Living Your Yoga With Dr Melissa West

When lower back pain makes it difficult to sit, stand, walk or even lie down comfortably, it can feel as though there is no safe way to move. Maybe the pain returns every morning, flares “out of nowhere,” or has left you carefully monitoring every bend and twist. Perhaps you have tried stretching, strengthening, physiotherapy or chiropractic care and still feel at your wit’s end. This gentle 35-minute yoga practice offers a simple place to begin, with easy-to-follow movements to help ease tension, mobilize your spine and hips, and help your body feel less guarded. At the end, I will guide you through a short somatic experiment that may reveal how much effort you are using to protect your back and what else might be possible. ✨ The real gold is inside my Inner Radiance Membership, where we move beyond temporary relief and explore how to rebuild comfort, movement choice and confidence. In Lower Back Pain Relief | Somatic Movement Education, our new 60-minute class, you will discover how to move so your lower

If you are feeling overwhelmed by chronic stress, physical tension, or just "tired and wired" you are not alone. Especially in the summer heat, heatwaves, and hot weather most of the world has been experiencing this summer. When your nervous system is stuck in a state of high alert, it can manifest as persistent anxiety, chronic pain, and a mind that won't shut off. This somatic meditation is designed to find safety in your body, helping you move from a state of survival into deep, restorative rest. By the end of this class, you’ll experience a sense of inner calm, reduced physical discomfort, and a more regulated vagus nerve, leaving you feeling grounded and resilient for your daily life. Take Your Practice Deeper: Join Our Membership Community If you are ready to move beyond daily regulation and create lasting change, I invite you to join our Yoga with Melissa membership community. When you join, you’ll gain immediate access to our comprehensive two-month nervous system reset: Month 1: Settle Your Nervou

30 min Somatic Pilates for BEGINNERS: Build Core Strength with Ease | YWM 768 Link to Become a Member https://melissawest.com/membership Experience a 30-minute Somatic Pilates class designed specifically for beginners who want to build core strength without the traditional "burn" or unnecessary tension. In this class, we move away from high-intensity precision and instead focus on ease, coordination, and relational movement. Many traditional Pilates classes focus on isolating muscles, which can often lead to aching shoulders and neck strain. Through my somatic lens, I’ll show you how to distribute effort throughout your entire body, allowing your core to strengthen naturally as part of a whole-body symphony. In this 30-minute somatic pilates session, you will: Learn to move with ease rather than force. Widen participation across your body to reduce muscle over-recruitment. Improve coordination and find your natural alignment. Build sustainable core strength that feels good in your body. Whether

This Yoga Nidra is designed to help you meet exhaustion with loving acceptance. By shifting your nervous system out of activation and into a parasympathetic "rest and digest" state, you allow your body to prioritize recovery over vigilance. Studies suggest that just 1 hour of Yoga Nidra can provide physiological rejuvenation comparable to multiple hours of conventional sleep. This practice gently leads you through alpha and theta brainwave states, mimicking the deep, restorative repair processes of sleep. In this session, you will: Shift from "doing" to "being." Release the grip of exhaustion through gentle, easy attention. Support your nervous system’s natural recovery. Experience deep rest that refreshes your energy. This is a practice of total permission. Over the next 30 minutes, you have nothing to do and nowhere to be. Whether you stay awake or drop into sleep, you are exactly where you need to be. All parts of you, including your exhaustion, are welcome here.

Standing Vagus Nerve Rest | Gentle Yoga Flow for CALM | 30 mins| YWM 766 Check out my two month long programs on calming your nervous system https://melissawest.com/membership Feeling overwhelmed, over-stimulated, or just need a vagus nerve reset? This 30-minute standing gentle yoga flow is designed specifically for Vagus Nerve regulation and nervous system support. Most vagus nerve exercises look like the same few techniques repeated over and over. In this standing yoga practice, we'll explore lesser-known nervous system resets that combine movement, breath, vision, sound, and sensory awareness to help you feel calmer, more grounded, and more connected to your body. When stress, anxiety, and overwhelm leave you feeling disconnected from yourself, your nervous system needs a reset. In this standing yoga practice, we'll explore creative movement, breath, sound, eye yoga, and awareness practices designed to help you shift out of survival mode and reconnect with a greater sense of ease, presence, and regula

Qigong Yoga Flow for Summer Insomnia: Release Heat & Anxiety to Sleep Deeply |YWM 765 In this nourishing Qigong yoga fusion, we focus on the Fire element to help you release the accumulated heat and restless energy that often lead to summer insomnia. When the Fire element is out of balance during these long, hot days, it can manifest as a "tired but wired" feeling, racing thoughts, and a literal physical heat that makes deep rest feel impossible. This class is specifically designed to soothe the Heart protector and calm the nervous system through gentle, cooling movements and rhythmic breathwork, allowing you to transition from the active "Yang" energy of the season into a restorative "Yin" state for the night ahead. We will move through a series of yoga flows and traditional Qigong clearing exercises to vent excess heat and dissolve the anxiety that keeps you awake. By focusing on the meridian lines associated with the heart meridian, this practice helps ground your energy and quiet the mind, making it th

Yoga Nidra Quiet Your Mind & Rest Your Body | Yoga with Melissa 764

12 Daily Standing Yoga Poses for Vagus Nerve Regulation & Morning Calm Join the Yoga with Melissa Membership Community here:

Yoga Nidra for High Functioning Anxiety and Burnout Recovery YWM 762 Join the Yoga with Melissa Membership Community here:

Stop Stretching Your Shoulders Like This | Yin Yoga for Real Relief Feel Incomplete & Curious?

Get my Yin Yoga Book

Full Body Yin Deep Tissue Release for Pain & Tension YWM 759 Get my Yin Yoga Book

Get my Yin Yoga Book

Calming Vagus Nerve Yoga Nidra for Tired & Wired Nervous System | YWM 757 Get my Yin Yoga Book

Vagus Nerve Restorative Yoga for Brain Fog & Deep Nervous System Reset | YWM 756 | 30 mins Get my Yin Yoga Book

MORNING Yoga for VAGUS NERVE Regulation | Yoga with Melissa 755  Get my Yin Yoga Book

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 ou

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

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.mem

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