Living your Yoga with Dr Melissa West

Dr. Melissa West
  • 4.3 (11)
  • FITNESS
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Audio Podcast from Dr Melissa West – Real Yoga for Real People – Includes my weekly Yoga show and short podcasts discussing all things yoga.

  1. 5D AGO

    MORNING Yoga for VAGUS NERVE Regulation | Yoga with Melissa 755

    MORNING Yoga for VAGUS NERVE Regulation | Yoga with Melissa 755  Get my Yin Yoga Book 🙏👉https://melissawest.com/book/  💕Join Our Membership Community 💕http://bit.ly/ywmmembership  Start your day with this 30 minute morning yoga practice focused on vagus nerve regulation and nervous system flexibility. In this vagus nerve yoga class, you will explore how breathing and movement support the vagal brake, the mechanism that helps regulate heart rate, breathing rhythm, digestion, and your ability to shift between activation and ease. As you move through this practice, you will experience how the nervous system can mobilize for action and then return to steadiness and calm. This flexibility helps daily challenges feel more manageable and supports sustainable energy throughout the day. This morning yoga class includes gentle vagus nerve stimulation through breath awareness, and mindful movement. The sequence focuses on releasing and strengthening the inner thighs, hip flexors, and pelvis while exploring variations of Warrior I and Goddess pose to build both stability and adaptability in your body and nervous system. This class is suitable if you are looking to reset your nervous system, support vagus nerve activation, and begin your day feeling grounded.  In this class you will explore: • Vagus nerve breathing exercises • Gentle vagus nerve stimulation through movement • Warrior I variations to build strength and regulation • Goddess pose and hip opening to release stored tension • Nervous system reset through slow, intentional yoga This Yoga with Melissa morning yoga practice supports nervous system awareness in a practical and embodied way, helping you carry steadiness and responsiveness into the rest of your day. Poem: A Great Shining by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

    38 min

  2. JAN 23

    30min Yoga Nidra for Deep Rest | Yoga with Melissa 754

    30 min Yoga Nidra for Deep Rest | Yoga with Melissa 754 AD-FREE Yoga Nidra Audios in our membership library:  https://melissawest.com/membership  This Yoga Nidra for Deep Rest is an invitation to step out of effort and allow your system to settle on its own. The practice is not demanding, guiding you into a state where thinking naturally quiets, your body softens, and vigilance eases without needing to focus, analyze, or try to relax. You may notice a sense of being held, supported, or gently organized from within, whether you remain awake, drift, or fall asleep. Nothing needs to happen for the practice to be effective. Over time, this kind of deep rest supports your nervous system in remembering how to stand down from constant readiness. You may  return to this Yoga Nidra when you feel tired but wired, emotionally full, physically depleted, or simply in need of a rest. The effects tend to unfold quietly, influencing sleep, energy, and how you move through your day, without needing to track or manage the outcome. AD-FREE Yoga Nidra Audios in our membership library: https://melissawest.com/membership

    32 min

  3. JAN 16

    Yin Yoga for Tight Hips & Low Back | Slow Release for Tension | YWM 753

    Yin Yoga for Tight Hips & Low Back | Slow Release for Tension | YWM 753 Over 1, 000 videos in our membership library https://melissawest.com/membership  This yin yoga class is designed to gently ease tight hips and lower back through long, supported poses that allow your body to soften rather than brace. We will gradually open the hips from multiple angles and release common holding patterns around the pelvis and spine. Instead of pushing for flexibility, you will give your joints, muscles, and connective tissue time to relax, which helps reduce stiffness, gripping, and that familiar sense of compression in the low back. Over the course of the class, many students notice less pulling in the hips, more ease when standing or walking, and a quieter, more settled feeling in the lower back. This yin yoga for hips and lower back supports long-term comfort, not just a short stretch. The practice helps your body stop compensating through the spine when the hips are tight, which can ease ongoing lower back pain and tension. If you are looking for yin yoga that feels slow, grounded, and genuinely supportive, this class offers a calm, steady way to restore ease and mobility in your hips and low back. Poem: I Thought This Was a Poem about a Lemon by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer Over 1, 000 videos in our membership library https://melissawest.com/membership

