Yoga with Melissa

Yoga for Sleep

Not getting enough sleep can cause a lot of problems in our lives from a weakened immune system, not being able to think straight, having trouble remembering things, weight gain, more fine lines, wrinkles, uneven skin color, and marked looseness of the skin. Even more seriously if you do not get enough sleep you are more likely to develop heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. You are three times more likely to be involved in a car accident if you get 6 or fewer hours of sleep at night. I am guessing if you are here sleep is important to you. So let´s get right to it.

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, problems with sleep are associated with the heart meridian, which is why today´s yin yoga for sleep class will focus exclusively on our heart meridian. When the heart meridian organ is deficient not only will we experience problems with our sleep but we may also experience forgetfulness, distraction, restlessness and disturbed sleep.

The heart becomes overheated and overactive when yin blood is deficient and you may experience incessant talking, disturbing dreams and disjointed thinking along with those sleep disturbances.

The heart meridian needs to remain peaceful and protected. In a balanced world we would retreat into our interior world to nurture ourselves after a day of being engaged in the exterior work world. This would create harmony.

Unfortunately, our contemporary commercial culture encourages us to go at one continuous, constant frenetic pace. It is the hard working, ambitious, upwardly mobile people who are admired and rewarded in our culture.

When we overwork, over exercise, over engage, over party, do many things to excess, especially at this time of year, it is yang in excess and leads to burnout of yin. The result of this incessant work and activity is a restlessness that makes it difficult to sleep.

When there is agitation and unrest it is difficult for the heart to respond appropriately to sensory input. This makes the heart meridian energy imbalanced and we will experience feelings of insecurity and anxiety along with difficulty sleeping.

You might feel exhausted, withdrawn, melancholy of have trouble finding your words, and even short term memory loss. All of these point to an imbalance in the heart meridian that are all symptoms of those sleep disturbances.

So the answer to a good night´s sleep lies in protecting that heart energy; keeping it peaceful and defending your yin energy at the end of the day. When you are finished with your work obligations for the day, remember the importance of withdrawing from the yang energy of the world and taking that time to nourish your reserves. This not only will replenish your energy reservoir for the following day, but lay the foundation for a good night’s sleep by eliminating the restlessness that can chase us to bed from the yang energy of the day.

Yin Yoga Poses/Yin Yoga Sequence: bananasana, sphinx, seal, broken wing, spinal twist, savasana

Let me know in the comments: What is your most important takeaway about sleep in this class?

If you know somebody who could benefit from these teachings on lower back pain, please feel free to share it with them

Our next live class is December 29th at 9:00 am PT go to this link and vote on which class you would like: Yin yoga for lower back and hips or Holiday Special Yin Yoga for New Year

Thank you for your donations: Ronneke, Carla

Right now we are saving up for a slider to get smooth shots for you. It is going to cost us about $300 US. If you would like to contribute to the slider, you can make a donation, just let us know that you are donating to the slider by donating and mentioning the slider in your donation.

Intermediate Yin Yoga

One of the most requested classes in the world of yoga and especially yin yoga are yin yoga sequences for your hips and hip openers in general.

Probably the most important point to start with is that the range of motion in your hips are the result of your unique bone structure and often have nothing to do with tension in your ligaments and muscles. This is referred to as compression. The shape and orientation of your bones actually determine how open you can get in any yoga pose.

There are two forms of compression that are important to bring forward when focusing on the hips.

#1 Impingement of the femur in the hip socket

#2 Pinching of the buttocks between the femur and back of the ilium (your whole pelvic region)

That being said, any culture that spends a lot of time in chairs has tight hips.

Because we sit in chairs so much in our culture at work, travelling to and from work, during our leisure time, our backs are weak and our hips are tight. Hence the need to open our hips.

Our hip joints have shrink wrapped into a small range of motion, especially rotation. The joint capsule of your hip made up of the connective tissue and ligaments holding the hip together have essentially shrink wrapped around the joint. In other words the connective tissue have gotten smaller, shorter and tighter.

The hip joint is held in place by the labrum, a special kind of cartilage that forms a rim around the hip socket holding the femur bone in place. The hip joint is a ball and socket joint which allows for a large range of motion.

