How the Love Your Brain Foundation Turns Isolation Into Community For TBI Survivors And Caregivers

What if the most powerful medicine after a brain injury is feeling truly seen? We sit down with Kyla Pearce, Senior Director of Programs and Research at the Love Your Brain foundation, to explore how connection, mind‑body practices, and practical education can restore confidence, calm, and everyday momentum for people with TBI and their caregivers.

Kyla shares the story behind the foundation, launched after pro snowboarder Kevin Pearce’s traumatic brain injury, and the gap they set out to close: the lonely, confusing stretch after acute care. We unpack how free programs—delivered in person, online, and in hospital settings—blend yoga, mindfulness, brain health nutrition, and resilience education to address mental, physical, and social needs. You’ll hear how groups are designed to be both trauma‑informed and TBI‑informed, with predictable structure, sensory‑aware cueing, and space for honest conversation. We also break down the core class arc: targeted breathwork, chair‑based movement for balance and mobility, guided meditation, and a resilience lesson like realistic optimism that ties skills to daily life.

Evidence matters here. Kyla walks through their large pre‑post studies showing significant gains in quality of life, mood, cognition, resilience, and behavioral regulation among community participants. That real‑world data helps clinicians refer with confidence and gives families a bridge from discharge to long‑term living. We also look ahead to March 20–22, 2026, when Love Your Brain hosts a three‑day online summit featuring leaders in functional neurology, mindfulness science, habit formation, and photobiomodulation. Expect candid, research‑grounded conversations about what works, what’s emerging, and how to navigate device hype, dosing, and trade‑offs without getting lost.

If you or someone you love is recovering from concussion or TBI, this conversation offers clarity, hope, and concrete next steps—from nature‑based retreats and caregiver programming to accessible online groups you can join from home. Explore the lineup and join the community at loveyourbrain.com/summit, then subscribe, share this episode with someone who needs it, and leave a review to help others find the show.

REGISTER for the online global Love Your Brain Summit on March 25th-26th: https://www.loveyourbrain.com/summit

Get 20% off your first order of Puori protein with code LIFEAFTERIMPACT by following this link.

Chapters

• 1:14 Mission Of Love Your Brain
• 2:41 Host Intro And Show Purpose
• 2:41 Kyla’s Welcome
• 3:00 Kevin Pearce Story And Foundation Origins
• 7:22 The Community Gap After Acute Care
• 9:47 Mind‑Body Roots And Early Yoga Integration
• 11:30 Connection And The Loneliness Epidemic
• 14:22 Programs Overview: In‑Person And Online
• 19:48 Retreats And Identity Work
• 24:11 Caregiver Support And Skills
• 27:09 Enrollment, Equity, And Access
• 29:05 Research And Outcomes From Mindset
• 34:33 Announcing The March 2026 Online Summit
• 38:11 Devices, Hype, And Evidence
• 40:43 Trauma‑Informed And TBI‑Informed Practice
• 45:42 Hospital Partnerships And Curriculum Design

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:37

Yeah, so big picture. Love your brain's mission now is to improve the mental, physical, and social well-being of people with brain injury as well as caregivers. And we do that in a couple ways. So we offer free research-backed programs delivered in-person, online, and in hospital-based settings that blend yoga, mindfulness, brain health nutrition, psychoeducation based on the science of resilience, as well as community building.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 1:04

Welcome to Life After Impact, the Concussion Recovery Podcast. I'm Dr. Ayla Wolfe, and I will be hosting today's episode where we help you navigate the often confusing, frustrating, and overwhelming journey of concussion and brain injury recovery. This podcast is your go-to resource for actionable information, whether you're dealing with a recent concussion, struggling with post-concussion syndrome, or just feeling stuck in your healing process. In each episode, we dive deep into the symptoms, testing, treatments, and neurological insights that can help you move forward with clarity and confidence. We bring you leading experts in the world of brain health, functional neurology, and rehabilitation to share their wisdom and strategies. So if you're feeling lost, hopeless, or like no one understands what you're going through, know that you are not alone. This podcast can be your guide and partner in recovery, helping you build a better life after impact. Welcome to Life After Impact, the Concussion Recovery Podcast, where today I am so excited to be joined by Kyla Pierce, the Senior Director of Programs and Research for the Love Your Brain Foundation. Kyla, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00: 2:20

