You can quickly restore your energy in 10 minutes and can do it anytime and anywhere. If you don’t know this method, you will lose a lot.

You can quickly restore your energy in 10 minutes, and you can do it anytime and anywhere. If you don’t know this method, you will miss out.

If you don't take a nap, you may feel tired in the afternoon. If you take a nap, the rest time is too short, and you may not get enough rest after a short nap. You may oversleep once you fall asleep, which will not only delay your work, but also make you dizzy and swollen. I believe many people have encountered such troubles. Is there any way to make people rest well in a short time? There is indeed! Professor Andrew Huberman, a professor of neurobiology at Stanford University, and his team proposed a new solution: Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR). This method does not require people to enter a deep sleep state, but it can allow your brain and body to get a good rest and recovery in 10 minutes!

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What is NSDR?

NSDR is a method of guiding your attention and body to relax, helping your brain enter a sleep-like state of rest, allowing your body and mind to relax properly. This practice is simple and easy to do in any quiet and comfortable place. Just follow these steps:

1. Preparation stage: Find a quiet, comfortable place where you can lie down or sit in a chair.

2. Relax your body: Close your eyes, take 3 to 4 deep breaths, and feel your body gradually relax.

3. Guide your attention: Play the NSDR guidance audio (there are many such audio and video platforms, which can be retrieved by searching the NSDR keyword), follow the guidance and gradually feel the relaxation of various parts of the body, from the soles of the feet to the head.

4. Imagination exercise: Imagine your body gradually sinking down, feeling the contact between your body and the chair or bed, and further relax your muscles.

5. End of the exercise: After the exercise, move your body slowly and gradually regain consciousness.

This approach draws on techniques such as Yoga Nidra and Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR)[1], which have been widely studied and applied in clinical care, mental health, and cognitive function improvement[2-4].

How NSDR makes people

A 10-minute quick refresher?

NSDR can affect the body in three ways, allowing us to get enough rest in a short period of time. The most important of these is the directional induction of brain waves. Studies have shown that NSDR can guide practitioners to focus on body sensations and breathing, allowing the brain to transition from beta waves to alpha waves and theta waves, achieving a relaxing effect in the light sleep stage[5]. At the same time, NSDR can also inhibit the sympathetic nervous system, helping the body enter a state of relaxation[6], and can significantly reduce the levels of stress hormones (such as cortisol). The reduction of this hormone not only helps to reduce stress and anxiety, but also improves overall health[7].

In order to verify whether NSDR has real effects, researchers recruited 65 participants and randomly divided them into two groups. One group of participants completed 10 minutes of NSDR, while the other group just sat in meditation for 10 minutes without doing any specific relaxation exercises[8].

In the experiment, the researchers conducted multiple tests on the two groups of participants before and after the intervention to assess their physical and cognitive performance, emotional state, and recovery. The results showed that the NSDR group performed significantly better than the control group in multiple tests. Their grip strength increased significantly, indicating that their muscle strength and physical readiness were improved. In the psychomotor vigilance task, the reaction time of the NSDR group was significantly shortened, and their attention and vigilance were significantly improved. In the classic psychological test Simon test, the accuracy of the NSDR group was significantly improved, and their cognitive flexibility and decision-making ability were also enhanced. In addition, the mood of the NSDR group was significantly improved, and stress and tension were significantly reduced. In short, NSDR has changed the logic of our body's "charging" through its influence on the brain, sympathetic nervous system, and hormones, evolving from a "slow charge" to a "fast charge" state, and can make the body more relaxed and the mental state better restored in just 10 minutes.

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NSDR ≠ traditional nap!