As we discussed in Yoga with Melissa 410, Why We Stress Our Joints, this is known as Contracture, the loss of mobility through a joint. Yin Yoga can be helpful to slowly regain our hips natural range of motion.

However, it is important to review our life connection here as well. 1 hour in a yin yoga class can help provide some relief for the 8 hours we spend sitting at a desk at our jobs, the 2 hours we commute back and forth to work, the 2 hours we spend lounging on the couch and the hopefully 8 hours we spend sleeping at night. However, that is 20 hours of immobility for your hips. It is necessary to sit on the ground when we can, move around and reflect on how we can move our hip joints through their full range of motion during our days.

Hip openers attend to our liver and gallbladder meridians, which can attend to the emotions of anger, irritation, annoyance and frustration.

To be able to sit for long periods of time in meditation that is undisturbed by physical complaints requires a body that is open especially in the hips and low back, which requires a dedicated yin yoga practice.

Resource: Bernie Clark The Complete Guide to Yin Yoga

Our next live class is December 29th at 9:00 am PT Yin Yoga for lower back and hips

Yin Yoga Poses/Yin Yoga Sequence: Butterfly, Half Saddle, Sleeping Swan, Half Happy Baby, Toe Squat, Shoelace Pose, Cat Pulling its Tail, Savasana

Let me know in the comments, did you become aware of bone on bone compression in your hip joints today that you were not aware of before? If so does that change your yoga practice?

Thank you for your donations: Christine - Christmas gift, Sean from NY, Beverly Michigan, Anne Marie from Australia, Leah from NY

Right now we are saving up for a slider to get smooth shots for you. It is going to cost us about $300 US. If you would like to contribute to the slider, you can make a donation, just let us know that you are donating to the slider by donating and mentioning the slider in your donation. :)

Opening your hips is not something you can do in just one yoga video. Just like brushing your teeth,

Mindfulness - Yin Yoga

Norman Blair says ¨our mind is like a chimpanzee in a cappuccino bar.¨ We are intensely stimulated in our consumer culture to want more, buy more and consume more. We are inundated with commercials that keep our mind occupied with messages that preoccupy our mind with feelings of unworthiness and the need for more shiny things. As Norman Blair says, ¨we are enormously practiced in distraction and discontent.¨

We believe we can find resolution in our minds. Our mind judges, labels, analyzes, and compares ourselves with others in an endless loop. We try to think our way through life and figure it all out. We try to get rid of our pain by thinking our way out of it, by interpreting, limiting and controlling our experience.

When I say mindfulness I am speaking about a practice called shamata, which bascially means to place your attention on a specific object. In the lineage of meditation that I practice, of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Reggie Ray and Dharma Ocean, the object of attention is our body. I practice a style of meditation called somatic meditation.

In the stillness and quiet of our yin yoga practice we can come into the direct experience of our bodies. This subtle, energetic and inward practice invites us to feel our body from the inside. We are tuning into the basic awareness of our bodies themselves.

When we pay attention to our body we pay attention to the physical sensation, the subtle energy that flows through our body and the experience of the boundary of our body within space (for example the way our back body feels resting against the ground).

When we open our awareness into our body we do so with openness, kindness, tenderness, compassion and without judgment or agenda. That is we are not imposing our plans or goals onto our bodies, we simply arrive and listen to what our body has to say to us.

As my teacher Reggie Ray says, mindfulness is how to come with attention to the body and with awareness we surrender and open to whatever the body wants to show us. So first we come to and into our body and then we open our consciousness into the interior wakefulness that is going on under the suface.

Yin yoga can act as a bridge towards a meditation practice. Because we are actually meditating for five minutes at a time in the yin yoga postures, meditation can seem less overwhelming as we develop the confidence to meditate five minutes at a time each time we come into a yin yoga posture.

Yin Yoga Postures/Yin Yoga Sequence: Butterfly Pose, Sphinx Pose, Broken Wing Pose, Half Stirrup Pose, Stirrup Pose, Melting Heart, Seated Twist, Half Dragonfly, Legs Up the Wall

Yoga Props: Wall, Yoga Strap, Folded Blanket

Resources: Norman Blair Brightening our Inner Skies Yin and Yoga

Reggie Ray, The Awakening Body: Somatic Meditation for Discovering Our Deepest Life

Our next live class is December 29th at 9:00 am PT Yin Yoga for lower back and hips

Let me know in the comments, when you listened to your body today, what did you discover?

