TRE: Tension & Trauma Release Exercise

TRE was developed by Dr. David Berceli, who before TRE, worked in conflict resolution and trauma recovery. He is educated in social work and massage therapy, and spent his career working in high conflict areas.

While he was working in a community caught in a civil war, and sheltering in a bomb shelter with several families, David noticed that children would spontaneously shake after the danger of the bombing had passed. In discussion with the other adults, he realized they all had the urge to shake, but were holding it in. It dawned on him that the shaking might have a supportive function, and this noticing was what eventually led to the practice of TRE.

A Certified TRE Provider serves as an educator, guide, and steward of the safe container in which you can encounter and experience your tremor mechanism. I see my role as providing sufficient instruction and information to empower you to take ownership of the practice of TRE, including teaching you the seven activating exercises that bring about the tremors.

I am delighted to answer questions, provide context about the human stress response and nervous system, and generally nerd out about self awareness. I also aim to guide you to increasingly subtle awareness of your sensations and thoughts, and a more consistent sense of presence and grounding within your body.

If you were to purchase one of David Berceli’s books, DVDs, or the TRE smartphone app, you would be able to learn TRE on your own. Many individuals choose this approach, and it reflects how I began my TRE journey. That said, the times that I’ve been privileged to a session of tremoring with a provider have been some of the best ones. Why?

The presence of another person whose nervous system is calm and grounded provides a safe connection with which to interact, and a safe container within which to release tension and stress. My own personal TRE practice, and the extent to which I access calm, presence and grounding is part of what I offer each individual in every session.

David Berceli synthesized existing research on trauma, and incorporated movements from Yoga and Bioenergetics to create the TRE exercises.

The exercises do have intrinsic value, but they are also a means to bringing about the very same tremors he witnessed in himself and others. The exercises are intended to cultivate awareness of your body and energy, and to gently fatigue or stress certain muscles - including the psoas - after which participants relax into a position where neurogenic tremors are freed up to arise.

While the exercises will eventually become optional, some people will find that doing all of the exercises is necessary for the first several sessions.

The tremor mechanism is something completely natural to all mammals. You might have noticed your dog trembling after getting spooked or nervous. Other mammals and birds tremor naturally after stressful or traumatic events (next time a bird knocks itself out flying into a window, stick around and see what happens).

TRE is a reliable process for bringing about this automatic, self-induced, therapeutic mechanism in your body. It also teaches us to regulate. The shaking is named neurogenic tremors to distinguish it from pathological (disease-related) tremors found in conditions like Parkinson’s or epilepsy. The movement itself can look/feel like shaking, vibrating, fluttering, shimmying, buzzing, tingling or wave-like movements.

Many adults have forgotten about or suppressed this intrinsic ability, but some can recall times when they themselves have felt like their body was shaking uncontrollably during or after a stressful, emotional or traumatic experience, or even just when feeling really excited or nervous. In the wake of a car accident, giving birth, public speaking and new sexual encounters are just a few times when people recall an experience of tremoring.

Our capacity to move energy through our bodies is not limited to the circumstances noted above. Many cultures and wisdom traditions from around the world and throughout time have made meaning and use of this feature of our humanity.

To understand TRE, we have to back up and explore the nervous system from the lens of the polyvagal theory a little bit.

When faced with a real or perceived threat or danger, our nervous system picks a response: fight, flight, freeze or shutdown. When our nervous system chooses the freeze or shutdown response, or when our efforts to fight or flee are thwarted, either because of social norms (like, “Don’t punch your coworker,”) or physical restraint (like being trapped in a car with your seatbelt on while going through a traffic accident), it means our bodies have marshalled a whole bunch of energy and neurotransmitters/hormones (including the ones that get a bad rep like cortisol), but didn’t get to do anything with them.

Activation without action, or energizing without release, is where stress adds up and where symptoms of a traumatic reaction can originate. Our bodies hold onto this pent-up energy, the remnants of our stress response. The newest work from the field of traumatology and the relationship between emotion, stress and disease tends to produce book titles with this theme: The Body Keeps the Score (Bessel Van Der Kolk), The Body Remembers, and When the Body Says No are a few popular examples. Imagining all the interpersonal conflicts, stressful days at work and life-changing losses we’ve endured, it can be a little alarming to think of what our bodies are holding onto.

If you freeze, or are unable to fight or run away, the way to move through this pent-up stress is to tremor! This is a completely healthy and purposeful reaction: the shaking, vibration or tremoring completes the cycle of activation and allows your body and nervous system to return to, or get closer to its baseline. You can watch an impala do it here. The only sad part is that most so-called “modern” societies have either forgotten about it, or dismissed it as a sign of weakness. When you learn to engage with this process in a safe way, you can give your body and nervous system the gift of release and healing.

Like meditation and Yoga, TRE is a practice that is simple on the surface, but offers a depth of experience that continues to expand as you practice over the long term.

Most folks can start with a few times per week. With self reflection and guidance, you might find more or less frequent sessions gives you optimal results. TRE can be a life-long process to discover new depths of peace, grounding and inner freedom.

Tremoring one-on-one with a provider, in a group with a provider, all by yourself, or with friends and family all offer different opportunities and challenges. Group sessions are great for many people, and offer the opportunity to hear from other practitioners about their experiences with TRE, which can be quite variable.

Individual sessions are wonderful when:

• you would like space held, attention given, a container created just for you

• you are in the thick of your healing journey

• have fairly prominent physical challenges

• feel a little too vulnerable to tremor within a group or circle

• realize that you want to explore a deepening of your tremor mechanism through self- and non-touch intervention

TRE is accessible to the vast majority of the population, and is appropriate if you have any amount of physical, mental or emotional stress in your life. Many folks use TRE as a complementary practice alongside traditional therapy. Others use it as a recovery tool to maximize performance in sport. It can be especially valuable to manage and ameliorate chronic stress or chronic tension.

There are a few situations where caution is appropriate, and a few contraindications. If you have had any abdominal surgery in the last three months, please wait until that healing period has passed before beginning TRE. Additionally, there are a few psychiatric conditions that exist outside my scope of practice.

If you are feeling unsure, please fill out an intake form and send me an email at leslie@thebranchesyoga.com to set up a Meet & Greet and inquire further.

The international, not-for-profit organization started by Dr. David Berceli has its online home here at traumaprevention.com. 

Another great resource for finding additional TRE workshops, plus an excellent FAQs section is the TRE Canada website.