The Sleepful | Tracee Stanley, Meditation and Yoga Nidra Teacher

Tracee Stanley, Meditation and Yoga Nidra Teacher

Publication: The Sleepful

February 22, 2021

“My name is Tracee Stanley, I am a meditation and yoga Nidra teacher, as well as a spiritual guide and author of the book Radiant Rest: Yoga Nidra for Deep Relaxation and Awakened Clarity. The translation of Yoga Nidra is the “yoga of sleep”. It’s a process that we do laying down, that takes us through the four stages of consciousness: waking, dreaming, deep sleep, and the state of Turiya, or the fourth state of consciousness- a place beyond thought, pure consciousness.

I was lucky enough to discover yoga and the practice of yoga Nidra while I had a successful career as a Hollywood film producer. I started to notice that these practices were helping me stay really centered, balanced, calm, and able to sleep well. People would often ask me, “How is it that you're staying so calm?”  I slowly started to share little practices with my co-workers. Eventually, we were doing yoga in the break room at lunchtime, and then I started to bring yoga to sets. I realized that these practices were things that people needed in their lives, more than they needed money, and more than they needed success and fame. It became really clear to me that I needed to share these practices. For a while I did both; I was producing and I was also teaching yoga. And then at some point, I just decided that I wanted to focus all of my attention on sharing these practices. 

At the start of the pandemic and the lockdowns, I did a free 21-day meditation course. What I was hearing from people who were already studying with me was that they were feeling lost without community, and without being able to go to their local studio, and that was creating some instability. I wanted to create a space where people could come and practice together for a length of time. I thought maybe a few hundred people would sign up, and to my surprise, 1000 people signed up for that class. People from all over the world! I had people from Mozambique, Israel, Spain. I think every continent was represented. That was very different because all of a sudden we got to tune into the global family. I feel like this pandemic has brought the community closer to each other.

I'm a very good sleeper, I don’t usually struggle, or at least not for long periods. I get six hours of sleep a night. I go to bed fairly early and I wake up at sunrise.  

The Bed

I have Luxome bamboo sheets that regulate body temperature. I get cold at night, my beloved gets hot so the bamboo sheets are perfect because they help both of us regulate to a comfortable temperature. I use a Luxome weighted blanket. I found that having a weighted blanket helps to calm the mind, and just allows the body to feel grounded.  The Luxome pillow is important for my sleep because it's layered, I can take the pieces out and customize it for myself.

The Atmosphere

I don't have any blue light in my bedroom. My beloved likes to watch television, so we have a cable box in the room. We have these little LED covers to shield all the blue lights, so those get put down before we go to sleep. I like to cover the television with some sort of tapestry or cloth. There is no sound, so everything is quiet. We have curtains that are not blackout curtains, but dark enough that they keep out any ambient light. I like to bring in some essential oils sometimes, depending on what's going on. I have a diffuser, so I will diffuse the oil, or apply topically with different salves. And that's it, there's nothing else in the space. It's very quiet, all the phones are off. All the computers are gone. 

The Ritual

I am a firm believer in connecting to the circadian rhythm. That’s one of the reasons I'm always awake for sunrise. I know that people can't always do that, but I think it is important to take a moment when you wake up to look out of a window, close your eyes for a minute and let the light filter through your closed eyes. I also think the same is true when the sun goes down — when you see the sun setting,  it’s a signal for the body to prepare for sleep. I go to bed at the same time every night, and I never go to bed after 1030pm. I think having a consistent bedtime is important. I like to drink tea which starts to calm me and eases me into winding down. That means I turn off my work, I turn off my computer, I'm no longer emailing. It’s a good idea to have a consistent time after which you do not respond to emails or look at your phone. The more we look at the phone, the more the mind is racing about all the things that have to get done. I set an auto-response on my email to create boundaries around my sleep, around my peace of mind, and I don't have to worry because people are getting the message that I will respond the next day.

After the devices are off, I turn toward personal time, connection time —connecting with my beloved, talking, and having something to eat. I like to take a warm bath before going to sleep, which I think is very helpful. Taking a warm bath about 90 minutes before bedtime helps to shift your body's core temperature.  You can use essential oils, listen to music,  your favorite podcast, light candles. Anything that helps your body transition.

My favorite thing to do is to practice silence 30 minutes before bedtime. No texting, no reading, nothing. It's just being in silence. It’s a potent way of clearing the mind. If this isn’t possible, you can trade that in for 30 minutes of journaling. I don't like the phrase, but some people call this a “mind dump” —a  mind cleansing journaling practice to get all the things out that are on the top of mind, to revisit the next day. My friend Laura Plumb, who’s an ayurvedic doctor, created a recipe for an amazing sleep tonic that I love to make before bed, especially if I feel like I'm wound up.

Once I’m in bed, I like to do a body scan from the top of the head moving down to the feet. I just move into relaxing the parts of my body that I can feel are tense and noticing and bringing awareness to my breath. This is called diaphragmatic breathing. I’ll start to count the breath, four on the inhale and eight on the exhale. By lengthening the count of the exhale you start to activate the parasympathetic nervous system. So we start to go into that rest and restore mode. I do that for about three to four minutes, and then release it and just watch the naval rise and fall. I’ll then start to notice my breath shift, and the more you do this, the more you start to become aware of what some people call ‘the sleeper’s breath’. Then I will roll onto my side because I know that my body is ready to sleep.

Extra Tips

Mugwort is very helpful for dreaming and sleeping. You don't have to take it internally, there are salves with mugwort that you can rub on the back of your neck, your shoulders, or on your temples. 

I also have a  course on Commune that I think would be helpful for people if they want to experience deep relaxation and yogic sleep practices. It’s five practices that can be done anytime. They range from 15 minutes to 30 minutes.” 

Discover more about Tracee Stanley. Those who pre-order her book, Radiant Rest, will receive exclusive offerings including Tracee's 40-Day RADIANT REST Book Club, the RADIANT REST Yoga Nidra Sadhana Journal, as well as her Moon Nectar + Deep Sleep Audio Downloads.