BRAIN WAVES GLOBAL
Learn to optimise your mental wellbeing so you can thrive daily and create your best life.
Brain Waves P-REGO — The Evidence-Based Mental Health Program Built on the Ocean
There are mental health programs. And then there are mental health programs built by someone who has spent twenty-five years watching what happens to a person when they face something genuinely challenging — and come out the other side.
Brain Waves P-REGO is the second kind.
Developed by Simon Tien — a Registered Paramedic with a Bachelor of Paramedical Science, a Master's degree in Mental Health, and over twenty-five years of surf coaching experience — P-REGO is an original, evidence-based mental health education framework that uses the ocean and the surfing experience as its primary classroom. It is delivered in schools, corporate organisations, community groups, and high-pressure industry settings across Western Australia.
It is the only program of its kind in Australia.
The tools and education to understand and nourish our mental wellbeing should be accessible to everyone.
Mental health is becoming a worldwide problem becoming an epidemic and is surpassing the system's capacity. It is time to nurture our wellbeing and bring happiness and flourishing into our lives.
Brain Waves Global aims to provide education and support to help people improve their lives and reduce mental health issues.
We aim to help people optimise their mental wellbeing, manage stressful situations and learn practical and transferable life skills to grow and thrive.
What is P-REGO?
P-REGO is Simon Tien's original five-pillar framework for mental health education and wellbeing. The name stands for the five evidence-based pillars that form the program's structure:
P — Positive Mental Health Positive mental health is not the absence of struggle. It is the active awareness that you have tools — and the daily practice of using them. The P pillar reframes what mental health means, moving participants away from the stigma of disorder and toward a genuine understanding of wellbeing as something that can be built, strengthened, and maintained deliberately. Grounded in current Australian mental health statistics, the neuroscience of positive emotion, and practical self-talk strategies, this pillar gives participants a foundation that every other element of the program builds on.
R — Resilience Resilience is not toughness. Every surfer wipes out — sometimes in shallow water, sometimes on reef. The question is never whether you fall. It is whether you paddle back out. The R pillar teaches resilience as a skill: built through cognitive flexibility, emotional regulation, positive relationships, problem-solving, and the repeated experience of managing challenge and surviving it. Drawing on polyvagal theory and the neuroscience of stress response, participants learn both the science of why resilience works and the practical strategies for building it in themselves and others.
E — Empathy and Self-Efficacy Empathy and self-efficacy are more deeply connected than most people realise. Your capacity to genuinely understand others grows in proportion to your belief in yourself. The E pillar develops both — through structured empathy activities, discussion of cognitive, emotional, and compassionate empathy, and a grounded understanding of self-efficacy as the belief that you can do what needs to be done. These are not soft skills. They are the foundation of every meaningful relationship, every effective team, and every school or workplace culture worth being part of.
G — Goals and Gratitude Goals give direction. Gratitude gives fuel. Without one you drift. Without the other you run dry. The G pillar combines evidence-based SMART goal-setting frameworks with a scientifically grounded gratitude practice — built on research showing that deliberate gratitude shifts neural function, improves mood, and builds the kind of sustained motivation that keeps people moving forward through difficulty. Participants leave this pillar with both a practical goal they have set and a gratitude practice they have experienced firsthand.
O — Optimism Optimism is not pretending everything is fine. It is a deliberate neurological practice — grounded in neuroplasticity research — of consciously installing positive experience into neural function. The O pillar introduces the science of how the brain changes through positive experience, the HEAL framework (Have, Enrich, Absorb, Link), and practical strategies for cultivating authentic optimism that does not collapse under pressure. This is the pillar where the science of the program comes fully together — and where participants understand, often for the first time, that how they think about the world is something they can actively and deliberately change.
The Evidence Behind P-REGO
P-REGO is not a wellness product with a science label attached. The framework is the direct result of rigorous academic research.
Simon Tien's Master’s research at Southern Cross University examined the comparative effectiveness of surf therapy and psychological capital for adolescent wellbeing and social-emotional development — the first academic review of its kind to directly compare these two fields. That research identified the mechanisms by which ocean-based intervention produces measurable wellbeing outcomes, and how psychological capital frameworks — hope, resilience, self-efficacy, and optimism — interact with those outcomes in young people.
P-REGO synthesises these two evidence bases into a single, structured program. Each pillar draws directly on peer-reviewed research in positive psychology, polyvagal theory, neuroplasticity, breathwork, interoception, surf therapy, and social-emotional learning. The program's activities — from breathing regulation exercises grounded in diaphragmatic function research to gratitude journaling linked to neural pathway development — are designed to produce outcomes that extend well beyond the day of delivery.
