Dr. Andrew Huberman

What's the difference between NSDR and meditation?

Thank you for this question.

I am a huge, huge, huge believer and proponent and practitioner of NSDR, non-sleep deep rest.

What is non-sleep deep rest?

Well, to be fair, yoga nidra, which translates to yoga sleep, is a thousand-year-old practice, thousands of years old practice in which you lie completely still, keep the mind awake,

You're not thinking in a structured way.

It's more of a body scan, directed relaxation, et cetera.

I discovered this in 2015 when I was doing some research for a book that I still can't manage to seem to finish on trauma and addiction.

And I went, I have a friend, very talented trauma therapist who's managed to help people with all sorts of addictions.

He'll be on the podcast in the not too distant future.

And I went down to this clinic in Florida and,

Everyone there spent the first hour of the day doing yoga nidra.

This is pretty wacky.

It was still in my pure science, quote unquote, pure scientist, naive scientist lens.

And I thought, what is this about?

And he said, well, you know, so much of addiction is about an inability to regulate impulses, to deal with agitation, especially in the early days of trying to get sober or being sober.

And it just helps people learn to self-direct their nervous system in terms of self-directed relaxation.

It also seems to help with their sleep.

It also has these components about time.

Because he said, you know, it's kind of interesting.