Thank you so much for having me, Dr. Wolf. It's a pleasure to be here.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 2:23

Yeah, so I think this has come full circle because 10 years ago I had the opportunity to hear Kevin Pierce speak. And I will give you the opportunity to really talk about who Kevin is and his story. But I had the opportunity to hear him speak and he just warmed my heart. And here we are 10 years later, um, talking about your organization and how far it's come and how it's evolved. And so I'm just so excited to dive right in. So why don't you give our listeners a little bit of background about you and about Kevin and his story and how that led you to starting your foundation?

SPEAKER_00: 3:01

Sure. Wow, I can't believe it's been 10 years. You're right. So I'll um kind of frame this from a little bit of Kevin's story and then weave kind of my role in as I as I yeah, give a little history of why I'm on this podcast with you today. So Love Your Brain is a national nonprofit that has been around for 10 years. We were founded by Kevin Pierce and his brother Adam Pierce, who's also my husband, after Kevin experienced a very significant traumatic brain injury right before the Winter Olympics. He was a professional snowboarder, projected to win the Olympics and in a training accident right before in Park City, had a bad fall and was rushed to the University of Utah in acute care for about three months and then transitioned to Craig, had a long healing journey. I'll I'll keep it quite brief. But one thing that his brother Adam, who ended up taking a year of leave from his work to really be by Kevin's side and support him in his healing process, so they were very lucky. Our family was very lucky to receive fantastic care up front at the acute phase, save Kevin's life, allowed him to return to some of the functioning that allowed him to think about what life could be moving forward. And what became very clear was that when Kevin was transitioning back to his community, there was such a lack of ongoing support that really saw the whole person. So allowed Kevin to still continue to uh feel confident physically as a professional snowboarder. He really relied so much of his identity, relied on participating physically in meaningful activities. Um also his mental health. There, as the listeners probably know, mental health is often impacted after TBI. About 50% of people have a mental health condition. And he continued to struggle to kind of figure um what his place was in the world. And then socially, relationships change, his friendships changed. So uh Kevin and Adam really felt like Love Your Brain as an organization had an opportunity to provide holistic health programs that really supported the whole person after brain injury. And how I fit into this story and can share more about what Love Your Brain's work is in a moment. But at the time I was doing my MPH at Dartmouth. I was interested in looking at, um, actually, I was in women's health at that time, but when Kevin had his injury was really transitioned into the field of brain injury, I became much more interested in seeing the gaps in holistic health programming. So ended up pursuing a PhD in public health, looking at specifically the uh the effectiveness of mind-body interventions, yoga and breath work for supporting nervous system regulation and different aspects of functioning after traumatic brain injury. So was able to kind of pursue a research path alongside of being a yoga and meditation teacher. And we saw how much Kevin was benefiting from yoga himself. So decided to weave that as one of the different ways Love Your Brain builds curriculum to support people with brain injury and their caregivers in their healing journey for the long term.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 6:32

Amazing. Yeah. I remember um when I was living in Bend, Oregon, there was a Love Your Brain hub where they offered yoga classes. And I would send a lot of my patients there that had that were working with me on their brain injury recovery. And everybody said the same thing, which was that one of the most valuable things about going to that class was the time afterward where everybody could sit there and just share their stories and realize that they're not alone in their experience or in their sense of isolation or their struggles. And so I do think that um that ability to just be with other people that are having your same challenges is so important.

SPEAKER_00: 7:13

Definitely. And I think even Vivek Murphy, the old US Surgeon General, in the last uh administration issued a public service announcement saying that there was a national epidemic of loneliness in the United States. And for people with brain injury who often face an invisible injury and different impacts to their cognition and functioning that shape the way they interact in their jobs, their family life, um, school, it's can be tremendously isolating. So that's been a real emphasis of our organization for how to build community, which can sound there's a lot to it, and happy to kind of talk a little bit more about what that means. Um, but there's also a lot of research showing more and more how loneliness or isolation has just as much pernicious impacts to health as obesity, smoking, physical inactivity. So it's not just a nice thing to have, it's an essential aspect of human nature.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 8:15

Yeah, I remember when those statements came out and there were a lot of headlines in the news saying that loneliness is worse than being a smoker and comparing, you know, some of these other issues uh or diseases and looking at the actual effects of loneliness and just how devastating that is to somebody's health and well-being and longevity. So, do you want to talk a little bit about your programs, um, maybe like in-person versus virtual, and how does that look?

