How healing happens — and how we study it
Our ResearchTrauma-informed yoga across incarceration, reentry, and community life. Everything we know, and everything we're asking, in one open place.
The short versionAt the center of RAY's work is sangha — a sense of community, belonging, and interconnectedness that extends across incarceration, reentry, and community life.
IF justice-impacted and underserved individuals have regular access to safe, trauma-informed practice — and opportunities for connection and sangha — THEN they may experience improved well-being, greater self-awareness, stronger belonging, and continuity of support across incarceration and reentry, BECAUSE embodied practice creates room for nervous-system regulation, reflection, agency, and shared community.
How change happens · three pathwaysEmbodied healing
Functional mobility, less tension, stronger bodily awareness, and tools for regulation, grounding, and rest.
Connection & Sangha
Trust, empathy, prosocial connection, and belonging — even within correctional settings.
Reentry & Community
Practice that extends beyond incarceration helps sustain wellness and navigate the return to community life.
Embodied Healing & Mind-Body Connection
How embodied practice shapes participants' relationships to themselves, their bodies, and their well-being.
The research agenda · three domainsCommunity Reentry & Belonging
Continuity of support before, during, and after incarceration — and where people feel welcomed and safe.
Intergenerational Healing & Connection
How healing ripples across children, caregivers, families, and communities over time.
Grounded in five principles: trauma-informed, participatory & community-centered, strengths-based, holistic, and action-oriented — and in a view of research as a practice of social justice.
Follow the research:
Subsribe to our Substack
Questions & answers
Does yoga actually help people who are incarcerated?
Trauma-informed practice can support nervous-system regulation, emotional awareness, and relational connection. RAY studies how, why, for whom, and under what conditions.
What is a "theory of change"?
It's our map of how regular, safe, trauma-informed practice leads to individual, relational, and community healing — and where that path can be disrupted.
Can I partner with or cite RAY's research?
Yes — the agenda is openly published. Anyone interested in collaboration is invited to reach out to the research inbox.