Thank you for your donations: Laraine, Dianne NS, Marina, and Donna

Right now we are saving up for a slider to get smooth shots for you. It is going to cost us about $300 US. If you would like to contribute to the slider, you can make a donation, just let us know that you are donating to the slider by donating and mentioning the slider in your donation. :)

Learning yin yoga is not something you can do in just one yoga video. Just like brushing your teeth, yin yoga is a way of life and is something you can embrace everyday. The best way I have learned to care embrace the yin way of life is to make yoga a part of my everyday life. I am going to share with you a good, better and best way to do that now.

Meridian Energy

Meridians are the energy channels or pathways through which our chi, energy or prana flows. These pathways are often described as waterways that feed the fields of our bodies or rivers of energy. Traditional chinese medicine calls them meridians. Ayurvedic medicine and yoga refers to them as nadis.

There are twelve major meridians in our body. Six in our upper body and six in our lower body. Our yin energy moves upward and our yang energy moves downward. These energy circuits run throughout our body and are also linked to our organs.

When we place our bodies in shapes in yin yoga, we are pulling and pressurizing our tissues which moves energy and blood through the meridian channels. In this way, yin yoga is a kind of acupressure, where physical pressure is being applied to your body at certain points as it pulls on your fascia with slow and gentle traction.

The question might be, what is the difference between yin yoga and hatha yoga or any form of exercise for that matter? Sarah Powers, one of the founders of yin yoga points out that any form of exercise done regularly with rest afterwards will do something similar. This difference with yin yoga is the training of our mind.

Norman Blair (author of Brightening our Inner Skies Yin and Yoga) says, ¨If a person is pedalling a static exercise bike while checking emails, the energy flows will probably be less than for a person who is doing an activity (like yoga, qigong, or running) and consciously attending to their experience of movement¨

We will be focusing a lot more on the mindfulness aspect of yin yoga next week. This week we will focus on how the putting our body into shapes affects the movement of energy in our body, our organs and our emotions. Someone with a distracted mind will have scattered and destabilized chi. Someone with a focused mind will have smooth and even-flowing chi.

Yin Yoga Postures/Yin Yoga Sequence: butterfly, sphinx, bananasana,

Yoga Props: blocks, bolster, strap, folded blanket

Resources:

Insight Yoga by Sarah Powers

Brightening Our Inner Skies, Yin and Yoga by Norman Blair

Thank you for your donations: Cornelia and Donna from Oklahoma

Right now we are saving up for a slider to get smooth shots for you. It is going to cost us about $300 US. If you would like to contribute to the slider, you can make a donation, just let us know that you are donating to the slider by donating and mentioning the slider in your donation. :)

Learning yin yoga is not something you can do in just one yoga video. Just like brushing your teeth, yin yoga is a way of life and is something you can embrace everyday. The best way I have learned to care embrace the yin way of life is to make yoga a part of my everyday life. I am going to share with you a good, better and best way to do that now.

Good: We release a video here every Friday at 9 am PT, when you subscribe and turn on notifications by pressing that bell, you will receive that video and it will support you in your daily practice

Better: At the beginning I told you I will tell you where you could go to get 7 days of yoga for anxiety. If you go to melissawest.com/anxiety you can sign up there to receive 7 days of yoga for anxiety - this will help you embrace a more yin way of life.

Best: The best way to make yin yoga a part of your everyday life is to join our membership community. It is there that we can support you in making yoga a part of your daily life with our curated content. We have our monthly YinDulgence 90 minute LIVE workshops with 2 way videos on the last Sunday of every month at 9:30 am and 4:00 pm PT, with archives recordings made available to our members afterwards.

Become a Member Today:

How to Practice Yin Yoga

Yin Yoga is a genre of yoga that focuses on the deeper connective tissues wrapping around the joints, particularly in your hips, pelvis and lower spine. This is quite different from most forms of yoga which focus on the muscles. With yin yoga we hold yin yoga poses for longer periods of time, usually about five minutes rather than the typical five breaths.

