What is TRE®?

Taught and practiced in over 75 countries worldwide, TRE® (Tension, Stress and Trauma Releasing Exercises) is a somatic approach to release stress, tension and trauma from your body. Humans have a poor way of dealing with stress and trauma; our body can sustain a heightened state of anxiety and fear for a very long time. This leads to excessive muscle tension and other ailments, without us consciously noticing at first.

TRE® consists of a short series of physical exercises that safely activate a natural reflex mechanism of shaking—neurogenic muscle tremors—that we all have, but don’t use very often. The controlled physical shaking of our body that we learn from TRE® helps to release long-held muscular tension and stress from our bodies and helps to down regulate the nervous system. When practiced slowly with a certified TRE® provider benefits include: better sleep, less anxiety, more resilience; reduction in pain, digestive disorders (IBS), and in recurring migraines.

TRE® was developed by Dr. David Berceli LCSW while working for many years as a trauma therapist in countries affected by war and natural disasters.

TRE® is suitable for people of all ages, body types, and levels of fitness as the exercises can be modified to fit individual needs.

After learning TRE® with a provider this can become a self-practice that can be taken anywhere.

Why should I practice TRE® and what is stress anyway?

It is important that we understand how our nervous system functions, and how to best work with it to our advantage. If we don’t, we’re missing out on an opportunity to alleviate much suffering incurred by various forms of stress and trauma.

Sometimes we can’t talk ourselves out of an uncomfortably heightened state of anxiety, fear or anger. We might cognitively understand our ‘story’, i.e., why we reflexively feel and react in a certain way when confronted with specific triggers. Yet, this rational way of understanding doesn’t seem to provide the ease and comfort we seek.

That is where TRE® and other body based therapies come in as a “bottom up” approach since stress and trauma express themselves in both psychological and physical ways.

How does stress work?

When it comes to stress and trauma, the autonomic nervous system (ANS) runs the show. (That’s the involuntary nervous system that we don’t have conscious control over). The ANS consists of two branches: the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), also known as the “fight or flight” system, and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), the “rest and digest" mode.

When faced with a stressor our bodies activate a stress response: the sympathetic nervous system kicks into high gear and increases our heartbeat, respiration and blood pressure, pumping blood to our extremities so that we can either run or fight.

Stressors come in all shapes and forms:

There are external stressors like that food delivery guy looking down distractedly at his phone on his silent killer e-bike speeding right towards you. In that case you might find yourself jumping back even before you realized what was happening. Phew! Thank you sympathetic nervous system!

Other external stressors can be a difficult work environment, money issues, family turmoil, prejudice….the list goes on.

And then there are internal stressors:

The kind of pressure we put on ourselves to be oh, so perfect. It can manifest in the way we talk to ourselves, perhaps being too self-critical, ruminating on past experiences, or worrying about the future.

Whether the stressors are internal or external, they can be interpreted by our bodies as threats.

Unfortunately,

the survival mechanisms that kept our species trucking along for so long don’t quite appreciate nuance. All our nervous system is interested in is keeping us alive.

A threat is detected and the fire alarm goes off.

Whether it’s an external stressor that could be an actual life or death situation, as with the e-bike messenger, or a less fatal situation like getting yelled at by your boss, or even an internal stressor like worrying that your girlfriend seems a little off lately and might be planning to break up with you. Not that you have any concrete hints but she might, right?

Whether physical or psychological stress, your body reacts the same way. The sympathetic nervous system starts dominating the scene and your body is amped up to…..do SOMETHING.

That was imperative when we were still living out in the wild. But in our current post-industrial Western world, the stress itself is more likely to kill us than most stressors.

That is, unless we do something to complete the stress response cycle.

Well, why don’t we always complete that stress response cycle?

For starters: social appropriateness. No, you can’t punch your boss in the face after he yells at you. It might feel good in the moment, but losing your job might have more dire consequences than feeling your hand twitch uncomfortably in your pant pocket.

There can also be chronic stressors that outpace your capacity to process them.

And sometimes it’s simply safer: you might not want to yell back at the person screaming obscenities at you in a subway car.

These are possible survival strategies, but they don’t deal with the stress in your body itself. They postpone your body’s need to complete the cycle, but they don’t replace it.

Now how do we complete the stress response cycle?

Some of the few ways we can affect our autonomic system is through breath, movement and touch. Positive social interaction, a good cry and creative expression can be great strategies as well.

We have to signal to our bodies that the danger is over and we are safe now. Whether you were in fight or flight, BOTH of those modes are yelling: “Go, go, go! Do something!”

TRE®

TRE® is the something you can give your body to do. A physical workout can offer some stress relief, but TRE® works directly with the autonomic nervous system during the neurogenic tremors. So it addresses the stress response in your body at the core.

The biophysicist, psychologist and founder of somatic experiencing (SE), Peter A. Levine, observed that mammals in the wild would “shake off” stress after they experienced a traumatic event (e.g. an impala being attacked by a predator cat) jump up and return to normal behavior, without any apparent lasting effects from the trauma.

Similarly, Dr. Berceli observed while sitting in bomb shelters that people, especially children who started shaking during shelling, fared far better afterwards than some of the adults who had suppressed that impulse in themselves out of worry to appear weak, or to upset the children in their care.

Dr. Berceli realized that he needed to find a somatic way to address the trauma of the populations he was working with; their nervous systems were so dysregulated by the trauma of war or natural disaster that more cognitive approaches didn’t suffice. Moreover, medications and talk therapy were not accessible for larger groups of people in those regions of the world. He sought a method that could be taught to people who could learn this technique, and then continue to heal themselves after he left.

Dr. Berceli has been deployed to war zones in North Africa and places of natural disaster including Hurricane Katrina. He also worked with first responders after 9/11.

Who can benefit from TRE®?

There is no need to have been in a war zone or to have survived a natural disaster to benefit from TRE®. We all have big T or little t-trauma through daily stressors.

Many athletes like to use TRE® to relax their muscles and fascia after a hard workout.

It’s an onboard tool we have in our mammalian physiology to make us into more resilient human beings who can deal with the adversities we all encounter from a less reactive and more empowered state.

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