SPEAKER_00: 8:45

Sure. So, yeah, so big picture, Love Your Brain's mission now is to improve the mental, physical, and social well-being of people with brain injury as well as caregivers. And we do that in a couple of ways. So we offer free research-backed programs delivered in-person, online, and in hospital-based settings that blend yoga, mindfulness, brain health nutrition, um, psychoeducation based on the science of resilience, as well as community building. And the research shows that in order to build a sense of belonging and social connection, not only is it important to connect people with shared experiences, as you were saying about our Love Your Brain Yoga program, a big piece is yes, ensuring that people feel a sense of validation and seen by someone else who understands from the inside out what the experience is like. And it's also about uh working internally to disrupt self-limiting thoughts or negative beliefs about yourself that can inhibit your ability to connect meaningfully with other people. And if you think about it after brain injury, there's not only challenges, yes, sometimes going outside for sound sensitivity or light sensitivity, so being with people, um, but it's also negative ruminating thought patterns that can erode one's sense of self-efficacy and sense of self. So our programs really work at both of those levels. So for people who want to connect in person, our flagship program was a yoga program that we partnered with yoga studios and now hospitals and neurore rehabilitation facilities across the country to offer in-person yoga-based programming where people not only can build tools to learn how to self-regulate, become more aware of their negative thought patterns and interrupt them, but also, of course, connect in person with people that they can feel a sense of like I am understood finally. That also during the pandemic, we shifted that program, now we call it Love Your Brain Mindset, to an online platform. And at the time, there were a lot of questions for us. Was screen sensitivity going to be an impediment to people actually participating in this program? But through many years of kind of testing and ensuring we have digital accessibility measures in place, we found really strong participation. And I can share a little bit more about our research on this program later. But high participation and also we've heard for many people who maybe it's a bad day and they don't, they can't, they can't access transportation or they have headaches and they don't want to go outside. Having a program that people can be in their home and minimize the logistics has been a real boon and supported accessibility. We also offer a Love Your Brain Retreat Community Retreat program. So that's another in-person program now in five states that is a five-day program in nature-based settings where we're really supporting people with brain injury and caregivers to step out of their daily routine and come to a place with other people with shared experiences and learn tools in mindfulness, yoga, nutrition. Um, there's some we have a creative expression art project that asks people to examine different aspects of their identity and use a creative process to help share what they're hiding and what they're uh what they're exposing to the world about their injury to help support a bit of re-examining how they want to be in relationship to themselves after their injury. And it's a really, yeah, these there's also a research base behind the benefits of of that program. And we find just tremendous not only benefits there, but that have a ripple effect into people's lives when they return home.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 12:47

Absolutely. And I love that you include the caregivers in that equation because those are the people too who often maybe feel their own sense of isolation or um burnout or or whatnot.

SPEAKER_00: 13:00

Defin I mean absolutely. And in our family's experience, yes, all the attention was immediately given to Kevin for understandable reasons. And caregivers are never taught the tools to be able to support a sense of balance for their own needs and supporting their loved ones' needs, and also similarly need a sense of community where people can feel able to share the truths of what their experience is life like, and then also be with people who understand and can give some inspiration for how to maybe work through challenging points as well. So we actually just well, we have a caregiver retreat that is online. It used to be in person, but that's been a really powerful way to support caregivers from across the country and how to learn new ways of listening to themselves and their loved ones, um, how to support different stress management techniques using mindfulness and meditation. Um as well as there's a really powerful framework for understanding um how to be kind of one foot in and one foot out and balance being open-hearted to your loved one, but also still tending to your own needs. Since it's an ongoing practice.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 14:14

Yeah, absolutely. And the retreats that you have in person, you said they're in five different locations. Do you how many a year do you host of those in-person five-day retreats?

