Yoga nidra is a form of yoga that requires no physical movement whatsoever: anyone who can breathe, and anyone who has ever, even once in their lives, fallen asleep, can practice yoga nidra because it is a conscious meditation upon the process of falling asleep.

Yoga nidra literally means 'Yoga Sleep'. It's 'The Sleep that is Yoga', or 'The Yoga of Sleep,' or even 'The Sleep of the Yogis'. Whatever way you translate it, yoga nidra is all about sleep. It is a meditation upon the experience of falling asleep. What actually happens during the process is a gradual settling of electrical activity in the brain.

Practising yoga nidra can cycle your brain waves down from the high-stress top levels of Beta, through restful reveries of Alpha waves and down in to dreamy states of Theta waves until you may, quite likely, come to rest for a while in Delta waves of deepest sleep, where vital repair and restoration happens.

It will take you about 15 or 20 minutes a day and you don't need to move a muscle to do it. This is the most accessible, simple and effective of all yoga practices, and it does not require a yoga studio or a yoga teacher or any special equipment or clothing. All that's necessary is for you to find a space to lie down and listen. That's it. Just a place to get horizontal or at least to sit down , and to be able to listen to a recording of yoga nidra.

How to practice yoga nidra at home

It couldn't be easier. You simply need a space large enough to lie down, and the capacity to hear a recording.

There are three steps to yoga nidra at home:

• Build your nidra nest
• Choose your recording
• Lie down, listen and rest