Aug. 5, 2026

Your Body Is Talking — Are You Listening? A Brain Care Story of Chronic Pain, Nervous System Health & Recovery with Nora Rodden, MS, MBA

Your Body Is Talking — Are You Listening? A Brain Care Story of Chronic Pain, Nervous System Health & Recovery with Nora Rodden, MS, MBA
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What if the symptoms your body was sending you were trying to tell you something your mind had not yet figured out how to hear?

In this episode of the Let's Talk Brain Health! Podcast, Dr. Krystal Culler makes space for a story. Because at the heart of brain health is not just the science— it is the lived experience. The hard seasons. The wisdom that only comes from having walked through something yourself and come out the other side with something worth sharing.

Nora Rodden is the Founder and CEO of Nervana, an AI-powered digital health company helping people with chronic symptoms explore the psychological and emotional factors that may be contributing to how they feel. But before the company and the Harvard MBA, Nora spent years navigating chronic back pain following a car accident, debilitating GI symptoms, and insomnia — searching desperately for answers that conventional medicine could not give her. What she eventually discovered changed everything. And she has dedicated her career to making sure others do not have to search as long as she did.

This is her brain care story.

What You'll Learn in This Episode

🧠 Nora's journey from a car accident at college to years of chronic pain, GI symptoms, and insomnia, and what it felt like to navigate all three simultaneously in her early 20s

🧠 Why chronic symptoms can be an invisible illness and the emotional and financial toll of searching endlessly for answers

🧠 How the nervous system gets stuck in a chronic fight or flight state and why that can perpetuate physical symptoms long after the original injury has healed

🧠 What the mind-body connection actually means

🧠 The Harvard clinical trial that changed Nora's life and what a structured mind-body program actually looks like in practice

🧠 Why your brain's predictive processes matter for chronic symptoms and how neuroplastic recovery approaches work

🧠 How Nora built Nervana to make structured mind-body programs accessible to anyone with chronic symptoms

🧠 What it means to learn your brain and body's language — and how that changes everything

🧠 The one piece of advice Nora would give her earlier self

Key Takeaways

✔ Chronic symptoms are not your fault — and understanding that changes everything

✔ The nervous system can get stuck in fight or flight long after the original trigger is gone — and that perpetuation is real, physical, and treatable

✔ Your brain and your body are not separate — considering both is essential to healing

✔ A structured program removes the cognitive load of behavior change — and that matters more than most people realize

✔ You do not have to figure this out alone. Community, recovery stories, and the right tools at the right time make all the difference

✔ Give yourself some grace. Whatever you are experiencing — listen to your body, listen to your brain, and get a little closer to understanding what might be happening internally.

Earn FREE CEs

This podcast qualifies for continuing education credit across 10 healthcare professions. Join the Learn at Pinnacle app to learn more and earn FREE CE/CME credit for listening to this episode!

Support the Podcast

If you enjoyed this episode, please help us grow the conversation around better brain health:

  • Follow or subscribe to the Let's Talk Brain Health! Podcast on your favorite platform

  • Leave a rating or review

  • Share this episode with a friend, colleague, caregiver, or fellow brain health advocate

Thank you for investing your time and energy into your brain health. A special thank you to Nora Rodden for trusting me with her story — and for turning her own hard season into a resource for everyone still searching for answers.

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