SPEAKER_00: 14:26

The retreats are uh in right now in Maine, Colorado, Arizona. We're and we just expanded to Oregon. Um and let me make sure. Yes, that was all the locations. And those are, yes, five times a year. We serve about 250 people. So each retreat has about 35 people with brain injury and caregivers. And they're completely free. We offer opportunities for people to do some peer-to-peer fundraising, but really we're very committed knowing the high expense of ongoing medical care for people with brain injury to really democratize access to holistic health programming so that there's knowing the chronic nature of brain injury, people know that they have access to resources in the long term.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 15:17

Yeah, that's amazing that you can offer that at no cost to the the people who attend. Do you have a um a waiting list of people? How do you kind of plan out who gets to go and when and where?

SPEAKER_00: 15:30

Yeah, we have a so we have two cycles of open enrollment, usually a spring cycle and a fall cycle. And we have an amazing team who, when we open enrollment, um when people apply, we actually have an interview process so that because for many people, this is often the first time they've traveled since their injury. And we have people coming, you know, a two years out to sometimes 15 years out, and really want to ensure that there's a sense of connection to the organization, trust and the team that's going to be supporting the retreat, and also a space to ask questions because there can be a lot of anxiety and question around yes, can I do this? Is this the right space for me? So we have an interview process that involves that includes that kind of face-to-face time. And then yes, we have a wait list and um and also it's been um we have no trouble filling them and also want to ensure that people who are first-time participants from an equity of access perspective can participate. Sure, absolutely.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 16:41

And then on top of all of that amazing programming that you have, um, you mentioned the the research part that you wanted to touch upon. Do you want to talk about the what you're doing from a research perspective?

SPEAKER_00: 16:53

Sure. Yeah. So I think Love Your Brain kind of uniquely sits in a place where we're in service delivery, um, but we also want to help shift the culture around how people perceive the healing process and what kind of the recovery journey looks like. So a few things. We participate and lead, so we collaborate and lead research that looks at this point at the preliminary effectiveness of our curricula. So, what is what when we blend yoga, mindfulness, education, nutrition, and a strong emphasis on community building, how what is the experience of people with traumatic brain injury? So we've done actually the largest studies looking at online and in-person yoga-based interventions for people with traumatic brain injury. Um, one study, for instance, was of our Love Your Brain Mindset Online program. This looked at participants who had joined a Love Your Brain Mindset program over a two-year period. We use a pre-post methodology. So we assess at the eligibility form stage and then the feedback form stage changes in five different health outcomes. We look at quality of life using the quality of life after brain injury scale, and four different short-form self-reported quality of life measures from the NA then the NIH promise, patient reported outcome measured scales looking at resilience, cognition, emotional and behavioral dysregulation. Uh and there is one more. That's and positive affect and mood. And in this study, there was about 1800 people who participated, about 700 of whom we had complete pre and post data for and found significant improvement in all five of those outcomes. Um, so of course, the limitation is this is not a controlled study. Um, there's no randomization. And a benefit of this is this is there's a lot of ecological validity, meaning this is a study looking at people with brain injury in every day in everyday life who are uh accessing a holistic health program. So it can be kind of generalized to if somebody's out in their community feeling a lack of uh support and needing access to other tools that support mental, physical, and social well-being, what some of the results might look like for that type of individual. So suggests that there is multifaceted benefit from online yoga mindfulness and psychoeducation programming.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 19:35

Yeah. I mean, research has to start somewhere, and it usually starts by collecting data and having these, you know, insights to say, okay, this is what we're seeing in this program before we start to try to apply this randomization process to a study design.

SPEAKER_00: 19:52

Exactly. Exactly. And so we're fortunate because we have we serve about 10,000 people a year, um, about half of whom have brain injury and our caregivers, about half of whom are clinicians through different outreach initiatives. So we have a large platform for data collection and can contribute to the kind of scientific literature in that way, which has been such a um, we're very proud of that, knowing there's a lot of nonprofits who are doing great work, but don't necessarily have that infrastructure to be able to collect, collect, and analyze data in a kind of meaningful, robust way. So that's helped us also position ourselves and collaborate more formally with the medical system so that we can really be more of a bridge for once people. Once patients return to their homes and are looking for kind of their next step, uh, Love Your Brains programming can be a bridge for long-term healing.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 21:27

Amazing. I love it. And then on top of all of that, you have your first ever online summit coming up in March of 2026. Tell us about that and you know, kind of what led you to launching this and then um some of the people that will be presenting at it, including myself.

