02/14/2024
It’s great to see researchers getting curious about yogic protocols.
There is lots of research which has been going into breath work and relaxation techniques, which have been proven to help with focus, stress reduction and mindfulness.
Andrew Huberman from Huberman Labs
discusses many free protocols to help with significantly increasing dopamine and cognitive performance in this podcast and one of the protocols is Yoga Nidra!
Follow the link here for the podcast;
https://open.spotify.com/episode/17uiY0ZmytcTN6umqt5ns9?si=Vsyb3fJpSiuro07-9PZ-_w
“There are many ways to increase dopamine (pharmacologically, etc) and yes by certain supplements, such as L-tyrosine BUT, it turns out there’s a simple zero cost behavioral protocol that has been shown (through PET brain imaging) to both significantly increase dopamine levels and in separate studies, to improve certain forms of cognition.
The protocol involves a self-directed, deliberate muscular and facial relaxation, and long exhale breathing etc. The traditional form of this is called Yoga Nidra. A few years ago I (Huberman) coined the term NSDR - for ’non-sleep deep rest’, which is essentially the same thing, but does not involve intentions and the protocols tend to be a bit shorter.”