Most forms of yoga focus on the superficial muscles rather than the deeper layers of connective tissues, ligaments, joints and bones that we focus on during yin yoga. Muscles respond well to the faster rhythmic movement you find in these forms of yoga because this increases their fluid content giving them more flexibility and strength.

There are three main principles of yin yoga that I will be introducing you to in this beginner yin yoga class: #1 edge, #2 we resolve to be still #3 we stay for awhile. Let’s explore each one in depth (which are both aspects of yin by the way if you want to go back and look at what yin means from last week’s class)

#1 We come into the yin yoga pose (remembering that this is not an aesthetic practice and it doesn’t matter what your pose looks like) and find an appropriate edge. Edge is not sharp shooting pain, burning or electric, but it may be a dull ache or uncomfortable.

“If the sensation is burning of sharply stabbing or electrical or if it is especially intense in a small area, then this can indicate overstretching and potentially damage tissue. If the sensation is more dull or aching or throbbing, then this normally indicates tissue being tugged in a way that is healthy. If tingling sensation occurs, that could be a sign of damaging a nerve or a blockage of blood flow. Pins and needles can be a consequence of too much pressure in particular parts of your body and a sign of the need to slightly shift the shape” Norman Blair Brightening Our Inner Skies, Yin and Yoga

Remember you want to be able to take a full breath that is slow and unlaboured, if your breath is shallow you’ve gone too far.

I like the instruction to come to about 70% effort in a yin yoga pose. You want to be able to feel sensation in your yin yoga posture, but if you come too deeply into your posture and feel too much resistance you will stop the flow of chi and this goes against a the yin qualities of yin yoga. It has become our normal experience to push and to strain to go deeper in all things in our lives, including our yoga. What would it be like to let go of the pushing, straining and struggling in our yin yoga practice?

#2 Become still, allow your muscles to soften, let gravity take the weight of your body. We want the energy to pool in the deeper layers of the bones and the joints. If we are continue to move, the energy will continue to move at the more superficial layers of the muscles. The stillness of the poses will also allow us to access the yin qualities of surrender, ease, relaxation, and restfulness. Additionally the stillness allows us to explore physical sensations and emotions that arise without our habitual reactivity and impulsiveness. We are learning to soften into our discomfort, cultivating non-abandoning attention. Softening the muscles and allowing gravity to take us will also allow us to access the deeper connective tissues that wrap around the joints and bones.

#3 We stay for awhile. For beginners we stay for one to three minutes. In a typical yin yoga practice we stay for five minutes anywhere up to twenty minutes. The reason we stay for longer in a yin yoga practice is to affect the deeper connective tissues that wrap around the joints and bones. While muscles love the fast rhythmic repetitive action to develop strength and flexibility; these connective tissues require slow and gentle traction in a passive way over a longer period time. Connective tissue is more “plastic” in nature com...

Beginner Yin Yoga

If you are brand new to yoga and get frustrated with other yoga classes on YouTube that move too quickly, don´t give modifications and are too hard to follow, don´t worry, our beginner yoga classes are actually for beginners, people who have never done yoga before. We have a 31 day beginner yoga challenge that you can sign up for at melissawest.com and have it delivered right to your inbox or you can check out the beginner playlists here on my YouTube channel. We offer slow, easy to follow, step by step instructions with lots of modifications.

We live in an anxiety producing world where we are pushed to perform, accomplish and achieve. This energy is considered yang. Even a lot of yoga is outwardly focused on obtaining the shape of the postures, getting a good workout and losing weight. This kind of buzzing energy that reverberates throughout our lives is yang energy.

With yin yoga, we seek to find balance with yin energy. Yin energy is melting, unfolding, releasing, yielding, centering, easing, internalising, feeling, slowing, surrendering, merging, sinking, allowing, softening, calming and exploring.

Where yang is sun and the day. Yin is moon and night. We need both. But the thing is we tend to have way more yang in our lives. Yin yoga seeks to find balance between the two.

Yin yoga is a quiet practice that allows us to slow down, listen, do less and listen to the wisdom of our own bodies

There are 3 main principles of a yin practice

* Come into the shape and find your edge - this Not sharp shooting pain, burning or electric, this is not an aesthetic practice it doesn’t matter what it looks like, it may be a dull ache or uncomfortable, you want to be able to take a full breath, if your breath is shallow you’ve gone too far

* Resolve to be still - so your tissues can soften and explore sensations and emotions without habitual ways of moving and reactivity when feelings of discomfort arise.