SPEAKER_00: 21:47

Including you, yes. We're so thrilled that you'll be one of our inaugural presenters. So, yes, we're so Love Your Brain has a strong emphasis on education and capacity building. So I'll I'll get to the summit in a moment, but what we've been testing over many years is we have a learning lab speaker series where we bring experts in diverse fields who come and speak to our community about innovative approaches to supporting mental, physical, and social well-being after brain injury. Those have been just um, there's been so much of an appetite and hunger from our community to learn new tools. We also offer teacher trainings and leadership trainings for health professionals as well as yoga teachers in how to adapt yoga mindfulness and psychoeducation for TBI. We do these 20-hour certification level trainings that are online now. So we've been kind of building a um a training and education platform and felt though that although there's amazing conferences that of that are often more kind of clinician focused and also advocacy conferences that are more consumer focused, but um may there was just an opportunity to create a space where there can be a really rich conversation looking at this sometimes gray space of where there is evidence-based practice. So there's a research base behind different holistic approaches, but they may either be underutilized, there may be misconceptions about them. Um, they may also not have a strong battery of randomized control trials because they're the research is still a bit in the nascent stage or emerging. So the impetus behind the summit was to create a gathering. This will be a three-day online event at the end of March, so March 20th through the 22nd, where we'll bring together kind of visionary leaders who are really changing the way healing happens after brain injury and looking and at it from different angles, um, bringing in research, but then also talking about where there's innovation. So we have people like you, Dr. Wolf, who will come and speak about functional neurology and acupuncture, more from I know, a kind of Western scientific lens around kind of nerve the nervous system. Um, and other people like Judson Brewer, who's a mindfulness researcher at Brown, looking at how habit formation happens and after brain injury, knowing that sometimes with memory and cognition, forming new habits can be challenging, especially if there's an overlay of anxiety. So, how to use techniques that are non-pharmacological. So behavioral interventions to build a sense of curiosity and an awareness around the brain's habit loops to then form new, more healthier habits after brain injury. We have people who will be speaking about photobiomodulation and light therapy, which is a very kind of interesting new area of research. And also the kind of complexities, too, when there's more and more device organizations or companies that are coming online that potentially could manipulate people with brain injury who sometimes feel very desperate about finding kind of the thing that's going to be really helpful. So wanting to be very thoughtful around where, yeah, where there's not an evidence base where there might be kind of safety implications and having some conversation with the experts around what are the trade-offs, what are the benefits, what are some of the drawbacks so that people leave feeling more informed and clear around the many different options that are out there and how to access them in a helpful way.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 25:43

Yeah. And that's such a big conversation around devices and technology. And I I see in my practice too, a lot of patients will be online, they'll be hunting, they'll be searching. And when they find a device, they're kind of looking at it maybe from the perspective of like, oh, I'm going to use this as its own standalone therapy. But in a functional neurology kind of mindset, oftentimes these different devices, um, we're using them in the larger context of a more targeted rehab program and understanding that there's always a limitation to every device and there's a certain amount of either frequency that needs to that it needs to be used or to really make a difference. And so there is a lot of questions around, you know, if I'm going to go buy some kind of device or tool, you know, how how how frequently do I have to use it? Um, can can it actually work better if it's used in the larger context of some other targeted rehab program? And then also compared to other things, how far is this going to actually move the needle on my recovery? Um, and so there's just so many different layers that you have to kind of look at all this technology through to say, does this make sense for me?

SPEAKER_00: 26:59

Yeah, it's it's so true. And that um the multifaceted lens, like you were speaking to, of using them in isolation versus using them in combination with other approaches and um is is really what the summit is designed to help unpack and provide space for people to ask questions and hopefully come away with more clear actions for what is that, what are the doorway in that is unique to each individual, unique to each brain injury experience, but also draws on some universal research and lived experience, best practices.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 27:38

Yeah. And I know the summit is going to be live that third weekend in March. Are you also recording it and making it available to people for a timeframe afterward, or do people have to be able to kind of be there at that moment in time?

