The Jōrni Podcast, Episode 361 — Regulating the Nervous System with Kiara Armstrong

Hosted by Petra Brunnbauer | The Jōrni Podcast

In this episode of The Jōrni Podcast, Kiara Armstrong — yoga teacher, California-certified massage therapist, and founder of the Rubber Band Method® — joins host Petra Brunnbauer for a wide-ranging conversation about hands-on yoga assists, nervous system regulation, and the anatomy-based framework that makes safe touch in yoga both teachable and transformative.

The conversation opens with Kiara’s personal story: nearly a decade living under a misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder before a specialist correctly identified Complex PTSD. That journey — through compounding medications, serious side effects, and a near-consent to electroconvulsive therapy — ultimately led her away from pharmaceuticals and toward somatic healing. What she discovered through that process became the lived foundation of the Rubber Band Method®: that safe, consensual touch is one of the most measurable and consistent tools for nervous system regulation available to us, and that yoga teachers are uniquely positioned to offer it.

Anatomy-Based, Consent-Centered Hands-On Assists: What the Research Says

Kiara and Petra dig into the science behind touch: how safe human contact measurably lowers cortisol, reduces anxiety and depression, diminishes felt pain, and builds nervous system resilience over time — not just in the moment. Critically, the research shows frequency matters more than duration, which means brief, regular, consent-based yoga assists in a group class setting carry the same biological weight as clinical touch. In a culture facing what the Surgeon General has called a loneliness epidemic, Kiara argues that trauma-informed yoga assists aren’t a specialty offering. They’re a public health tool.

Yoga Adjustments and Assists: Why the Distinction Matters

One of the clearest frameworks Kiara offers in this episode is the distinction the Rubber Band Method® draws between yoga adjustments and assists — a distinction most yoga teacher training programs collapse into a single category. An adjustment uses light tactile guidance to correct or refine a pose; it changes what the student is doing. An assist is applied to a pose that is already biomechanically sound; it enhances the student’s experience of that pose through added grounding, stretch, or ease. Understanding that difference is the foundation of skilled, anatomy-based yoga teaching — and knowing how to offer both safely is the core of yoga assist training within the Rubber Band Method®.

The episode also explores the consent architecture that underpins all RBM teaching: why consent-based yoga assists require more than a waiver at the front desk, how to build a clear and private consent process into any class format, and why the ability to revoke consent at any moment is the structural feature that makes touch feel safe to students who carry trauma. Kiara notes that research consistently shows undisclosed trauma around touch is statistically present in virtually every yoga room — which is why, in RBM, tactile awareness and consent are not add-ons to the methodology. They are the methodology.

Yoga Teacher Continuing Education in Hands-On Assists

The episode closes with the origin of the name — what it means to develop tactile awareness as a yoga teacher, to feel the give and bound of individual tissue, and to treat every student as their own rubber band. Kiara describes the Rubber Band Method® as yoga teacher continuing education designed for teachers at every level: those who have never offered a hands-on assist, and experienced teachers who want to refine the touch they’re already offering with greater anatomical precision and confidence.

Want to go deeper? Read the full companion article: How Hands-On Yoga Assists Regulate the Nervous System — and Why Every Yoga Teacher Should Know How to Offer Them.