* We stay for awhile to stress the deeper connective tissues that wrap around the joints - this tissue is more dense, more plastic (vs. elastic like muscles) and it needs slow and gentle traction

In a yin yoga practice we are embodying that yin energy of dropping inwards. I like to think of yin yoga as a way of life, so not only are we dropping inwards to our felt sensation in our yin yoga shape, but we are also dropping the yang energy that we carry: plans, preoccupations, ambitions, identities and frustrations

With a yin yoga practice, we are embodying the yin energy of relaxing. We consciously relax the muscles of the body so that we can access the deeper layers of the body including the connective tissue, ligaments and bones.

With yin yoga we are surrendering the yang energies of persevering, holding on, defending, pursuing, asserting, continuing, and advancing and advancing at all costs. Instead we are letting go.

With yin yoga, we release the yang energies of frustration, resistance, agitation and wild ambition that preoccupies so much of our internal and external landscape. We choose the yin energy of patience instead. Norman Blair says that becoming patient in an impatient world is skillful action. The Buddha’s teachings on patience state, “infinite patience brings immediate results”

Resource: Norman Blair: Brightening our Inner Skies Yin and Yoga

Yin Yoga Postures/Yin Yoga Sequence: Butterfly Pose, Sphinx Pose, Keyhole Pose, Bananasana, Dragon Pose, Half Melting Heart Pose, Seated Twist, Half Butterfly, Savasana

Yoga Props: Blanket, Blocks, Strap, Wall

Weekly Yoga with Melissa 408 Photos of Yoga Poses

Restorative Yoga

We spend so much time rushing, pushing, trying to achieve and complete our to-do lists. Our life is spent attending to the external demands of our lives and in complete devotion to our overflowing schedules.

When we move too quickly and follow the relentless fast pace of the dominant culture in which we live and work, not only do we tend to lose the essence of who we are, but often neck and shoulder tension can be the result.

Restorative yoga is a way to slow down, listen to our bodies and do less. We can attend to our physically exhausted, strained, stiff, tense neck and shoulders. Drained from doing too much for others in hurried isolation we can take this time to come together in this live class to attend to ourselves and our neck and shoulder pain.

Restorative yoga is a deeper way of coming into our bodies and developing an inner connection. We live in a world where we are constantly creating an image of ourselves to present to the outside world. Everything we do is measured and compared either through social media or social interactions. This creates a tremendous amount of pressure, tension, stress and anxiety.

Through restorative yoga, what we develop instead is an intuitive way of being that will follow us off our yoga mats and into our lives so that we can release the burdens of responsibility and image construction and start to make the choices to do less, making space throughout our whole lives to breathe, let go the perfect image, of stress and anxiety and live at a more human pace.

Our next live class is November 24th at 9:00 am PT Beginner Yin Yoga: LIVE Introduction to Meridians & Energy Flow

Let me know in the comments what restorative yoga posture helped you most with your neck or shoulder pain?

Healing neck and shoulder pain is not something you can do in just one yoga video. Just like brushing your teeth, caring for your neck and shoulders is something you need to do everyday. The best way I have learned to care for my neck and shoulders is to make yoga a part of my everyday life. I am going to share with you a good, better and best way to do that now.

Good: We release a video here every Friday at 9 am PT, when you subscribe and turn on notifications by pressing that bell, you will receive that video and it will support you in your daily practice

Better: At the beginning I told you I will tell you where you could go to get 7 days of yoga for anxiety. If you go to melissawest.com/anxiety you can sign up there to receive 7 days of yoga for anxiety - I find this to be one of the causes of neck and shoulder pain.

Best: The best way to make yoga a part of your everyday life and care for your neck and shoulder pain is to join our membership community. It is there that we can support you in making yoga a part of your daily life with our curated content. We have 21 classes for your neck and shoulders in our membership community ranging from 5 minutes to 60 mins.