SPEAKER_00: 27:53

There'll be different ways people can engage. So, yes, there will be the option for people to access recordings so that it can be an ongoing learning resource. Also, knowing three days of online content can be a lot for the brain to process. So minimizing cognitive fatigue by having access later will be important for sure.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 28:13

Yeah, great. And then what is the website address uh where people can go and learn more about it?

SPEAKER_00: 28:19

It's um so loveyourbrain.com and then backslash summit, but really invite folks to check out loveyourbrain.com, knowing that we always have free programming available for people with brain injury caregivers as well as clinicians. And yes, would love folks to be able to participate in the summit since the goal is really to leave people with actionable steps for how to continue to support the healing process since it is nonlinear and ongoing.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 28:48

Yeah, yeah. I I looked at the lineup and I'm very excited to be part of it, but also to hear what other people have to say because I think you've brought in such a diverse group of people to present on different topics, and I think it's gonna be fabulous.

SPEAKER_00: 29:03

Thanks. Well, it's definitely a big honor of ours to have you part of it, and I know you've helped connect me with some great people, um, like Dr. Morsi, who's been on this podcast with um who's advanced EMDR specifically for brain injury, and then um so yes, it's gonna be it's gonna be great.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 29:20

Yeah, excellent. And um, would you mind giving people an update on how Kevin is doing these days? I know you said he's got a new kiddo.

SPEAKER_00: 29:29

Yes, so he has actually three kids, a new kiddo um who's now about six months and lives in Florida with his family and is doing some speaking engagements, but very much focusing on being a dad that derives a tremendous amount of meaning for him. And I think in some ways, yes, he's kind of been looking for that. Like, what's that spark uh that he felt such a sense of connection to, of course, as a snowboarder? And what I see from the outside is that being a family, being a partner, of course, a family person and a father of three very um high energy and fun and physical kids has been such a sense of purpose for him. So I'm yeah, really proud that he's found this direction for him to really soak up a lot of his time and does continue to still raise awareness about TBI and the benefits of kind of more nutrition-based approaches for supporting healing.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 30:38

Yeah. And then do you guys do fundraisers or how how do you get your funding for this organization that is able to offer a lot of great services to people?

SPEAKER_00: 30:46

Yeah, we have a fantastic development team. So we do fundraisers as well as like different campaigns throughout the year. Um, we do a really fun event in New York City, actually called Ride for Resilience, which is in collaboration with the Five Borough Bike Tour. Um, so you can this fundraiser for many different organizations, people can bike throughout the city when there's no cars. And it's a great way since biking actually has a pretty high incidence of concussion. Um, so it's a great way to both raise awareness about how common it is to have a concussion in athletics, particularly biking, and then different approaches to support healing after if there's persisting post-concussive symptoms. So we do that as a fundraiser in May. And the summit will also be part of a fundraiser since March is brain injury awareness month. I'm sure many people on the listening know that. Um, but yes, we do a lot to make sure that the pro our programs continue to have no costs so that there's no financial access barriers.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 31:51

Wonderful. And then one of the things I wanted to talk to you about, which I think you're perfectly positioned to be able to answer the question, is a lot of times when we see uh we see the term trauma informed uh in terms of you know either different clinics or different classes or like yoga or whatnot. Can you talk about um the word the the word trauma informed and what that means and and how you are bringing that awareness to everything that you guys are doing?