The science that underpins P-REGO includes:
Neuroplasticity — the brain's documented ability to restructure itself through repeated positive experience
Interoception research — the growing evidence base linking body-awareness practices to reduced anxiety, improved emotional regulation, and better mental health outcomes
Surf therapy research — peer-reviewed studies demonstrating reductions in anxiety and depression, improvements in self-efficacy and social connection, and enhanced resilience in adolescent and adult populations
Breathwork science — systematic review evidence for the psychological and physiological benefits of slow, diaphragmatic breathing on stress, heart rate variability, and nervous system regulation
Who P-REGO Is For
Schools and Young People P-REGO is designed to address the most urgent mental health challenge facing Australian schools right now. One in four young Australians aged 16–24 will experience a mental disorder, with anxiety being the most common. By 2030, anxiety and depression are projected to be the leading cause of disease burden for adolescent teens. P-REGO gives young people a structured, engaging, and evidence-based set of tools before crisis develops — not after.
For schools, P-REGO sessions are available as a standalone wellbeing day or as a complement to MRSA's surf education programs. Programs are particularly well-suited to Year 9–12 outdoor education cohorts, school wellbeing days, and camps with a mental health or leadership focus. Outcomes align directly to the Western Australian Curriculum across Personal and Social Capability, Health and Physical Education, and Outdoor Education.
Corporate Teams and Organisations For corporate groups, P-REGO delivers what generic team-building programs cannot — a structured, evidence-based experience that produces measurable outcomes in resilience, communication, mental fitness, and team cohesion. The program is particularly effective for organisations in high-pressure industries: FIFO and mining, emergency services, healthcare, education, and defence.
Simon brings seventeen years of emergency services experience as a paramedic to every corporate delivery. He has lived the pressures that FIFO workers, first responders, and high-pressure professionals face. P-REGO corporate programs are not designed from a textbook. They are designed from experience.
Community and Mental Health Organisations P-REGO is available to community groups, youth organisations, NDIS providers, and mental health service providers seeking evidence-based outdoor wellbeing interventions. Programs can be adapted for diverse populations, including young people with lived experience of mental health challenges, participants navigating adverse childhood experiences, and community groups seeking connection and resilience tools.
What a P-REGO Session Includes
Every P-REGO session is facilitated by Simon Tien personally. Delivery is flexible — sessions can be delivered on the beach before or after a surf education program, in a classroom or conference room setting, or as a standalone full-day workshop.
A standard P-REGO session includes:
An introduction to the P-REGO framework — naming and explaining the five pillars and why each matters
The mental health statistics context — current Australian data on youth mental health and the urgency of early education
Breaking stigma — practical strategies for opening mental health conversations with peers, family, and colleagues
The neuroscience of stress — polyvagal theory, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, and how understanding your stress response changes how you manage it
Breathwork practice — diaphragmatic breathing, box breathing, and the 'Draw In, Go Low, Then High' technique from Simon's free diving and surf therapy practice
Anxiety and stress differentiation — understanding the difference, the signs, and evidence-based coping strategies
P-REGO pillar activities — structured experiential activities for each of the five pillars, including the Gratitude Web, Letter to Your Future Self, Empathy Charades, SMART Goals practice, and the Marble Relay flow concept
Social connection and belonging — the research on why belonging matters and practical strategies for building it
Diet, physical activity, and sleep — the lifestyle foundations that underpin all mental health
Mindfulness and meditation — the glitter jar demonstration, mindfulness practice, and how to integrate presence into daily life
A closing P-REGO commitment — each participant leaves with one concrete action for each of the five pillars
All sessions include a three-month follow-up Zoom check-in for group participants — free of charge — to support integration of skills and answer questions that emerge after delivery.
EVIDENCE-BASED APPROACH
At Brain Waves, we understand how overwhelming it can be to feel the pressures of life and not have the tools to manage stressful situations. This is why we have dedicated ourselves to studying evidence-based tools and practices that are proven to improve the quality of your life, so you can feel empowered and create life from a place of ease and happiness. Imagine being able to improve your overall health while improving your surfing at our home here in Western Australia or at a surf camp in Indonesia. We are here to help.
The creator behind Brain Waves, Simon Tien, has a Master's in Mental Health and a Bachelor of Paramedical Science and has been working teaching surfing for over twenty years.
Simon has 15 years of experience in the mining industry and understands the pressures, stress, and family and financial strains that stretch throughout the industry.
ABOUT THE CREATOR AND FACILITATOR
SIMON TIEN
Moving out of home at fifteen, Simon has travelled a life journey of living and learning to lead him to where he is today. Fuelled by a passion for education, a working career with an array of experience, from surfing coaching, youth work, the WA mining industry, floatation therapy and a Bachelor of Science degree and Master's degree in Mental Health, has paved the development of the Brain Waves program. An accomplished surfer, passionate teacher, and forever optimist. Join us to gain some life skills that will enrich your wellbeing and help you on your journey.
HOW TO BOOK
1. CHOOSE YOUR PREFERRED DATES
Ensure you get the best days that work with your schedule.
2. TELL US ABOUT YOU
Fill out the form below to register your interest and tell us about your school & students.
3. BOOK NOW
Call us on 0418 958 264 to book the Brain Waves program. Bookings of over 10 people will receive a 10% discount p/p
