In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, we want to share a story with you that highlights just how important access to holistic health care is after brain injury — a central part of LoveYourBrain’s mission.

As an occupational therapist, I worked with a patient who experienced a traumatic brain injury (TBI)  and was also experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. After several attempts to connect him with a therapist, he was told that they could not see him due to his memory impairments from his TBI and that he should come back “when his memory was better.” Feeling discouraged, he didn’t want to try another therapist — however, he was open to trying out yoga and meditation. 

Together, we practiced LoveYourBrain guided meditations, which are free and available to access from a computer or phone. He began listening to a meditation at night if he woke up from a nightmare and was able to go back to sleep, rather than spending the rest of the night awake, pacing in his room. LoveYourBrain's Meditation Resources helped him regulate his nervous system, improved his sleep, and provided him a sense of autonomy and agency to manage his own experience.

Unfortunately, this patient is one of many with unmet needs after brain injury - whether due to insurance, lack of transportation, or limited access to skilled providers who understand brain injury rehabilitation. And, these unmet needs are often related to mental health. 

LoveYourBrain programs and resources - shown to improve resilience, mood, emotional/behavioral dysregulation, cognition, and quality of life after brain injury - are bridging this gap. By integrating our programs into hospitals, rehabilitation centers, and clinician’s patient care, patients not only learn tools that support physical, mental, and emotional healing after brain injury - they become connected to support available long after they leave the hospital.

It’s so important that those offering care provide a breadth of resources that support people physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, and spiritually because we know that brain injury can impact a person in all of these ways.

I hope this story inspires you to prioritize mental health, in whatever way you can. Thank you for joining us in this important work. 

With deep appreciation,

Jackie

Pathways to Mental Health