NSDR, non-sleep deep rest, is a name for deliberately resting deeply while staying awake — usually lying down, following a voice, for ten to thirty minutes. What the term covers, where it comes from, and where hypnosis fits within it.
That Long, Long Exhale
Written for someone taking twenty minutes of deep rest at midday after a bad night, with an afternoon of work ahead.
That Long, Long Exhale
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Now let's make the breath a little longer.
Breathe in gently through the nose. One, two, three, four. Hold it softly at the top. And let it go slowly, a long exhale, out through the mouth or the nose. Six, seven, eight.
Again. In through the nose. A soft pause. And the long exhale, longer than the inhale, like a sigh that takes its time.
As you exhale, the body lets go of what it no longer needs to hold.
In. Pause. And out, slow, all the way to the end.
That's right.
One more time. Fill up gently. Rest at the top. And release, long and unhurried, the shoulders sinking as the air leaves.
And once more, on your own. In. And that long, long exhale.
Now let the breath find its own rhythm again. It will probably stay a little slower, a little longer on the way out. You don't need to manage it.
You can stay awake through all of this. Rested, but aware. Close enough to the surface to hear my voice, and deep enough that the body can truly rest. This is the place in between, and it's exactly where you want to be.
Bring your attention to your feet. The soles. The toes. The heels. Notice whatever is there. Warmth, coolness, tingling, or nothing much at all. And let the feet grow heavy. Heavier. As if they could sink a little into the surface below.
Your ankles soften. Your calves release, the muscles going slack. Your knees, loose. Your thighs, long and heavy, fully held.
The term came from Andrew Huberman, the Stanford neuroscientist, in the early 2020s. He wanted a plain description for a family of practices, one that would not put anyone off with the name of a particular tradition. Non-sleep deep rest says what they share and nothing else. You rest as deeply as you can without falling asleep.
The name is new; the practices are not. Under the umbrella sit yoga nidra, body scans, some forms of guided relaxation and self-hypnosis. What unites them is the state, not the tradition: the body settled and heavy, the breath slow, attention loose but present, somewhere in the band between waking and sleep.
Most NSDR recordings borrow their structure from yoga nidra, stripped of its Sanskrit and its resolve. A typical ten- to twenty-minute session goes like this:
People use it after a short night, in the early afternoon slump, or to wind down before sleep. You do not need to sleep, and it is fine if you do.
Huberman counts self-hypnosis in the category. It belongs there by lineage: modern yoga nidra, autogenic training and progressive relaxation all grew, directly or indirectly, out of twentieth-century hypnosis and the relaxation methods around it. The state they aim at is the one hypnotists have always worked in.
What hypnosis adds is direction. A body scan lets the mind settle and leaves it there. A hypnotic session uses the settled state for something: images, a story, a suggestion aimed at what you brought with you. Ericksonian hypnosis, the kind developed by the psychiatrist Milton Erickson, does this indirectly, through metaphor and permission rather than command, so the rest stays rest.
NSDR asks the mind to rest. Hypnosis asks what the mind would like to do with the rest.
Quies is not an NSDR track. There is no fixed script to replay. It is AI hypnosis in the Ericksonian manner: a few questions about how you are right now — a word to choose, a slider, a sentence if you want to write one — and then a session written for that moment and spoken to you. The body settles first, as in any NSDR session; then the words go where your answers pointed.
If NSDR is already part of your day, think of it as the same rest with a different use. On a day when you just need to reset, a scan is enough. On a day when something specific is weighing on you — a conversation that went badly, a night that will not start — a session written around it is the one to reach for.
Deep rest, with a session written for what is on your mind.
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Quies is a wellness tool for relaxation and self-exploration. It is not a medical device and does not diagnose, treat, or cure any condition. If you are experiencing a mental health crisis, please contact a qualified healthcare professional.