Trauma-Informed, Brain-Sensitive (TIBS) Yoga For Nurses

This Training is an Online, In-Depth, Self-Paced Video Course

With so much increasing need for safe, informed, attuned, sensitive, adaptive, inclusive, and culturally competent care, yoga is being considered a vital resource in settings where such care is needed. We provide yoga programs in prisons, hospitals, schools, and rehab centers. We also have requests to provide yoga in mental health triage centers, immigration centers, and domestic violence shelters.

While yoga provides a body-centered, brain-nurturing, stress-reducing experience, and develops the life skills tool kit our community members need to move from struggling with surviving to learning about thriving, HOW yoga is provided has a significant impact on its efficacy.

Informed by emerging fields of trauma research and neuroscience, this powerful and unique training blends yoga, neuroscience, mindfulness, and brain science to address the complexities and residues of trauma in brain, mind and body. Together, we explore the rhythms of trauma, its manifestations in the mind and body, and how to re-awaken crucial brain capacities for living a vital life. We will dive deeply into polyvagal theory, attachment theory, and the value of right and left brain functions. Integrated with and facilitated through yogic practices, this is an embodied practice of social justice and transformation.

This training is appropriate for nurses and medical health professionals. It is designed for those interested in a trauma-informed lens through which to be with their patients. It is also for nurses and medical health professionals who would like more personal self-care tools to help them with resilience, well-being and sustainability in their professional and personal life.

This online video training covers content in yoga, neuroscience, mindfulness, and trauma-informed methodologies. The training focuses on trainees' skill development in multiple aspects of yoga and mindfulness. Not just content-rich, this training helps teachers to deepen and develop their teaching skills as well as their interpersonal neurobiological self-care while teaching.

This trauma-informed, brain-sensitive yoga training responds to the rising needs for trauma-informed care in our medical and mental health systems.

You will learn the:

neurological, physiological, and psycho-spiritual workings of yoga for the brain, body, mind, and heart.
trauma-informed principles for the triune brain and polyvagal systems.
mindfulness-tools that help acclimate students' to increasing levels of safety and self-awareness.
breathing practices to disarm over-active (rajasic) or to nourish under-active (tamasic) nervous systems.
integration of right and left brain aspects for yoga practices.
essential relationship skills based on attachment theory and brain development.

Course Curriculum

Module Lessons

The Effects of Trauma

Trauma shapes the brain. Repeated trauma has a deeper impact. Unresolved trauma creates survival strategies and self-regulation through coping mechanisms.This might show up as addiction, self-harm, self-sabotage, difficulty with clear personal boundaries or self-care.

Types of Stress Responses

We have 4 hard-wired responses for reacting to stress: fight, flight, freeze, collapse. These reactions are programming from the fast acting reptilian and limbic brains. Trauma resolution or recovery requires shifting the "speed" of the two lower brains while bringing the neo-cortex on line, into its inherent leadership role where we can respond, versus react, to stress.

The Triune Brain

Our 3 evolutionary brains: reptilian, mammalian, and neo-cortex. Trauma shapes these brain regions in terms of the collaboration and prioritization.

The Role of the Senses in Yoga

Yoga teaches us that there are 5 causes of suffering, the Kleshas: Avidya, Asmita, Raga, Dvesha, and Abhinivesa. Ignorance of our true self; feeling separate from the whole; clinging/grasping; aversion/resistance; and fear.

Our senses are strongly impacted by trauma and will influence the brain and the 5 Kleshas, adversely. When the senses get confused, the kleshas can show up as changes in self-perception, feelings of disconnection, addiction, depression, and anxiety.

Addressing the 3 Primary Needs

We have 3 primary needs, as a species: safety, connection and adventure. Safety via connection is primal to our fundamental sense of well-being in the world. A lasting impression is left on us from our earliest days and months of life.

Adventure includes the exploration of who we are, who we can become, and how we can know our true self. Adventure can also include risk taking behavior, addiction, promiscuity, the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain at the expense of one's vitality.

Yoga has a model, called the 3 Gunas, that helps us to understand how we can heal these 3 primary needs when there has been disruption to them.

3 Major Differences for Those with Trauma

There are three major differences in brain structure of people who have experienced trauma:

The threat perception system registers danger differently
The filtering system which distinguishes relevancy gets confused
The self-sensing system gets blunted, limiting interoception

Limbic System Considerations for Healing & Resilience

When we are sympathetically aroused our decision making ability becomes short-sighted and we lose our sense of self-leadership and agency.

When we restore the functioning of the neocortex, we also return to self-leadership, self-competency, remembering, integrating, learning, and our capacity for playfulness and creativity .

The Roles of a Yoga-Informed Nurse

Providers, practitioners and professionals of all kinds can act like a lighthouse for their patients, clients and even co-workers (as well as themselves).

Brain Harmony: Top-Down, Bottom-Up Processing

Top-down bottom-up processing is a bi-directional approach to regulating your brain that engages both the lizard brain and the neocortex . Top-down processing involves higher mind functions like perspective, context, language, and timing. Bottom up processing helps regulate the physiological aspects of our body.

