Mission & Vision
Puzzle Pieces Coming Together
It wasn't a single moment. More like a story unfolding. A series of moments, occurring over several years, each one clicking into place like a puzzle without a reference photo.
Then one day, the pieces came together, and I finally saw the vision: The Rested Classroom.
The first click happened while listening to a Huberman Lab podcast episode with sleep scientist Matthew Walker, author of Why We Sleep. (I chose this episode because I had just finished reading the book and was curious to hear the interview with the author.) Walker described the architecture of non-REM sleep — the way the brain cycles through progressively deeper stages of rest, each one doing different and essential repair work.
I had seen the diagram in his book, but it didn’t hit me until I heard him speak about it. Hmm.. That’s the same progression as a yoga nidra session.
For new students, I always described a yoga nidra session as walking down a staircase into deep rest, and then walking back up. That was my shorthand for the journey through the five koshas — from the physical body, through breath and emotion, down into the stillness of deep rest, and back up the stairs again.
It’s not just a metaphor. Look at the shape of the non-REM sleep cycle and you’ll see the biology underneath the metaphor. A yoga nidra session isn't like a sleep cycle. It is one — guided and slightly condensed.
“The actual rewiring of neural circuits that underlies learning occurs during sleep and NSDR. Think of the learning bout as the “trigger” or stimulus for the possibility that we might learn, but sleep and NSDR are when the actual learning- the neural circuit rewiring, occurs. ”
Once I started looking, I realized there is research being conducted. I’m not the only one curious about the effects of yoga nidra on human consciousness.
Dr. Huberman has spoken about NSDR as a tool for consolidating learning and integrating new information into long-term memory. The mechanism makes sense: the same deep rest state that processes experiences and new information during sleep appears to be accessible through yoga nidra and NSDR. This means you can tap into the wise design of the human body and replicate the benefit of deep, slow wave non-REM sleep at any time of the day.
Research has also documented specific changes in neurotransmitter activity following yoga nidra practice. Perhaps the most exciting for educators is an increase in BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factor, a protein that facilitates the growth of neurons and the formation of new neural pathways. In plain language: yoga nidra appears to support the physical growth of the brain. Studies have also shown reductions in cortisol, a marker of physiological stress, and increases in dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with motivation and attention. When you put these three findings together, the picture is ideal. A calm body, a focused brain, and the potential for real learning.
I am not a neuroscientist. But I am a former classroom teacher who spent years watching students grapple with lessons they were too exhausted, too anxious, or too dysregulated to absorb. What if the missing variable wasn't content, or engagement, or teaching quality? What if it was rest?
The Room That Changed Everything
The most compelling argument I have comes from a room full of teenagers.
I had the opportunity to lead an NSDR session for a cohort of teens between the ages of 13 and 17 who were in treatment at a residential behavioral health program. Participation was optional — students could choose a quiet alternative activity if they weren't comfortable with meditation. Most of them were curious. All of them honored the expectation of quiet listening.
By the end of the 15-minute session and a 5-minute integration period, something had shifted. The room felt different. Twelve teens were breathing slowly, being still, occupying the same space harmoniously.
A therapist arrived to collect one of the residents for a session. She stopped in the doorway and waited — not wanting to break whatever was happening in that room. Later, she described it as magic.
It wasn’t magic. But I understood what she meant.
What she witnessed was co-regulation. The nervous systems of twelve people settling together, each one making it a little easier for the others to do the same.
You can't manufacture that with a worksheet or a lesson plan. You can only create the conditions for it to happen. That room is why The Rested Classroom exists.
Mind The Gap
When I consider the landscape of yoga nidra practitioners, I see three communities: the yoga and meditation world, a growing mental health treatment community, and the productivity/health culture that NSDR has reached through Dr. Huberman's work. Each group is finding real value in these practices.
Why not education? To me, this seems like a real missed opportunity.
Schools are responsible for the development of the next generation. Teachers are responsible for cultivating more than knowledge in their students — life skills, communication skills, pro-social values, and self-esteem to name a few. Introducing a practice that encourages the literal growth of the brain can benefit students across all areas of life, from capacity to learn to emotional regulation to goal setting & decision making.
I think the gap between what schools currently offer for student wellbeing and what students may need in the moment comes down to mental load. SEL curriculum and mindfulness meditation are valuable — I believe in both. But they ask students to do more learning, more practice, and exert more effort.
For an overwhelmed or checked out student, the answer cannot be do more.
Yoga nidra does not ask you for any extra effort. This practice asks you to slow down and engage in meaningful rest. There is no learning curve, no performance expectation, and no wrong way to participate.