Many people may think that NSDR and traditional naps are similar, just shorter. In fact, this is not the case. It is really difficult to control the degree of rest in traditional naps. Because in traditional sleep, our brain will go through multiple sleep cycles, each cycle lasting about 90 minutes, including light sleep, deep sleep and rapid eye movement sleep. During sleep, the brain's brain waves will gradually transition from beta waves when awake to alpha waves, theta waves, and finally enter the delta waves of deep sleep[9]. If you can't control the time well and wake up during deep sleep, you will show obvious signs of not getting enough sleep. For example, after waking up, your head will be groggy, making you feel like you have slept, but you haven't slept. This dazed feeling makes people feel uncomfortable, and it is better not to sleep. This is actually a kind of sleep inertia. Sleep inertia causes the brain to be in a state of inhibition for a short time, so after waking up from a traditional nap, many people often fall into a state of cognitive and sensory decline for a relatively long time[10-11], and it usually takes more than ten minutes or even hours to return to normal. The controllability of NSDR is much better than that of traditional naps, and it does not have the problem of sleep inertia. As we have mentioned before, the core of NSDR is not to enter deep sleep, but to achieve rapid relaxation and recovery by guiding the brain into a state similar to light sleep. In other words, you do not need to really fall asleep, but the brain will enter a state similar to light sleep, allowing the whole body and mind to rest and recover quickly. Since you will not enter a deep sleep state at all, you will avoid the trouble of sleep inertia of traditional naps. It is worth noting that the value of NSDR is not to replace sleep, but to provide a controllable neuroregulatory pathway. NSDR switches the brain from the high-energy beta wave state to the repair state of the alpha/theta wave frequency band through the coordinated intervention of breathing, muscle and mind, allowing the tired body to relax. This method does have a good effect on acute fatigue recovery. Mastering this technology also means gaining the initiative to actively regulate neural resources in a fast-paced life, but fatigue throughout the day still needs to be solved through deep sleep at night.

interactive:

In your daily life, how do you take a break from your busy schedule? Welcome to tell us your experience after practice, or share your good tips for taking a nap/rest.

References

[1] Boukhris O, Suppiah H, Halson S, Russell S, Clarke A, Geneau MC, Stutter L, Driller M. The acute effects of nonsleep deep rest on perceptual responses, physical, and cognitive performance in physically active participants. Appl Psychol Health Well Being. 2024 Nov;16(4):1967-1987.

[2] Zargar, F., Fahim, A., Nikgoftar, N. and Tarrahi, MJ (2023) Comparing the Effect of Internet-Delivered Short-Term Progressive Muscle Relaxation and Psychoeducation on Mindful Ability, Visceral Hypersensitivity and Symptoms of Patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Journal of Education and Health Promotion, 12, 259.

[3] Muhammad Khir, S., Wan Mohd Yunus, WMA, Mahmud, N., Wang, R., Panatik, S., Mohd Sukor, MS, et al. (2024) Efficacy of Progressive Muscle Relaxation in Adults for Stress, Anxiety, and Depression: A Systematic Review. Psychology Research and Behavior Management, 17, 345-365.

[4] Bhattacharyya KK, Andel R, Small BJ. Effects of yoga-related mind-body therapies on cognitive function in older adults: A systematic review with meta-analysis. Arch Gerontol Geriatr. 2021 Mar-Apr;93:104319.

[5] Travis, F., & Shear, J. (2010). Focused attention, open monitoring and automatic self-transcending: Categories to organize meditations from Vedic, Buddhist and Chinese traditions. Consciousness and Cognition, 19(4), 1110–1118.

[6] Rausch, SM, Gramling, SE, & Auerbach, SM (2006). Effects of a single session of large-group meditation and progressive muscle relaxation training on stress reduction, reactivity, and recovery. International Journal of Stress Management, 13(3), 273–290.

[7] Desai, K. (2017). Yoga nidra: The art of transformational sleep. Lotus PR.

[8] Boukhris O, Suppiah H, Halson S, Russell S, Clarke A, Geneau MC, Stutter L, Driller M. The acute effects of nonsleep deep rest on perceptual responses, physical, and cognitive performance in physically active participants. Appl Psychol Health Well Being. 2024 Nov;16(4):1967-1987.

[9] Walker, MP, & Stickgold, R. (2006). Sleep, memory, and plasticity. Annual Review of Psychology, 57, 139–166.

[10] Chang Dachuan, Zhao Zhongxin, Zhang Peng, et al. Research progress on sleep inertia[J]. Chinese Journal of Neurology, 2008, 41(9): 643-644. DOI: 10.3321/j.issn:1006-7876.2008.09.019.

[11] Hilditch CJ, McHill AW. Sleep inertia: current insights. Nat Sci Sleep. 2019 Aug 22;11:155-165. doi: 10.2147/NSS.S188911. PMID: 31692489; PMCID: PMC6710480.

Planning and production

Author: Ding Yu, PhD in Neurobiology

Review丨Lin Guozhong, Chief Physician of Neurosurgery, Peking University Third Hospital

Planning丨Zhong Yanping

Editor: Zhong Yanping

Proofread by Xu Lailinlin