Yoga Nidra and NSDR: Are They The Same Practice?
If you've spent any time on YouTube or Insight Timer looking for meditations, you've probably encountered both of these terms: Yoga Nidra and NSDR. Maybe you’ve even seen them together in one title.
Perhaps you've tried one, or both, without fully understanding what makes them different — or whether the difference even matters.
First, I’ll say this: A dear child has many names.
Second, it matters to me because I’m picky about language. But, really, I’ll let you decide.
It’s A State Of Consciousness
Yoga nidra and NSDR are not two different practices competing for your attention. They're two different doorways into the same room.
That room is a specific state of consciousness — one where your body is as deeply relaxed as it is during sleep, while your awareness remains present and awake. Not unconscious. Not asleep. Something in between, which is profoundly restorative in ways a nap can't fully replicate.
Yoga nidra has been around for thousands of years. It comes from the tantric yoga tradition and translates literally as yogic sleep. For generations, the knowledge was preserved in oral tradition passed from master to student. You can find some references in yogic texts, however, many consider Swami Satyananda Saraswati to be the father of modern yoga nidra. He formalized yoga nidra as a technique and published the book Yoga Nidra in the 1960s. Since then, various schools of practice have emerged and you can find many yoga nidra teachers today.
NSDR, Non-Sleep Deep Rest, is a term created by Dr. Andrew Huberman, a neuroanatomist at Stanford whose podcast The Huberman Lab has introduced millions of people to the neuroscience of performance, sleep, and recovery. Dr. Huberman didn't invent a new practice. He specifically references techniques from yoga nidra and hypnosis as the foundation of his rest protocol. He gave ancient wisdom a new name that speaks to a different audience.
What Makes Them Different?
My answer is scope and intention.
NSDR practices tend to be shorter — typically 10 to 30 minutes — and they focus primarily on sensing the physical body and controlling or observing your breath. The script may include a body scan, some breathwork, and simple visualization. The intention is restoration: replenishing mental energy, improving focus, supporting learning and memory consolidation. It's practical, accessible, and doesn't ask anything of you philosophically or emotionally.
Yoga nidra is larger in scope. A full practice might run 40 to 90 minutes and is designed to move you through the panchamaya koshas — the five layers of the self:
Annamaya kosha, awareness of the physical body.
Pranamaya kosha, awareness of the breath and energy.
Manomaya kosha, awareness of the mind and emotions.
Vijnanamaya kosha, awareness as the witness consciousness.
And finally, anandamaya kosha, the bliss body — that sense of deep union and stillness at the center of everything.
Another key difference between yoga nidra and NSDR is the invitation to connect with your sankalpa, which is deeper than an intention or affirmation. You can think about your primary sankalpa as your heart’s great desire for this lifetime, or a guiding value, like your personal North Star.
If this suddenly started to feel BIG, don’t worry. You don't need to choose a sankalpa or understand the koshas to benefit from yoga nidra. I didn't when I started; I just fell asleep and woke up feeling better.
However, understanding the structure helps explain why a full yoga nidra can feel like it did something to you — not just refreshed you, but moved or released something.
“Before, I felt mentally scattered and physically tense, especially in my shoulders and upper back. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to settle into something as slow and quiet as Yoga Nidra. During the practice, though, I noticed myself gradually dropping into a deeper state of relaxation than I expected. The guided cues helped me stay present, and even when my mind wandered, I didn’t feel frustrated. I learned that I have a harder time relaxing than I thought, and that stillness can actually feel vulnerable at first. But once I let myself soften into it, I felt a sense of safety and grounding that I didn’t realize I needed.
After the practice, I felt lighter, almost like my body had been reset. My breath felt slower and deeper, and I had this sense of calm that stayed with me for the rest of the morning. It made me realize how much my nervous system is constantly “on,” and how Yoga Nidra can help interrupt that cycle.”
Benefits of Intentional Rest
Type either yoga nidra or NSDR into a search bar and you'll find recordings for insomnia, anxiety, gratitude, confidence, pain management, sports recovery, grief, creativity, and about forty other things. How can one practice do all of that?
There are two core benefits of intentional rest, based on our human physiology, which create a ripple-effect of positive experiences.
The first is nervous system regulation — helping your body move out of sympathetic activation, the stress response, and into parasympathetic activation, genuine rest. Under this umbrella you'll find practices for sleep, recovery from illness, support for cancer patients, stress and anxiety management, and nervous system regulation. This is where most NSDR practices live, and where many people begin with yoga nidra.