Become a Member Today:

http://www.melissawest.com/membership/membership-sign-up/

Link for Members: Here

Thank you for your donations: Anne Marie from Australia, Leah from NY, Elisabeth von Molo from Germany, Nickie from Wv, Peige from Italy, Carla from Belgium, Graziella from France, Donna from Kansas, Cornelia, Donna from Oklahoma

Sign up here for 7 Days of the Best Yin Yoga, Restorative Yoga and Short Yoga Videos for your Upper Back, Neck and Shoulder Pain Relief

 

Yoga for PMS

Today we have a special guest on Yoga with Dr. Melissa West. In this 52 minute flow yoga and restorative yoga class Anita Goa offers you a gentle yoga flow and some restorative yoga poses to help you with PMS bloating.

PMS can include over 150 symptoms. In this yoga practice we will focus on one; PMS bloating. We go through a gentle Gratitude/Moon Flow for circulation and to lift your spirit, and we will end with a few restorative yoga poses to ground and calm your mind and nervous system.

Anita Goa hopes this practice will come across as gentle, nourishing, and assist you in feeling cared for.

This routine focuses on creating space between your rib cage and abdomen. It will help relax your abdomen, pelvic region.

Pay attention to your breath. And direct your breath wherever it is needed or where you feel restriction.

GRATITUDE/MOON FLOW

Incorporating Gratitude into our life helps turn what we have into enough. This flow is nurturing and helps tune you into yourself and the moment.

STANDING FORWARD FOLD/BEND (Uttanasana)

Benefit:

Brings a sense of calm and peace when you feel agitated or anxious. It tones liver, spleen, and kidneys and lift and tones uterus.

DOWNWARD FACING DOG (Adho Mukha Svanasana)

Benefit:

Increases the blood supply to brain, enhances circulation in chest, helps tone and relax nervous system, relieve anxiety, irritability, depression

CHILD'S POSE (Balasana)

Benefit: hugging a bolster comforting, release tension, release cramps

RESTORATIVE POSES

SEATED WIDE ANGLE POSE (Prasarita Padottanasana)

Benefit: combat fatigue, calm mind, tone abdominal region, soother jittery nerves, lifts uterus, improves circulation in pelvis, helps restore equilibrium to central nervous system.

EXTENDED BRIDGE POSE

Benefit: Opens chest, improves respiration, helps relieve fatigue, headaches, depression associated with PMS

WIDE ANGLE SEATED POSE (Upavista Konasana)

Benefit: helps calm the endocrine system, opacity adrenal glands

FINAL RELAXATION POSE (SHAVASANA)

helps to quiet the mind, nervous system and helps to rejuvenate whole body and allows the practice to come together.

ANITA GOA

http://www.anitagoa.com

YouTube AnitaGoaTV

PMS

If you experience fatigue, trouble sleeping, bloating, constipation or diarrhea, headaches or backaches, food cravings, joint or muscle pain, mood swings, irritability,, anxiety or depression, you may be experiencing the symptoms of PMS.

Poor nourishment, stress, exhaustion, excess physical exercise, inactivity, overwork all contribute to PMS. Slowing down through restorative yoga allows us to reconnect with our internal rhythms and instead of pushing and going, going, going, we can rebalance the imbalance of energy in your body.

Each month, through the process of menstruation a woman’s body is cleansed and rejuvenated. Any toxicity that is accumulated in your body is released. If your body stores toxins, you are more like to experience severe PMS symptoms.

At the physical level, the body naturally increases toxicity prior to the menstrual cycle which manifests as menstrual cramps, physical pain, diarrhea, nausea, nervous tension and emotional distress. Usually you will feel lighter after your period is over.

We will create strong digestion so that incompletely digested foods that create toxins and impurities causing upset stomach, bloating, constipation and diarrhea get absorbed in your small intestine, travel properly through your digestive system and toxins are eliminated through your liver, kidneys and large intestine.

We will balance your nervous system since nervous system imbalance contributes to PMS. Mental, emotional, and energetic stress and anxiety depress your nervous system, contribute to PMS and limit the natural healing ability of the body.

Restorative Yoga can be extremely helpful for PMS because it will help you retreat inward and replenish your energy. So much of the time we are working non-stop and keeping an overfull schedule. Now is the time to take time off and ease off to a moderate schedule.