SPEAKER_00: 32:19

Yeah, so this is definitely especially our roots in yoga spaces or wellness spaces, as you said, a term that's really thrown about a lot. And so if you think about trauma, uh Hala Kore has, she's a yoga teacher as well as, I believe, a social worker, has a great kind of simple definition of trauma as being any situation where our our capacity to respond and cope is overwhelmed, and we feel helpless, hopeless, and out of control. So thinking about that as kind of the umbrella of trauma, creating spaces that are trauma-informed from a TBI, traumatic brain injury-informed lens is a little more specific. So always so big picture see trauma-informed spaces as ones that create a sense of safety, predictability, and control. So, how are we supporting people to feel a sense of agency in their choice to participate in whatever activity activity it is? Um, and then really empowering people with tools to regulate themselves while also creating a sense of safety that's not only that internal self-regulation, but also um with other people, knowing that they're whenever because we have such an emphasis on group-based uh programming to support a sense of social connection, there's a lot of more nuance now that it's impossible to create a truly safe space. Because when pe groups get together, everyone has different conditions, different experiences, different needs. So, how can we create a safer space where people recognize that disagreement or even being triggered may happen. So, how to support people to work through that, give each other feedback, support themselves to stay grounded, knowing that when we're working in groups, there's always going to be a complexity and uncertainty in what people's exact needs are at that moment. So I think we talk a lot about this in our yoga teacher trainings, especially with clinicians who may work with a population that has post-traumatic stress disorder as well as TBI. And on a very kind of granular example base level, I think it's interesting where there's a lot of techniques that are trauma-informed. So from a yoga perspective. So meaning teaching people to feel a sense of interception, so awareness of what's going on within them. Um and in doing that, there can be approaches that are better for people with TBI or better for people with PTSD. So for instance, if the goal of a yoga practice is to sort support someone to rebuild a sense of what am I feeling inside to then be able to make choices like to take a longer breath, if you're feeling your heart rate high, feeling activated. Um, if a trauma-informed approach would be to teach at the front of the class and not move around, because people may feel a sense of lack of safety. If someone's moving around, they don't know where that person's going, where the teacher is going. A TBI-informed approach from a sensory processing perspective, it could be a lot for someone to listen to someone give instruction at the front of the class and then move around. So auditory processing is happening, kind of cognition to pay attention to where that person is moving. So from a trauma-informed lens and a TBI-informed lens, both the technique of giving instruction from one place is best practice, but for different reasons. So I'm maybe I'll pause there and hear if that's answering your question.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 36:32

Yeah, yeah. I I love that kind of the thought that goes into all of that, what you just said. Um, and your your yoga classes, you have a yoga teacher training. And so I'm assuming that a big part of that is this idea of how do we work with a room full of people who all are having different experiences and their own unique challenges and make it a safe space for everybody in the best way that we can, and then really thought into yeah, is it better for somebody with a brain injury to be able to see the teacher or better for them, you know, if if there's a lot of movement happening, maybe some people need to be positioned in the front of the class or the back of the class, or maybe mirrors are a problem. Like, are all of these things um thoughts that go into it as well?

SPEAKER_00: 37:22

Yes, yes, um, very much so. Um and, you know, even body positioning. So I think like we talk about because of dysautonomia or challenges with regulating the nervous system, any sort of inversion when the head where the head is below the heart can be destabilizing, cause dizziness, cause challenges with balance. And it can also be a helpful technique for calming the parasympathetic or activating the parasympathetic nervous system or calming the nervous system. So there's just trade-offs. And I think from a trauma-informed lens, really being in a space of co-creating um the group space by working together with the group, with clients, with patients, to kind of build a sense of trust and flexibility in how we're centering choice and awareness and um predictability as best as we can.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 38:22

Yeah, I love that. And you mentioned that your in-person yoga classes um are at different hospital settings. Is this still mostly outpatient people that are going to the courses?

SPEAKER_00: 38:36

So it's mostly outpatient, and we also do have some inpatient uh rehab settings that are implementing Love Your Brain Yoga in slightly different ways. So, for instance, um, we actually just formalized a partnership with the University of Alabama, Spain Rehab in Birmingham, and we're really thrilled about that partnership. They're a TBI model system, are kind of a leading provider of brain injury care, and they've integrated it through the leadership of uh Dr. Rachel Taranishi in their inpatient services and do both group-based programs, but also can bring in more one-on-one the tools to more one-on-one settings as well. So it's very dynamic. And the curriculum itself has 10 minutes of breathing exercises to support with nervous system regulation, 45 minutes of chair-based yoga to support with functional mobility and balance and interoception, 10 minutes of guided meditation. And then at the end is psychoeducation as well as group discussion based on a factor that's been empirically shown to promote resilience. So, for instance, one of the sessions is about this idea of realistic optimism. So, how can we be realistic that we will have challenges after a brain injury, but then still build a sense of optimism that we can work through them instead of getting balked down by the challenge? So we use uh a very kind of multifaceted or multimodal way of exploring that theme through breath body meditation and discussion. So, yes, mostly outpatient, but also inpatient and really support clinical facilities to break it up, however, it works for their patient population and goals.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 40:28

Yeah, amazing. And then what does the next uh you know three, five years look like for Love Your Brain?