Yoga involves both bottom-up and top-down processing in one! Body movement is bottom up, and mindfulness is top down. Scientific and yogic background information and practical implementations and strategies are major parts of the TIBS yoga curriculum.

PolyVagal Theory

There is a 3 system sequential evolution of the nervous system which includes the dorsal vagal parasympathetic (lowest evolutionary option), sympathetic (middle), ventral vagal parasympathetic (optimal evolutionary option), and neocortex (human social animal level).

The TIBS yoga training curriculum provides a well-rounded understanding of the vagus nerve and practical yogic and physiological ways to increase vagal tone to improve the brain state, body functions, and overall well-being of mind and body.

The Intersection of Yoga and PolyVagal Theory

These two sciences weave together with the ventral vagal, sympathetic and dorsal vagal systems aligning with the ancient teachings of yoga’s model of the gunas: sattva, rajas, and tamas. The framework of the polyvagal theory offers an inspiring and empowering perspective on what is possible in trauma recovery and personal resilience.

Healing and the Dynamics of Relational Fields

Learn methods for bringing your 4 hard-wired nervous system reactions to stress into balance. Yoga provides remedies for Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Collapse. These remedies are portable, effective, and infuse the body with new neural modes for become less reactive and more resilient.

Yogic Perspective on Mind & Body: The Gunas

While yoga’s teachings on the 3 Gunas align with Polyvagal Theory, the overview of the Gunas and how to observe their patterns in daily life offers a refreshing perspective infused with practical ways to address an out of balance nervous system. Ultimately in yoga, we are aiming to bring the system back into balance.

Yogic Perspective on the Inner Ecology of Being Human: The Koshas

There are five layers (koshas) of our being that account for the complexities of different aspects of ourselves, from the most physical to the most subtle. The koshas serve as a model to understand ourselves from the perspective of yoga, as well as to understand the impacts of trauma and healing.

The Role of Implicit Memory

An implicit memory is an intrinsic, preverbal, internalized sense of who we are. Yoga helps people install new implicit memories, based on the yogic teachings of who are at our core.

How others respond to our needs in infancy informs how receptive we perceive that others are to our physiological welfare, which in turn imprints our relationship to our own physiological needs. This system will naturally repair itself with yoga.

How Streams of Implicit Memory Influence the Present Moment

Streams of implicit memory are the undercurrent of your intra-psychic life that can at any moment be triggered and affect your perception of the current moment. With repetition, these streams of implicit memory become a river of embodied anticipations. TIBS yoga teachers can learn to offer appreciation when these streams arise in their students, and help a person move through their adaptations. Teachers and students can learn to wisely steward areas of competency, being careful not to allow students to over develop survival strategies, and inviting students to ‘bring the neocortex back online.’

Window of Tolerance, Window of Capacity

Our window of tolerance is the range of what we can experience while still perceiving safety. We can help our students to expand their bandwidth carefully. All people (traumatized or not) have a window of tolerance. In TIBS, we correlate the states below and above the bandwidth with different expressions of the central nervous system and the gunas - a perspective that respectfully combines both scientific and yogic understandings of our physiology.

Attachment Theory

Our attachment style (there are 4) reflects our preferences, behaviors, and beliefs about relationships, love availability, and trust. We can learn to Internalize secure attachment (called earned secure attachment) as a provider, nurse, therapist or yoga teacher, to help students co-regulate via strategies taught based on science and yoga philosophy in the TIBS curriculum.

The Causes of Suffering: The Kleshas

The 5 kleshas are the ‘causes of suffering’ or ‘obstacles to yoga’ taught in the Yoga Sutras. Understanding each klesha develops our inner humanity. This session also teaches the practices and philosophies that constitute the remedies to each of the kleshas.

The States of the Nervous System

There are 3 levels of the nervous system: The ventral vagal parasympathetic nervous system is our optimal homeostatic hum. Sympathetic nervous system for arousal (fight/flight). And dorsal vagal parasympathetic nervous system response for withdrawal (freeze/submit/collapse). TIBS teaches strategies for helping students to regulate their physiology and the impacts of stress, especially in the face of trauma.

Embodied Anticipations: What Are They? Why Does It Matter?

Memories are stored in our bodies. The river of embodied anticipations (or relational anticipations) is the embodied non-verbal anticipations developed in response to our earliest impressions of relationship (how we will be received/how we should respond).

Right Brain and Left Brain Integrations

When we are born, the right brain is seeking connection, a co-regulating field with other right-brains. The TIBS curriculum teaches right-brain yoga, and also helps the right and left brains come into harmony. The right-brain is the space from which mindful presence is developed, and is also the place from which traumas are stored and healed.

Practicum Components

Mindfulness on the Brain Function of Orienting 

Mindfulness tool for orientation and calibration, developing their sense of proprioception and interoception (which are often impaired by trauma), and an overall reduction in the hyper-vigilance of the brain.

