on effective components of

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well-being, meaning how we're people viewing their well-being and the parts and pieces

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that go into that.

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All effects remain stable at follow up six weeks later.

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So that's a really, really cool thing there.

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They did a 30 day practice for 11 minutes at a time.

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So I know all of us are super busy and we don't have time for another thing on top of all

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the other things that we need to do, but I bet you you got 11 minutes.

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And I know for a fact that you got 11 minutes if you're at work and if you're on the fire

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service or maybe you're working 24 hours on an ambulance and you're able to sleep, you

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have sleeping quarters more often than not.

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If you're having a trouble falling back asleep, yes, sometimes you run lots of calls back

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to back, but it seems like they're spaced out a little bit more than 11 minutes apart,

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even for super busy companies that aren't running and never coming back to the house.

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So you probably have 11 minutes.

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So if you really struggle falling back asleep, give yoga nidra a shot, especially if you

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get back at three or four in the morning.

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And based on your shift time, maybe you can sleep until six, maybe you can sleep until

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seven.

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And a lot of us have a really, really hard time, especially the later we get in our careers

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of falling back asleep in that three to four o'clock.

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And then if you're on 48s, if that happens to you on your first night and you're awake

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from 0300, and then that next day gets going, you got lots of stuff planned, you got training,

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blah, blah, blah, blah.

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And now you're smoked by one, two, three o'clock in the afternoon and you're just trying to

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survive until shift change.

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We're not going to get into the 4896 or different shift schedules on this podcast specifically.

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But yoga nidra is a great thing.

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Maybe if you're going to take a safety nap, you have a hard time, you know, taking naps.

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Maybe you're a person that doesn't like to take naps or you're a person that tells yourself

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you can't nap.

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Well, just take 11 minutes or take a 10 minute on that Spotify link that I have in the show

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notes and just take some time for yourself and calm down.

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Don't fall asleep.

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That's great.

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Hopefully you make it all the way through the practice.

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And Emily Hightower talked about that in her episode with us on the Firefighter Craspmanship

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podcast of, you know, yoga nidra, really, you don't really want to fall asleep in her

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opinion.

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But for us in emergency services, if you're having a hard time sleeping or you need to

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go to sleep and you do fall asleep during yoga nidra, man, that's a win.

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That's a win for sure.

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And you know, you can take a nap right there.

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That's really, really good.

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In a study titled a closer look at yoga nidra early randomized sleep lab investigations

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where they specifically looked at the impact of yoga nidra on people that have insomnia,

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clinical diagnosed insomnia from sharp and a whole bunch of other authors also linked

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in the show notes.

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What they found was that 84, 83, 84% of the part study participants actually reported

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that they felt like they fell asleep during the yoga nidra practice.

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This was a 30 minute yoga nidra practice.

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And from the actual study that it showed that they slept for 10 to 50% of that yoga nidra

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practice.

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So meaning they took, you know, potentially up to a 15 minute nap for people that had

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clinical diagnosed insomnia.

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So there's a lot of really, really good benefits to yoga nidra.

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One of the ways that I like to use yoga nidra, that's not just specifically for myself.

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I like to do yoga nidra, especially on day two for us that work a 48, 96 hour work schedule.

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But I like to use it with the younger crew members, the younger generation and especially

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with the probes on our crew.

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And so you can run your crew however you want.

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But for me, I want high performing probationary firefighters and I want high performing firefighters

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for the entirety of their careers.

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And it's up to us to teach them great habits in relation to wellness, fitness, nutrition,

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mental wellness, and the humongous one of sleep.

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And sleep is a very, very big component of overall wellness.

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It has a tremendous impact on mental health, PTSD.

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It also has a tremendous impact on cancer.

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So yoga nidra for us on our crew is a great way for us to teach the probes that it's okay

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to take 10 to 30 minutes for yourself on a shift, especially when you need it, especially

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if we got throttled the night before or something was going on at home and you didn't get a

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lot of sleep because you have a new baby or whatever is going on.

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Yoga nidra is a great way for us to say, hey, you don't need to go take a nap.

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I understand, you know, you don't want to go take a nap.

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You don't want to be thought of and we're not going to get into the cultural implications

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of sleep on this podcast specifically, on this episode specifically.

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But yoga nidra is a great way to say, fine, don't fall asleep.

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That's great.

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Just go take a minute and follow this script.

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It's an audio script.

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It's a progressive muscle relaxation technique.

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It's going to help you calm down.

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It's going to help you feel rejuvenated, revived, refreshed and ready to catch a good call later

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tonight and be able to perform.

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So yoga nidra, huge fan of this.

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I'm very, very glad that I was introduced to this way back from actually, Emily Hightower

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from shift.

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So thank you.

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Lots of shout outs to Emily on this episode here and go back and take a listen to the

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two part episode series that we have with Emily Hightower because she just drops knowledge

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bombs one right after another.

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Lots of resources in the show notes for you on this one, including a good easy follow

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script that I've had lots of success with personally and I've had lots of people with

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lots of great success stories just by me sharing that to them.

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That's on Spotify.

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I don't know how it works if you don't have a membership to Spotify, but I've never heard

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anybody say that they can't listen to it.

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So if that voice drives you crazy, find a different one, send it to me so I can put

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it into the cache and send it to people where they don't like the voice of the one yoga

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nidra protocol that I send to them.

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So take care of yourselves.

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Really, really focus as we get into the heat of summer here, making sure that your notches

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on the bullet train all the time.

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Take a few minutes every single day for yourself.

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It doesn't have to be yoga nidra.

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You can take two, three good quality breaths in through your nose, out through your nose,

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and just be present and take it down a notch and ramp it back up when you need to, but

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make sure that as we are in the heat of the summer that we're taking good care of ourselves.

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We're getting a lots of good quality sleep.

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We're getting out there training really, really hard.

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We're hydrating and we're ready to be great customer servants for those people that depend

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on us no matter what branch of emergency services you're in.

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So thanks for listening to the Firefighter Crasmanship podcast, a super quick hitter

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episode, just full of resources and show notes for you.

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Please reach out if you have any questions, if you have any topics or any guests that

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you'd like to see on the Firefighter Crasmanship podcast, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook,

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or you can find me on LinkedIn, which is Kevin Housley on LinkedIn.

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You can find lots of different training resources.

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You can check out our Pre-Zilliance for the Emergency Seen Online class.

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All that can be found at firefightercrasmanship.com.

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Stay smart.