    59 min

  4. JAN 9

    Restorative Yoga for a CALM NERVOUS SYSTEM | Yoga with Melissa 752

    Restorative Yoga for a CALM NERVOUS SYSTEM | Yoga with Melissa 752 For more nervous system healing: Link to sign up: https://melissawest.com/membership This 60-minute restorative yoga class is designed to calm your nervous system. Through restorative yoga with props we will move your nervous system from sympathetic activation, stress and anxiety to a state of calm. This is restorative yoga for the nervous system, oriented toward parasympathetic settling. This restorative yoga is designed to calm you down. This is a full restorative yoga 1 hour practice designed for nervous system regulation and healing.  This class sits inside a larger framework I teach in my membership through the 1 month Settle Your Nervous System program. That program looks at how activation shows up across the body, thoughts, speech, and daily actions, and how regulation is rebuilt slowly over time. If this restorative yoga class resonates, the program offers a way to work with nervous system healing.  Link for members: https://www.members.melissawest.com/roadmap/nervous-system-stabilization-settle-your-nervous-system/ Link to sign up: https://melissawest.com/membership

    57 min

  5. 12/29/2025

    Transitioning into Winter’s Deep Rest Yoga Nidra | Yoga with Melissa 751

    Transitioning into Winter’s Deep Rest Yoga Nidra | Yoga with Melissa 751 💕Join Our Membership Community 💕http://bit.ly/ywmmembership  Receive emails from me: https://bit.ly/melissamail As the light fades and winter draws us inward, this Yoga Nidra supports a deliberate transition into long, deep rest. Winter is a gestation phase, a return to the dark where energy gathers and reorganizes. In nature, hibernation is a biological necessity. Bears slow their heart rates, breathe less often, and conserve life force so that renewal becomes possible. We carry the same seasonal intelligence. When we choose rest, our cells repair, our immune system recalibrates, and the nervous system settles into coherence. This practice invites you to question the cultural push toward constant output and instead attune to stillness, intuition, patience, and the quiet reset that winter naturally offers. Before you settle in, create your own hibernation den. Dim the lights. Support your body with a pillow or bolster under your knees if needed. Add a blanket for warmth and an eye pillow to help you drop into the winter darkness. This Yoga Nidra is a sanctuary for retreat, restoration, and receiving. As you rest, you align with the earth’s rhythm rather than resisting it. Choosing deep rest in winter is not withdrawal; it’s participation in a larger cycle. It’s a way of honouring your place in nature and letting your body remember its own timing. I’m enjoying the winter section of my book right now: Five Element Yin Yoga. Go to the blue tabs for water element and winter. Book: ➡️ https://melissawest.com/book/

