Yoga with Melissa

This 30 minute restorative yoga class is designed specifically to boost your immune system. In this class, we will focus on yoga poses that help increase your internal resistance and immunity so that you can remain healthy and vibrant.

We will begin with legs up the wall pose, which allows the lymph nodes in our neck, armpits, and groin to work more efficiently. Next, we will practice supported fish pose to stimulate the thymus gland, which is responsible for producing T cells.

We will also practice a restorative side bend to stimulate the spleen, which filters germs from our bloodstream. Finally, we will end with bound angle pose to open up the thymus and groin lymph nodes.

Restorative yoga has a tonifying effect on the body and helps increase the activity and efficiency of the cells in our immune system. By strengthening our internal body and trusting its innate potential for maintaining health and to overcome illness, we can heal from within and restore balance to our bodies.

This is real yoga for real people to experience the healing power of restorative yoga for your immune system.

30 min Restorative Yoga for Immune System Sequence

Legs Up the Wall

Supported Fish

Side Bend Over Bolster

Bound Angle Pose

Props Needed: 2 blocks, bolster, yoga strap, blanket, eye pillow, wall

Poem: The Cure for it All by Julia Fehrenbacher

Are you ready for an hour of rejuvenating, invigorating, and soul-nurturing hatha yoga poses that you should do daily? This class is packed with the top twelve yoga poses you should do every day to transform your mind and body.

Melissa West, your clear-seeing yoga guide will take you through inversions, backbends, twists, forward folds, balancing poses, side bends, and resting postures to give you a complete real yoga for real people experience . You'll strengthen your legs and glutes while opening up your chest and relieving back pain from hours of screen time.

Hip openers will release tension, making them perfect for athletes and those who sit for long periods. You'll also give your immune system a boost and recharge your batteries with restorative poses, which will leave you feeling refreshed and energized.

Throughout the class, your spine will be taken through the four movements of flexion, extension, lateral flexion, and rotation to relieve back pain and soothe stress and anxiety. Balancing postures and core strengthening exercises add an extra challenge while toning breast and armpit tissue and supporting breast tissue health by encouraging lymphatic flow.

Join me for a hatha yoga class that will not only take care of your physical well-being but will also calm your mind, improve your emotional and mental well-being, and leave you feeling incredible. Don't miss out on this 1 hour version of 12 poses you should do daily that you have grown to love so much!

This healing yoga nidra combines the best of yoga nidra and forest bathing and was filmed and recorded on the Rainforest Trail in Pacific Rim National Park in Tofino. Yoga nidra calms your thinking mind, improves your sleep, improves your physical health, releases stress, anxiety and depression, and releases chronic pain. It promotes deep rest and relaxation that isn’t available in your average guided meditation practice. Forest bathing reduces stress hormone production, improves feelings of happiness, frees up creativity, lowers your heart rate and blood pressure, boost your immune system and supports you in recovering from illness. 

In this yoga nidra you will imagine you are on the Rainforest trail with us. Through this guided meditation, done in a reclined position you will explore your symbiotic and healing relationship with the forest.

This healing yoga nidra combines the best of yoga nidra and forest bathing by an ocean and was filmed and recorded on the Wild Pacific Trail in Ucluelet on Vancouver Island. Yoga nidra calms your thinking mind, improves your sleep, improves your physical health, releases stress, anxiety and depression, and releases chronic pain. It promotes deep rest and relaxation that isn’t available in your average guided meditation practice. Forest bathing reduces stress hormone production, improves feelings of happiness, frees up creativity, lowers your heart rate and blood pressure, boosts your immune system and supports you in recovering from illness.

In this yoga nidra you will imagine you are on the Wild Pacific Trail with us. Through this guided meditation, done in a reclined position you will explore the depths of your soul, your soul’s desire and flow through your fluid body.

Join me for this calming yoga nidra. I wrote this original script to target and activate your vagus nerve. Your vagus nerve is part of your autonomic nervous system. It plays a role in regulating your body’s internal environment, including your heart rate, digestion, breathing and immune response. It can support you in feeling less anxious and depressed. Through this guided meditation your nervous system will be calmed, reducing anxiety and depression and supporting an overall sense of well-being. Your sleep will also be supported.

The guided meditation takes you through a rotation of parts of your body with a focus on your vagus nerve. This meditation is perfect for all levels of experience from beginner’s to advance. You do not need any prior yoga experience. You can choose whatever position you want for this meditation. In fact most people do it lying down. Enjoy the gift of restoration with this Vagus Nerve Yoga Nidra to Calm Your Nervous System.

May this practice support you in feeling regulated so that you can respond with flexibility to the ordinary and stressful challenges of day to day life.

With love and many blessings, Melissa

You guys LOVED the first 45 minute Daily Hatha Yoga Routine 12 Poses You Should Do Daily | Yoga with Melissa 479. It has over 40K views and I hear from so many of you that you put it into your regular rotation.

So, I decided to create a 30 minute version of daily hatha yoga poses that you should do everyday. The inversions, backbends, twists, forward folds, balancing poses, side bends and resting poses in this hatha yoga class will give you the most complete yoga class for your body that will attend both to your physical well-being and health, but also calm your mind, improve your emotional and mental well-being, give you more energy and leave you feeling rested.