SPEAKER_00: 40:36

Oh, it's such a good question. And you know, we um of course have three-year strategic plans and really prioritize different um pillars of our organizational health, our financial health, and our programmatic health. And I'd say we're a very nimble organization that is constantly trying to absorb what are the priorities of people with brain injury and caregivers within our community and help craft and refine our programs to better meet those needs. So who knows what that looks like. I know one priority of mine on the program side is we get so much demand for. Kind of a next step program. So after you come to a Love Your Brain community retreat or you come to a Love Your Brain mindset online program, people want to come back. Um, and from an equity of access perspective, we want to ensure people who haven't had yet a chance to participate can do that. So thinking about what's then kind of a love your brain retreat to 2.0 so that there's a real pathway for people to stay connected and continue to support their healing journey.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 41:44

Yeah. Yep, I love it. Um, I can imagine when somebody comes and they have just this really amazing healing uh experience and meet a lot of great people, it is probably hard to then kind of go back into day-to-day life and then feel like, okay, well, now, now what do I do with this experience?

SPEAKER_00: 42:03

Yeah, and it's it's a both and because we very much want people to, and and they do go to one of our programs and then carry forward the learnings and apply them into their daily daily life to build more sense of resilience and ability to navigate life and support their emotional well-being. And yes, I there is that feeling of like, oh, I finally felt, I finally found my people. So, how to then build that sense of ongoing relationship. So our mindset program, because it is essentially a type of peer support group online, allows people to stay connected that way. But there's yes, there's some questions for us around how to do that in an even more robust way.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 42:47

Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm sure people also just make, you know, organic friendships while they're there that they can continue outside too. And that gives them a great opportunity to do that.

SPEAKER_00: 42:57

Yeah, yeah. Jack actually, just in my most recent Let me read Mindset program, I led one of my my our my participants who lived in Virginia was traveling to Colorado to see somebody that she had met at a retreat. And yes, there's just um, and that's really the goal. I mean, community reintegration is the goal of rehabilitation. So to see that that is happening through our programs is really, really meaningful.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 43:23

Yeah, excellent. Well, any final um, you know, comments or words or information you want to pass on here?

SPEAKER_00: 43:31

Just a huge thank you to you and the listeners for allowing me some space to share about Love Your Brain. Um, it's pretty amazing if I think back to when Kevin had his accident 15 years ago and the sense of hopelessness and roads being closed, things going sideways that our family felt to now be a part of this thriving organization and community that sees the potential of in all of us to move through adversity and find new dimensions of ourselves and and grow through this together has been just such an honor in my life. And that's why I'm still in this and we'll be in it for um for the long run.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 44:13

Yeah. Well, he's so lucky to have you and his brother, and what a way to take a very traumatic experience and help other people in ongoing. It's incredible, really. Thank you so, so much. Yeah. All right, Kyla Pierce, everybody. I will put all of your information in the show notes on the Love Your Brain website, the dates for the summit, uh links for people to show up. Do you guys also have uh social accounts that you want me to share? Instagram or we do, yes.

SPEAKER_00: 44:44

We we put a lot of good education out on Instagram. So it's just love your brain. We keep it simple. Um, but yes, join join our community and we hope to see you and stay connected.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 44:54

Excellent. Amazing. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks, Dr. Wolf. Medical disclaimer. This video or podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine or other professional healthcare services, including the giving of medical advice. No doctor-patient relationship is formed. The use of this information and materials included is at the user's own risk. The content of this video or podcast is not intended to be a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment, and consumers of this information should seek the advice of a medical professional for any and all health related issues. A link to our full medical disclaimer is available in the notes.