Mindfulness on Sound and the Space in which Sound Exists

Sound is one of the five senses, is external to us, is out of control, is always happening, and is a good way to work with grasping/aversion. Through learning to utilize mindfulness and language via this particular form of meditation, we develop self-awareness and concentration in a variety of different postures, including savasana.

Chanting Practice

Singing is helpful for the vagus nerve and to increase vagal tone. When we chant, we also tend to have a shorter inhale and longer exhale, which encourages the ventral vagal parasympathetic response.

Mindfulness for Getting Grounding

Grounding mindfulness meditation helps connect you to the sensations of the contact points on the floor, downregulates the nervous system, and can be practiced in a variety of postures to create a sense of stability.

Breathing Practices for Resilience, Relief and Renewal

Specialized breathing practices that are physiologically specific to the experience of stress and trauma in the body, and are intended to have both a direct and immediate effect on the body and mind as well as a longer term effect over time when practiced consistently.

Left and Right Brain Practices

Harmonizing the hemispheres of the brain helps us to have a more holistic view of ourselves; help us to feel more integrated, to have the space to heal trauma, and to have more equal space to access the different aspects of both halves of the brain. Our culture prioritizes the left brain. This practice helps to reintegrate the right brain which is where trauma is stored and also healed, and also the place from which one experiences mindful awareness. You will learn to offer this in a variety of poses.

Chair Yoga: Adapting the Practice for Accessibility

Variations of postures and practices that can be done from a seated position. This greatly expands the reach of yoga by making it accessible to students.

Top-Down and Bottom-Up Processing

Bringing neuroscience into yoga practice creates a greater understanding of the processes of yoga and how we can hone our focus for an even more beneficial, brain-based outcome. In this practice, you’ll experience the language of top-down, bottom-up processing while practicing yoga poses that encourage an embodied understanding.

The Precuneus and Social Engagement Networks: Brain-Based Yoga

This practice includes engaging the precuneus and the social engagement networks in a body-centered practice. You will learn the language to use in a variety of postures that help connect to and grow these brain areas.

Practices Based on Restoring Attachment Styles

While attachment styles are embedded at the earliest developmental parts of our life, they can be restored, moving toward earned secure attachment. This can be fostered in different poses and meditations with specific language considerations.

Course Objectives

Upon completion of the Trauma-Informed, Brain-Sensitive Yoga and Mindfulness for Nurses learning activities, Nurse learners will be able to do the following:

Understand and communicate how a history of trauma may manifest and present in a patient’s mind and body.
Explain the principles of Polyvagal Theory and Attachment Theory and how they relate to the patient with manifestations of trauma.
Identify positive changes that yoga and mindfulness can induce in the physiology and psychology of the patient.
Teach yoga and mindfulness practices that positively impact the polyvagal system in the context of trauma recovery and stress management of the patient.
Teach mindfulness practices to patients to increase self-awareness, improve the sense of well-being, and reduce stress.
Teach breathing practices to calm or energize the patient, in response to the patient’s individual needs.
Use language choices and strategies to improve communication with patients in a way that is responsive to the patient’s individual needs.
Implement verbal and behavioral strategies to convey compassion for patients to increase the patient’s sense of connection and well-being.
Implement mindfulness and breathing practices for their professional self-regulation and stress reduction, and to increase compassion for themselves and their patients in addressing challenging situations.

Course Information and Disclosures

This nursing continuing professional development activity was approved by Oregon Nurses Association, an accredited approver by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.

Donation Investment Levels

Sustainer; $600:
Your financial resources allow for your to participate at this contribution level. You are providing 4 yoga classes for 10 students. You help us Sustain the Yoga Community inside Oregon’s prisons. Includes a tax-deductible donation of $320 in support of our Teacher Training Programs in Oregon's Prisons.

Reciprocity; $460:
Your financial resources enable you to participate at this contribution level, yet not more. We understand! Your contribution supports 2 yoga classes for 10 students. We call this Reciprocity because you’re supporting students’ to have access to yoga and we’re honored to discount your training fee by $140 in recognition of your desire to grow your skills and your service. Includes a tax-deductible donation of $180 in support of our Teacher Training Programs in Oregon's Prisons.

Mutuality; $360:
Your financial resources need careful consideration so that what you invest in is supports you and others, without compromising your financial responsibilities. We understand this! Your contribution supports 1 yoga class for 10 students in Oregon’s prisons. We call this Mutuality because we want to support you to have access to this training and we want to provide you with a discount of $240 payment level that still lets you also support access to yoga in Oregon’s prisons. Includes a tax-deductible donation of $80 in support of our Teacher Training Programs in Oregon's Prisons.

Accessibility; $280:
Your financial resources need even more careful consideration, yet we know you also want to attend trainings that deepen your skill and help you to serve others. This is our most basic payment option. It covers the cost of the training. This level of registration does not include a tax deductible donation.

Your investment in this training supports the DAYA Foundation Prison Yoga Teacher Trainings.
Thank you for supporting vital, life-changing programs!

LEARN MORE ABOUT DAYA PRISON YOGA PROGRAMS