Brain or Shine - Shining After Brain Injury

Join Jules and Mark for this latest episode to find out how to recognise and look after your mental health following a brain injury. Whether you're the survivor of a brain injury, a partner or a family member, prioritising your mental health is extremely important. Brain injury can bring on lots of challenges, including anger, irritability and low mood, as well as post-traumatic stress disorde...

In this latest episode, Jules and Mark explore ways to reduce stress and manage anger following a brain injury. April is Stress Awareness Month but we always feel that creating calm in your life is something that you should practice all year round. Someone recently said, 'I wish the world would slow down a little!'. If we can find ways to slow our lives down and introduce a little extra ca...

In this latest episode, Jules and Mark recognise Brain Injury Awareness Month and talk more about the hidden side effects that have a devastating impact on the lives of those affected. Having a month dedicated to recognising brain injury is all very good but survivors and their families, friends and work colleagues are affected all year round. Daily struggles are linked to fatigue, memory loss and...

Join Jules and Mark and they chat about some strategies on how to maintain focus following a brain injury. We know all too well that trying to concentrate is one of the biggest challenges for brain injury survivors. Their attention can be all over the place and they can be easily distracted by a number of things, including noise, clutter and movement. This is known as attention drift. Understandin...

At the time of launching this episode, a new year has just begun and after a major event like Christmas, things can feel a little flat. Jules and Mark explore ways to ease into the new year and set some simple intentions and goals. January can also be a difficult month as winter seems as if it's been around for too long and the dark, cold nights seem to have lost any appeal that they may have...

Christmas is just around the corner and, in this episode, Jules and Mark explore ways to make this busy period a little easier and more relaxing. 'Tis the season to be jolly', as the saying goes! How do you feel at this time of year? For some it is a wonderful and supposed to be all festive, jolly, sparkling lights and parties, but with a brain injury it can be difficult. There's the p...

In this episode, Jules and Mark talk about the differences between traumatic brain injuries and acquired brain injuries and how the level of severity may have bigger impacts on a survivor and their families. Just under one million people attend Accident & Emergency with a head injury in the UK alone, and it's estimated that around 1.3 million people are living with a TBI. If you add in ABI...

Join Jules and Mark as they discuss how roles in a relationship, at home and work, can change following a brain injury. From managing the finances to doing the shopping or driving to preparing meals, a brain injury survivor may struggle to carry out tasks they once did without much effort or even a passing thought. Role changes are common but they can put extra pressure on relationships and also l...

Welcome! Here is a recording of our September 2025 Webinar. It's quite normal to assume that once a brain injury survivor comes home from hospital, everything will get back to normal, but more often than not, the effects can become more noticeable and problematic once they are home. The partner usually is the one who notices these first, and informing the survivor can be difficult, mostly beca...

In this latest episode, Jules and Mark share some insights into how a brain injury can impact relationships and home life. Jules said, 'Sadly, us partners can be hugely affected when a brain injury is sustained and it’s terribly frightening when they are in hospital and you’re not sure what’s going on. Unfortunately, most of what we have learned about the recovery process and the hidden disabi...

In this latest episode, Jules and Mark introduce a new fuction on this podcast and share a recording of the August 2025 webinar talking about day-to-day challenges within the brain injury community. Processing is how we take in, make sense of, and respond to information. After a brain injury, damage to nerve cells can slow or disrupt this, making even everyday tasks difficult. This can affect: Und...

Join Jules and Mark in this latest episode as they talk about the challenges using executive functions following a brain injury. Executive functions include using your reasoning skills, problem-solving and control over emotional impulses. This can also have a huge impact on your motivation, ability to plan and organise things as well as carrying out simple steps and, of course, your memory. Also,...

In this latest episode, Jules and Mark chat about some of the things that are no longer as straightforward following Mark's brain injury. It's not always the big things that hidden disabilities affect, it's day-to-day things like shopping, both in store and online, driving short distances and even making a smoothie. These affect both the survivor and their family and friends, sadly. Re...

Short-term memory issues are a challenge that Jules and Mark experience on a daily basis following Mark's brain injury. Here, they share tools and tips to help ease some of the frustrations it causes through your dya-to-day life. Sometimes, it can be the little things forgotten that can cause the biggest frustrations too. It's not always about a major event or task, but small conversations or proc...

Join Jules and Mark as they share tools on how they get a grip on unpredictable emotions following brain injury. In the previous episode, the theme was around challenging negative thoughts. We're going to take this a step further by using the judge and jury technique in order to remove some unnecessary worry and anxiety. Over 90% of the negative things we worry about don't actually happen. If we c...

Positive mindsets have been key to Jules and Mark in the world of brain injury. Find out how they challenge negative thoughts and focus on how to overcome daily challenges. Emotions can be seriously affected following a brain injury and it can be all too easy to feel hopeless, helpless and useless. The language you use can become negative with phrases like, 'I'm not very good', 'I&...

In this latest episode, Jules and Mark talk about the effects a brain injury has on emotions and share some tools on how to calm them and manage anxiety. Sadly, following any form of brain injury, a survivor may experience some changes to their emotional processing and responses. The mood can go from calm to angry, anxious, upset, frustrated or helpless, just like that. By taking a moment to stop...

Join Jules and Mark as they share how setting boundaries has been a game changer in the day-to-day living with brain injury. There are two types of boundaries: those you set with others and those you set with yourself. By helping others to understand your limitations means that they have a better chance of accepting that you're unable to do everything or that you may need to leave the room for a r...

In this episode, Jules and Mark talk about the importance of working on personal health and well-being following Mark's brain injury. This is paramount whether you have a brain injury or are the carer of a survivor. The main key components are self-care are sleep, hydration, exercise and diet. By following a simple acronym, SHED, can help you to function and live well following a brain injury. Vis...

In this episode, Jules and Mark share their lived experiences of how behavioural and speech difficulties have challenged them following Mark's brain injury. Emotions and behaviours are closely linked and, sometimes, after sustaining a brain injury, these can be hard to control. Aphasia is one of the many conditions that affects speech and is prevalent among brain injury survivors. This can als...

Join Jules and Mark as they share lived experiences around the cognitive and emotional difficulties they've experienced following Mark's brain injury. Cognition refers to the mental processes that take place in our brains and allow us to think and learn. After a BI, these could be seriously impacted and cause an individual to struggle to remember what they've already learnt and progres...

In this latest episode, Jules and Mark talk about the effects a brain injury can have on relationships. Navigating life after a brain injury isn’t just a challenge for the individual... it affects the whole family! That ripple effect also extends to friends, work colleagues and, in Jules and Mark's case, people they met through their business. By gaining an understanding of the hidden disabili...

In this latest episode, Jules and Mark talk about the benefits of tackling the hidden disabilities of a brain injury together. There are many long-term after-effects of a brain injury, which include post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), memory issues, cognitive impairments, headaches, migraines, problems with speech, spatial awareness, emotions and, the biggest of all, pathological fatigue. By un...

Join Jules and Mark to discover how they implemented some simple techniques to help manage fatigue following brain injury. The last episode talked about the dreaded F word - fatigue! There simply can't be enough tools in order to help live with this chronic side effect that affects the lives of so many brain injury survivors and their families. Planning and pacing will help to structure your days...

The dreaded F word - fatigue! In this latest episode, Jules and Mark talk about the affects of fatigue and share how much they've progressed in the last year by getting more understanding from the brain injury community. Fatigue isn't going to go away but there are ways to learn to live with it. By gaining more knowledge and experience can help to understand the potential effects it can have on th...