One notable technique that draws awareness to manomaya kosha, the emotional layer of the self, is asraya. This is a Sanskrit word that can be translated in English as refuge, shelter, protection, or sanctuary. It is guidance to that place of calm deep within yourself. Richard Miller, the founder of iRest, describes it as “an unshakeable sense of wellbeing” that you can connect with in difficult times. If you’d like to explore this type of meditation, search for yoga nidra + inner refuge or yoga nidra + inner resource. (Note: inner resource is specific to iRest. I don’t use this term because I’m not trained as an iRest yoga nidra instructor.)
The second is personal transformation — using the deeply receptive state of yoga nidra to work with the subconscious mind. This is where you find practices for cultivating your sankalpa, entering specific emotional states, shifting limiting beliefs, deepening intuition, or working with grief and emotional healing. This territory is largely specific to traditional yoga nidra and is what makes the practice so much more than a relaxation tool for people who commit to a personal practice.
Choosing A Recording For Your Practice
Here's something worth knowing before you begin looking for a recording: the wider yoga nidra community doesn't always use these terms consistently, and that can make finding the right practice genuinely confusing.
Some teachers add NSDR to the title of a yoga nidra recording to make it more searchable, which means you might click on something labeled NSDR and find yourself 45 minutes into a full kosha journey. Some teachers have started creating shorter 10 to 20 minute yoga nidra recordings specifically to compete with the NSDR trend. Some people, teachers included, use the two terms interchangeably.
None of this is malicious. It reflects a community in real-time conversation about language, lineage, and audience — which is actually kind of fascinating.
But it does mean that the label on a recording isn't always a reliable guide to what's inside.
My advice is to let go of the label and pay attention to the length and the theme. If it's under 20 minutes and focused on body and breath, you're likely in NSDR territory regardless of what it's called. If it's 30 minutes or longer and moves through emotion, imagery, and intention, you're probably in yoga nidra territory. Sometimes you'll click on something expecting one and get the other, which can be a good surprise if you let it.
This is the time when you get to decide: Does the name matter to me?
“ A dear child has many names. ”
Why I Create Both
To be honest, I did not have a great first impression of NSDR. My reaction was a bit hostile. I'd spent years studying yoga nidra, and wrestling with questions around authenticity and appropriation as a white teacher. Now, here was this Stanford professor rebranding it for the biohacker crowd. I was like “Ahhh, this isn’t yoga nidra. You’re missing all the good stuff!”
I got over it quickly, because I realized NSDR was doing something important: it was giving permission to people who would never walk into a yoga studio.
People who'd told themselves they were bad at meditation. People who wanted the benefits without Sanskrit and the weight of tradition. People who needed a simple invitation to remember what it feels like to deeply rest.
NSDR is like an appetizer. It's shorter, more focused, lower stakes. You do a 10-minute NSDR and think, huh, I actually feel better. Then, maybe you get curious. And find your way to a longer yoga nidra practice. One day, you realize something in you has quietly shifted.
That's a path worth supporting, so I create both. Remember: yoga nidra and NSDR are both doors to the same room.
I choose to honor both lineages intentionally — the ancient tradition of yoga nidra and the rest protocol Andrew Huberman has brought to a new audience through NSDR. That means being careful with language, consistent with themes, and clear about what you're getting when you press play.
When I begin to brainstorm a new meditation, I use the length, theme, and inclusion of the five koshas as guidelines for naming. For a yoga nidra practice, it tends to be longer and I include techniques that move through all five koshas — physical body, breath and energy, mind and emotions, witness consciousness, and the bliss body. For an NSDR recording, the focus stays with the first two koshas: the physical body and the breath. NSDR may include a simple intention or visualization, but the language and the arc of the practice are quite different from a traditional yoga nidra script.
So, when you choose one of my recordings, the name reflects the lineage.
Closing Thoughts
Yoga nidra and NSDR are not the same thing, but they're family. NSDR is the newer, science-backed entry point. Yoga nidra is the ancient, layered, endlessly deep tradition it draws from.
Both will rest you in ways ordinary sleep sometimes can't. Both are safe and accessible. Both are worth your time. Neither practice requires you to be “good at” meditating.
Start wherever feels right. Personally, I like to use Insight Timer because it’s ad-free and the instructors offer high quality recordings. You can find recordings on YouTube, Spotify, or from Dr. Huberman himself.
So, which door will you choose?
