Bring Restorative Yoga into Your Teaching Free course · Includes a 40-minute guided practice
Discover why supported rest matters for your students, what makes Restorative Yoga different, and experience it yourself through a 40-minute guided practice.
With Audrey Favreau, author of The Teacher’s Guide to Restorative Yoga.
You’ll create a free student account to open the course.
Get the free courseRecorded and available to watch at your own pace, with 30 days of access.
- FormatRecorded, at your own pace
- Guided practice40 minutes
- Access30 days
- PriceFree
- ExperienceNone required
What you’ll learn
Your students may arrive tired, overstimulated, or finding it difficult to settle. Understanding supported rest can help you make more thoughtful choices about how you introduce rest into your teaching.
- Understand why rest can be difficult. Explore why some students remain restless or alert when they lie down.
- Discover what makes Restorative Yoga different. Understand the role of support and how this practice differs from simply taking a break.
- Explore support and silence. Discover how these elements shape the experience of rest.
- Experience the practice yourself. Try a 40-minute guided practice, with two options and guidance to help you choose.
The guided practice
It lasts 40 minutes and includes:
- a mindful check-in inspired by The Teacher’s Guide to Restorative Yoga
- a supported pose, with two options: a supported backbend or a supported forward bend
- Legs-Elevated Savasana on a chair
- a second check-in to observe the effects of the practice
There is nothing to achieve and nothing to perform. You can pause the video, adapt the setup, or simply listen.
What you need
A yoga mat, a chair, several blankets, something to cover your eyes, and something to cover your body and stay warm.
No prior experience is required. This free course is an introduction to supported rest. It does not lead to a certification.
Why rest has become difficult
In recent years, the conversation around health has increasingly focused on movement, strength, and performance.
Movement matters, and the body needs to move. In my work, I often meet women who are already doing everything they have been told is good for their health. They exercise, they take care of themselves, they stay active, and many of them feel profoundly exhausted.
What is rarely discussed is the role of deep rest in supporting the nervous system, regulating stress hormones and allowing the body to recover.
When the body experiences stress, and the absence of rest is itself a form of stress, it releases additional stress hormones in order to respond to perceived demands.
If this state continues, the nervous system can remain in subtle vigilance even when external activity slows down.
Over time, this ongoing activation can affect sleep, inflammation, recovery and hormonal balance.
Understanding how the nervous system returns to regulation is therefore essential.
Restorative Yoga offers a particularly refined entry point into this question.
When practiced with precision, it creates the physiological conditions that allow the nervous system to reorganize and restore its capacity for regulation.
This free course is an invitation to explore these mechanisms more closely.
Who this course is for
This course may be of interest to you if:
- you teach yoga and wish to deepen your understanding of restorative practice
- you work in health, wellness or therapeutic contexts
- you are interested in the relationship between rest, silence and the nervous system
- you are curious about the deeper mechanisms underlying restorative states
This course is designed as an exploration of the deeper physiology and experience of rest.
Audrey Favreau
Audrey Favreau is an international Restorative Yoga teacher and educator. She has been teaching since 2014 and training teachers since 2015. More than 1,300 people have taken her trainings, and more than 350 teachers have completed the full certification.
She is one of three teachers designated by Judith Hanson Lasater to certify in the Relax and Renew® lineage, alongside Judith and Lizzie Lasater, who certify directly. She is the author of The Teacher’s Guide to Restorative Yoga.
Her approach combines the science of rest with careful observation and precise setups for each pose.
Start exploring supported rest for yourself and your students.
Receive the free course, including a 40-minute guided practice, and watch it at your own pace.
For those who wish to explore this work more deeply, it is possible to continue studying through Restorative Yoga: The Foundations.