Your mind and body already know how to sleep. After a single session, a student can feel immediate relief. It is simple, effective across populations, low-cost, and requires no special equipment. Perfect for a classroom.
“I think the most common misconception about rest is that it’s not productive, so it tends to get viewed as a bonus instead of a necessity. I would love to see the narrative shift from rest is lazy to rest is strategic. A student who learns to rest intentionally is not checking out. They are investing — in their present capacity to learn and in their future success. ”
The Problem, Stated Plainly
Poor sleep in adolescents creates a cascade of problems that teachers see every day: daytime sleepiness, difficulty focusing, poor memory retention, reduced emotional regulation, and apathy in the classroom.
Teens who stay up late — whether studying, gaming, or scrolling — often miss the window of non-REM sleep. This matters because non-REM sleep is the phase where the brain processes new information and transfers it into long-term memory. A student who stays up until 2am and sleeps until 7am hasn't just lost hours of rest. They may have lost the night's entire consolidation window.
NSDR practices have been shown to shift brain activity to delta waves, which is a characteristic of deep, restorative non-REM sleep. This means the benefits of that consolidation window can happen, in abbreviated form, during a guided rest session between classes.
While schools can promote healthy sleep habits, teachers cannot control what happens at a student’s home at midnight. However, they can invite students to experience a mental refresh during the school day.
A 10 to 15 minute session offers a mental reset and a reduction in stress hormones, which might be enough to change how a student shows up for the second half of their day. A 20 to 30 minute session can support the integration of new information into long-term memory, an exciting implication for learning outcomes and test performance. (If you’re into that kind of metric.) For best results, Dr. Huberman suggests completing a NSDR session within 1 hour of the completed learning session.
Bringing NSDR to schools isn’t a wellness trend. It is a potential root-cause solution to problematic behaviors and academic inequity we are seeing in schools today.
Who I'm Building The Rested Classroom For
Students / My Student Self
I was a high-achieving student. I did well on tests. I graduated from high school a year early. Experience taught me that high anxiety went hand in hand with high expectations. I had panic attacks in high school and university, and a persistent anxiety that fueled me. I was consumed by my identity as a bright student and even though I achieved a lot, paradoxically, I had quite low self-esteem.
I think yoga nidra would have been a wonderful support during this phase of my life. Not just to manage the stress of expectations, but, as an adult, it has taught me to be kinder to myself. I needed to understand that the relentless drive and the exhaustion weren't signs of strength. They were signs that I wasn’t ok.
Teachers / My High School English Teacher Self
I'm also building this for version of me who taught English & ESL in grades 7-12. The one who never had enough prep periods, who stayed late and showed up early, who struggled to keep up with grading, lesson planning and teaching. I wish she could have had twenty minutes of NSDR instead of the 4th cup of coffee and ibuprofen.
And I'm building it for the current version of myself: in the midst of a significant life transition, in a new country, learning a new language, navigating a new culture, and finding myself at capacity every day. Yoga nidra is how I “trust the process” when the process feels like too much. It is how I integrate what I'm learning.
In classic “mad scientist” style, it’s an opportunity to test this theory on myself. From a sample size of one, I can say that pairing NSDR with an intensive language study session does help me remember what I’ve learned and recall it later on.
The Rested Classroom is a new vision and new project. It’s relatively untested, but comes from solid research.
If you’ve made it this far, perhaps you see yourself in my story. Perhaps you’ve become curious and something is clicking into place. I invite you to join me for this adventure.
Can you envision a space for intentional rest in your classroom?
The Rested Classroom is a growing collection of resources, research summaries, and guided practices designed to bring intentional rest into schools — for students, educators, and school communities. Start with the free meditation library on Insight Timer, or explore the ideas archive for research-informed writing on rest, learning, and the science of the rested brain.
Read more in depth about the ideas in this blog:
Cahn BR, Goodman MS, Peterson CT, Maturi R, Mills PJ. Yoga, Meditation and Mind-Body Health: Increased BDNF, Cortisol Awakening Response, and Altered Inflammatory Marker Expression after a 3-Month Yoga and Meditation Retreat. Frontiers Human Neuroscience. 2017 Jun 26;11:315.
D'souza, O. L., Jose, A. E., Suresh, S., & Shrinath-Baliga, M. (2021). Effectiveness of yoga nidra in reducing stress in school going adolescents: An experimental study. Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, 45, 101462.
Huberman, Andrew. Neural Network Newsletter: Teach & Learn Better with “A Neuroplasticity Super Protocol”