    30 min

  6. 12/12/2025

    75-Minute ULTIMATE Restorative YIN for Deepest Nervous System REST 🎂 YWM 750

    75-Minute ULTIMATE Restorative YIN for Deepest Nervous System REST 🎂 YWM 750 Month Long Nervous System Program in Membership https://melissawest.com/membership This 75 minute Ultimate Restorative Yin for Deepest Nervous System Rest brings together what the research is clear about: long, supported yin shapes plus slow, coherent breathing reliably shift the body into parasympathetic physiology. This is the foundation of a true nervous system reset. Practices like extended exhale breathing and coherent breath strengthen vagal tone, increase HRV, and downshift amygdala activation, which is why yin yoga is so effective for people who feel drained, wired, overwhelmed, or “fried.” Through interoceptive awareness, gentle vagus nerve stimulation, and repeated micro moments of safety, your system learns a calmer baseline. This yin yoga class with luxurious holds is designed to help you experience that shift directly. You will be guided through a sequence that uses the physiology of rest. Each long hold works with your vagus nerve, your interoceptive pathways, and your natural regulatory reflexes so your system can shift out of chronic fight, flight, or collapse and into ease, clarity, and emotional steadiness.  Research on gentle somatic and trauma-informed yoga shows measurable improvements in autonomic regulation, mood, and stress resilience, even for people who have been overwhelmed for years. This practice treats yin yoga as nervous system training rather than stretching. As we celebrate 750 episodes, I would love to hear from you: Which of our 750 practices was a turning point in your life, and why? If you want to go deeper, we have a month-long nervous system program in our membership exploring what it means to have a flexible, adaptable nervous system. Your system is designed to move between different states depending on the demands of your life. Learning how to transition smoothly between safety and connection, sympathetic activation, and dorsal shutdown is a core skill for resilience. Inside the membership, this becomes an embodied, practical exploration supported by classes, discussions, and guided practices. Join us and begin learning how to navigate your states with more clarity, stability, and ease. Poem: Only when I am Not Rushing by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer Props: wall, blocks, bolster, blanket https://melissawest.com/membership

    1h 24m

  7. 12/05/2025

    NOURISHING Beginner Yin Yoga to SOOTHE STRESS & RESET Your NERVOUS SYSTEM | YWM 749

    NOURISHING Beginner Yin Yoga to SOOTHE STRESS & RESET Your NERVOUS SYSTEM | YWM 749 Membership ➡️  https://www.melissawest.com/membership Book: ➡️ https://melissawest.com/book/ Welcome to Yoga with Melissa 749! Join me for this NOURISHING Beginner Yin Yoga session designed to SOOTHE STRESS and guide a full RESET** for your NERVOUS SYSTEM. This is a gentle yoga for anxiety practice that helps your body release deep-seated tension. This slow-paced, therapeutic yin yoga class is perfect for beginners or anyone seeking a powerful, healing yoga experience. We'll focus on poses that gently open the hips and back, key areas for holding stress, while naturally activating your parasympathetic nervous system. By holding these shapes, we stimulate the vagus nerve to foster deep regulation, relaxation and a calm mind. Use this time to unplug, find inner peace, and release emotional tension from your body. Timeline: Figure Four Pose Child’s Pose Reclined Twist Butterfly Forward Fold (Half Butterfly) Legs up the Wall Savasana  Props: Wall, bolster, 2 blocks, blanket, (options will be given if you don’t have these) Poem: A Prayer for Everyday  by Julia Fehrenbacher

    38 min

  8. 11/14/2025

    Restorative Yoga & Breathwork for when you feel 😩DRAINED 🥱 YWM 748

    Restorative Yoga & Breathwork for when you feel 😩DRAINED 🥱YWM 748 Membership ➡️  https://www.melissawest.com/membership Book: ➡️ https://melissawest.com/book/ When you’re feeling emotionally exhausted, overstimulated, or simply too tired to push through another thing, this Restorative Yoga and Breathwork for when you feel drained offers a cozy space to rest deeply and recover your energy. In this 60-minute Melissa West restorative yoga class, we’ll combine gentle breathwork and fully supported postures using props like a bolster, blankets, and pillows to help your nervous system shift from depletion to calm. You’ll soften tension in your low back, slow your breathing, and reconnect to an inner sense of safety and peace. This restorative yoga for overwhelm and burnout is designed to help you melt stress, soothe your emotions, and reset your nervous system. It’s perfect as a restorative yoga for emotional healing, a restorative yoga for anxiety, or simply a cozy restorative yoga session at the end of a long day. Whether you’re practicing for peace, nervous system regulation, or emotional renewal, this class will guide you back to grounded presence. 🕯️🌙 Membership ➡️  https://www.melissawest.com/membership Book: ➡️ https://melissawest.com/book/

    55 min
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Audio Podcast from Dr Melissa West – Real Yoga for Real People – Includes my weekly Yoga show and short podcasts discussing all things yoga.

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