Yoga Postures/Asanas: Savasana, Side Bend, Supta Baddha Konasana or Reclined Bound Angle, Side Bend, Supta Baddha Konasana or Reclined Bound Angle, Apanasana or Knee to Chest Pose, Child’s Pose or Balasana, Reclined Twist or Jathara Parivartanasana, Savasana or Corpse Pose, Mudra for your Reproductive Center

Let me know in the comments what is the worst PMS symptom you suffer from?

Healing back pain is not something you can do in just one yoga video. Just like brushing your teeth, it is something you need to do everyday. The best way I have learned to care for my back is to make yoga a part of my everyday life. I am going to share with you a good, better and best way to do that now.

* Good: We release a video here every Friday at 9 am PT, when you subscribe and turn on notifications by pressing that bell, you will receive that video and it will support you in your daily practice

* Better: At the beginning I told you I will tell you where you could go to get 7 days of yoga for anxiety. If you go to melissawest.com/anxiety you can sign up there to receive 7 days of yoga for anxiety

* Best: The best way to make yoga a part of your everyday life and deal with PMS is to join our membership community. It is there that we can support you in making yoga a part of your daily life with our curated content in our moonstruck section and We also have two full length videos in our membership community to support a woman's menstrual cycle. Waxing to the full moon is a vinyasa style class to support you during your ovulation and Waning to the Dark Moon is a restorative yoga class to support you during your actual menstruation.

Become a Member Today: More Info Here

Link for Members:

Waxing to the Full Moon - Members Video

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Yoga for Lower Back Pain

Lower back pain can be caused from a torn or pulled muscle or ligament. Sometimes lower back pain is the result of lifting a heavy object or from a sudden movement. Lower back pain can also result poor posture or a sports injury. No matter the cause, this restorative yoga class for lower back pain can help turn off the stress response to lower back pain so that your lower back can rest and repair.

When you experience lower back pain your body gets the message that your sympathetic nervous system kicks into high gear with stress response and your body believes it is being threatened and under a harmful state of attack. With restorative yoga, you receive the time to settle and drop in. Your brain will receive the message that you are safe and the stress response of the sympathetic nervous system can turn to the parasympathetic nervous system so that your body can begin its relaxation response and healing.

As we take the shapes of restorative yoga for lower back pain we are creating space for your breath to flow to your lower back. You can begin to rest on the props and the ground so that your body will be held. This will allow your breath to flow into the space created in your low back so that there is increased blood flow and increased lymph flow. The natural deeper breathing sends the message to your brain that you are safe, deepens your relaxation and enhances the healing of this restorative yoga for lower back pain.

When we are well supported by the ground and through props in restorative yoga, we can have the experience of being cradled and protected. All day long we control our experience through gripping, holding and tension. The support of the ground and props offers us the opportunity to release the gripping, holding and tension so that we can experience a deep level of relaxation and healing.

If you know somebody who could benefit from these teachings on lower back pain, please feel free to share it with them

Let me know in the comments what is the cause of your lower back pain

Props Needed: Bolster, Chair, Yoga Blocks

Yoga Postures/Asanas: Sphinx Pose or Salamba Bhujangasana, Child´s Pose or Balasana, Bridge Pose or Setu Bandhasana, Viparita Karini or Legs up a Chair, Supta Matsyendrasana or Reclined Spinal Twist, Savasana or Corpse Pose, Mudra for Back Pain

Healing back pain is not something you can do in just one yoga video. Just like brushing your teeth, it is something you need to do everyday. The best way I have learned to care for my back is to make yoga a part of my everyday life. I am going to share with you a good, better and best way to do that now.

* Good: We release a video here every Friday at 9 am PT, when you subscribe and turn on notifications by pressing that bell, you will receive that video and it will support you in your daily practice

* Better: At the beginning I told you I will tell you where you could go to get 8 days of yoga for back pain. If you go to melissawest.com/backpain you can sign up there to receive 8 days of yoga for back pain

* Best: The best way to make yoga a part of your everyday life is to join our membership community. It is there that we can support you in making yoga a part of your daily life with our curated content in our DYC and We also have over 10 yoga videos for back pain, plus specific videos for sciatica, herniated discs and SI joint issues. We would love to welcome you into our membership community where we keep our best value added content for our members and will support you in your restorative yoga practice.

Become a Member Today:

https://www.melissawest.com/membership/membership-sign-up/

Link for Members:

#1