Mel Skinner

Mel Skinner is a yoga teacher, writer and reflexologist. For over a decade she has supported people to reconnect with their bodies, breath, emotions and inner wisdom through hatha yoga, yoga nidra, restorative practices, reflexology and astrology. She became a qualified teacher in 2014 and has specialised in restorative yoga and yoga nidra, practices that help us rest. Her work rests on the understanding that we are multi-faceted beings, and that feeling rested and connected comes from creating the conditions for rest, awareness and self-compassion, not from striving.

Mel teaches classes, workshops and retreats, and works one-to-one with clients experiencing anxiety, depression, stress, low self esteem, chronic fatigue, menstrual difficulties and more. Her approach is gentle, supportive and personalised. Her retreats bring together down-to-earth yoga philosophy, restorative yoga, gentle movement, yoga nidra, meditation walks and sound gong baths, with time to do nothing. She teaches in Bristol and offers workshops and retreats around the UK.

Her training includes two years of intensive 500-hour hatha yoga study with Laura Gilmore at Bristol City Yoga, restorative yoga training with Anna Ashby, yoga nidra training with Uma Dinsmore-Tuli and Nirlipta Dinsmore, and trauma-sensitive yoga and mental health training for yoga teachers. She trained as a reflexologist in 2008 and studied astrology, and lets both inform her teaching.

Mel contributes to the online resource Yoga Nidra Network, writes her own blogs, and has written on practical philosophy for the Yoga London blog. Her first book, Rest Is Radical, was published by Aeon Books in September 2020. Away from teaching, she loves woods and water, early mornings, the library, and time with her two small children, whom she calls her greatest yoga teachers.