The resting postures in this class will recharge your batteries, release tension from your body, boost your immune system, relieve fatigue and help to deepen your breathing. There are poses in this class which will help to strengthen your legs, butt and glutes. Backbends will open up your chest and counteract rounded and poor postural habits from hours of screen time. Hip openers will relieve tight hips, back pain, sciatica, are great for athletes and are great for those of us who spend long hours sitting. Throughout this class your spine is taken through the four movements of flexion, extension, lateral flexion and rotation. These movements will not only help to relieve back pain, but because the spine houses the central nervous system they are also calming and help to relieve stress and anxiety. Several of the poses in this class support breast tissue health by encouraging lymphatic flow through the armpits and breast tissue as well toning breast and armpit tissue.

I have changed up a few poses in this updated version of 12 poses you should do everyday. It is a wrist free class! The balancing pose is different. I have added a dedicated core strengthening pose and a dedicated seated forward fold to calm your nervous system.

12 Poses You Should Do Every Day in 30 minutes - Wrist Free Sequence

1. Legs up the Wall with 3 part Breath

2. Bridge Pose

3. Knee to Chest Pose

4. Keyhole Stretch

5. Cat/Cow

6. Plank

7. Lunge

8. Tree Pose

9. Side Angle Pose

10. Locust Pose

11. Janu Sirsasana

12. Savasana

Poem: Hold Out Your Hand by Julia Fehrenbacher

In this vagus nerve yoga class for morning we will become familiar with our vagus nerve and the vagal brake through breathing. This will allow our nervous systems to move flexibly through our day, to meet the demands of our day. When our nervous systems are flexible, the vagal brake can release to allow us to move into action and then have the resilience to return to ease and calm so that the challenges of life feel more doable. This yoga class focuses on stretching the adductors/inner thighs and hip flexors. We will practice several variations of warrior one pose and goddess victory squat throughout this vagus nerve yoga class for the morning.

Vagus Nerve Restorative Yoga

https://youtu.be/v5iNPPr9Bcw

Vagus Nerve Exercises for Relaxation

https://youtu.be/o7Qa4EqB-gc

Vagus Nerve Massage for Stress & Anxiety Relief

https://youtu.be/MMaWEUuwoZY

Vagus Nerve Massage for Insomnia

https://youtu.be/mZmJ_Sdks6M

Become a Member

https://www.melissawest.com/membership/

30 min Yin Yoga for Urinary Bladder Meridian | Energy Reserves & Purification

This 30 minute yin yoga for your urinary bladder meridian will support you in building your energy reserves and purifying your body of toxins. Your urinary bladder meridian starts at the inner corners of your eyes, goes up and over your head, down either side of your spine, and down the backs of your legs.In this class we will focus on your urinary bladder meridian as a powerful meridian line for storing energy reserves and purification.

Props Needed: wall, yoga strap, folded blanket, bolster

30 minute Yin Yoga Sequence for Urinary Bladder Meridian

Eye yoga acupressure

Locust

Hand to big toe pose

Caterpillar

Savasana

Poetry:

Where Many Rivers Meet by David Whyte

At the River Clarioin by Mary Oliver

In Praise of Water by John O'Donohue

 

Yin yoga for HSP | Urinary Bladder Meridian-489

https://youtu.be/UzPck6DnMPE

 

Kidney and Bladder Meridians 21

https://youtu.be/U-D2QvteBgU

 

Qigong Flow for Water Element Kidney and Bladder Meridian

https://youtu.be/p3xx4KaktZ0

 

Juicing for Bladder and Kidneys : Help for Urinary Tract Infections

https://youtu.be/aBQuPGt4ktU

 

Become a Member

https://www.melissawest.com/membership/

Winter solstice occurs between December 20 and 22nd in the Northern hemisphere and June the 20 and 22nd in the Southern hemisphere. It represents the shortest day and the longest night of the year. Here we sink into the depths of darkness and most likely tiredness envelopes us. It is a perfect time of year to practice the rejuvenating restorative style of yoga. In this class we will focus on restorative yoga poses with props to renew our energy when the darkness and cold of winter envelopes us completely. Legs up the wall, restorative child’s pose, supported bridge pose and supported locust pose with draw your energy back into your kidney and adrenals, leaving your feeling refreshed and rejuvenated and ready to welcome the slow return of the light.

Winter solstice marks the beginning of water element season and winter. It is a season of darkness, mystery, and inner listening. The seasonal transitions is the theme of my forthcoming book. In this class we will resist the urge to prove that we accomplished something in this past year and the need to define our upcoming year. We do this by aligning with the seasons with the support of restorative yoga.

Poetry:

Winter Meditation by Denise Levertov

Adante Grazioso by Clea Roberts

To Know the Dark by Wendell Berry

Props Needed: wall, 2 blocks, a bolster, eye pillow and blankets for this restorative yoga class for winter solstice.

In this 30 minute hatha yoga class Melissa West will connect you to the warrior archetype as part of her Masculine and Feminine Polarity Series. Regardless of our gender we all have masculine and feminine energy within us. The masculine and feminine energies within us create polarity within us. When they are in balance and harmony we feel better! Throughout this series, we will bring the unhealthy and wounded aspects of our masculine and feminine sides out of the shadows. The wounded masculine and feminine from our ego, fear and darkness and cause us to suffer. When we bring the light of awareness to the shadow sides of our masculine and feminine wounding, we can heal and transform into healthy and divine energy.

This 30 minute hatha yoga class will feature the warrior poses: warrior one, warrior two and warrior three as a way to connect with the sacred masculine warrior archetype. Balanced warrior energy provides the divine masculine with an unsurpassable power source which will fuel the inner masculine to reach their goals, fight for worthy causes, achieve greatness, and leave a lasting legacy.In its balanced state the masculine warrior energy combines effort, energy and initiative.