iRest Yoga Nidra®

Integrative Restoration / iRest Yoga Nidra® is an evidence-based mind/body approach to health, healing, and well-being.

It has been developed over the past 26 years by Richard Miller PhD., a clinical psychologist, researcher and yogic scholar and has been shown to effectively support the healing process across a broad range of populations. It is being utilized in many different clinical and social support organizations and in 2010 was endorsed by the Defense Centers of Excellence as a complementary and alternative medicine.

In the end, we realize how simple life is when we accept this moment and our response to this moment, just as it is without pretending to be other than who we are. This is grace in action and the culmination of iRest.
– Richard Miller

Derived from an ancient Tantric practice called Yoga Nidra, iRest is usually done lying down or seated in a comfortable, supportive position. You are then guided through a variety of internal focal points, personal inquiries, and explorations of your direct experience. Inquiry implies questions that you ask yourself in order to discern and develop what is true and beneficial for you.

A typical session might include:

• Inquiry into your general intentions. What so I most needed tonight?
• The cultivation of inner resources. What helps me feel most at ease?
• Inquiry into deeper desires. What brings me true happiness and satisfaction?
• Body and Breath sensing exercises that enhance relaxation and increase understanding of self-regulation.
• Explorations of feelings, thoughts, and beliefs and how to transform limiting patterns.
• Explorations of inherent joyful and expansive states of being.
• Reflections on meditative insights and ways to link them to daily activities.

While the entire iRest meditation protocol can be experienced in one session, the intention of the multi week series is to progressively highlight the early, middle, and later steps week by week. Each session will involve introductory teaching, experiential practice, and discussion of the meditation process.

If you would like to read more about the iRest Yoga Nidra method you can go to the iRest website.

Article posted 6 August 2018