Date
Feb 7, 2025, 2:00 pm3:00 pm

Details

Event Description
Yoga Nidra Workshop

Rest can seem elusive and low priority during busy times at work and at home. Rest is also often viewed as lazy and unproductive. Yet national bestselling books and NYT articles are centering the importance of rest as both revolutionary and critical to thriving physically, mentally, and emotionally. In this workshop for faculty, staff, postdocs, and graduate students, join Aomawa Shields, Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy and certified Daring to Rest Facilitator, for an exploration of the practice of yoga nidra - a sleep-based guided meditation carried out lying down. Yoga nidra meditation is helpful for improving sleep quality, reducing anxiety, and enhancing resilience in stressful situations, and has been used in partnership between the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the Department of Defense to treat soldiers suffering from PTSD. Clinical studies have shown that yoga nidra meditation is associated with both positive physiological and mental health outcomes among numerous populations, including college faculty. It has been said that 30 minutes of yoga nidra feels like three hours of sleep in your body. Participants will learn how to use this practice to navigate traditional work-, course-, and research-based evaluative situations and high-pressure environments, so that they can begin to approach these situations with greater ease, peace, wisdom, and self-esteem. Participants will receive resources to continue the practice on their own, including help developing a "rest prescription" to nourish their rested paths while rising as researchers, teachers, and professionals.
Bring your own yoga mat! Otherwise, 15 mats will be available to borrow.

Sponsors
  • Council on Science and Technology
  • Astrophysics
Audience
Open to the University Community