iRest® Yoga Nidra Meditation
iRest® is a guided meditation practice that helps you regulate your nervous system and find a place of deep inner calm and rest, no matter what’s going on within or around you. Rooted in ancient yogic traditions and modern neuroscience, iRest promotes deep relaxation, emotional resilience, and profound self-inquiry.
iRest teaches you to meet and greet your thoughts, feelings, memories, beliefs, and body sensations, with curiosity and acceptance, and without the need to fix or change anything.
An evidence-based and trauma-informed practice, iRest is internationally known for its effectiveness in helping veterans with PTSD. It is widely used in hospitals, mental health, and mainstream settings to support trauma recovery, chronic pain relief, improved sleep, and promote physical and emotional well-being. Anyone can benefit from this practice, whether you are seeking relief from anxiety, stress, or chronic pain, a greater sense of balance or self-acceptance, or more joy.
iRest is accessible and simple to do; it doesn’t require movement or any prior experience with meditation or yoga. You can do it lying down, seated, or even reclining in a chair—whatever is comfortable for you.
Whether you experience iRest in a class or during a one-to-one coaching session, this proven framework offers a safe nurturing space for reflection, rejuvenation, and transformation.
Introduction to iRest
This class is an engaging introduction to basic principles and practices of iRest. Over six weeks, you will learn how to welcome your sensations, emotions, and thoughts just as they are, without needing to fix or change anything. Each session includes guided meditation, reflection, and practical tools you can use in daily life. We’ll explore practices like:
- Bringing to mind your Heartfelt Desire –a life mission or prayer that matters deeply to you -- and setting an intention for the practice and beyond that helps you live in alignment with your deepest purpose.
- Connecting with your Inner Resource, your felt sense of deep inner safety and well-being which everyone has, which we can access to ground us throughout the practice and in our daily lives.
- Sensing the physical sensations of the body and the natural rhythm of the breath to shift out of thinking mode and anchor ourselves in our present-moment experience. This calms the nervous system, reduces mental chatter, and reconnects us with our interoceptive awareness (the ability to feel what’s happening within our bodies), something we can lose touch with when we are stressed, anxious, or in pain, and which can support emotional regulation, safety, and healing.
- Meeting emotions, thoughts, beliefs, memories, and feelings with compassion and acceptance rather than pushing them away or getting swept up by them, and exploring opposites (like comfort and discomfort, joy and sorrow) to strengthen our capacity to hold the full richness of our experience, a hallmark of wellness.
The next 6-week session of Introduction to iRest will be offered Monday evenings from 7-9 pm ET beginning on January 19, 2026. Registration will open in December.