TRE®: Trauma and Tension Release Exercise

“You will measure your entire life experience as to how it was before
and after you started doing the TRE’s.”
– Eric Robins, MD

There’s nothing like giving the body the tools it needs to heal itself. If we can enable it to speak its mind, it can naturally restore itself. TRE® is a tool that allows the body to do just that.

How Was TRE® Discovered?

Nearly three decades ago Dr. David Berceli developed TRE® after years of observing how humans in war-torn countries instinctually contract to protect their vital organs in response to a threat. He discovered that, like animals, humans had the innate ability to shake off deep structural patterns of stress, chronic tension, and trauma in order to restore and heal their bodies structurally and emotionally. See this reseting tremor in animals here and here.

Dr. Berceli observed that humans and animals have the same reactions to a traumatic event: fight, flight or freeze. After the traumatic event animals will shake violently to release the trauma from their bodies. Unfortunately, unlike animals, we have forgotten this ability and most of the time the traumatic memory is stored in our brain and in our body at a cellular level and causes all types of emotional and structural problems.

“I couldn’t help but believe that if trauma can occur to every human being, then a healing process must be available to everyone too. Is there an obvious natural solution – available to anyone, anywhere in the world – that we have overlooked, that can open the door that has locked us in our own isolation? We are genetically encoded to tremor. The exercises do not do anything to the body except reawaken and reengage this natural tremoring mechanism that has been dormant inside us.”

– Dr. David Berceli, founder of TRE (Tension & Trauma Releasing Exercises)

How Does It Work?

Shaking is the body’s built-in way of engaging the brain and nervous system to enable the release of trauma and tension held deep within its structure so that it can heal itself. More specifically, Central Pattern Generators—networks of neurons located in the gray matter in the center of the spinal column—generate a tremoring mechanism that moves up through the spinal column into the brain. This triggers what is called the Transcortical Loop between the muscles in the Peripheral Nervous System and the brain in the Central Nervous System. Activating this powerful biofeedback loop allows the body’s intelligence to use shaking and muscular contraction to heal trauma and tension trapped in the body’s structure, nervous system, and brain.

Benefits

TRE® facilitates profound relaxation, balance, and peace that lower tension and stress. It can help no matter where your stress comes from. It will help anyone who wants to build a more resilient life. Among the benefits experienced are less anxiety, improved relationships, better sleep, increased flexibility, greater emotional strength, reduced pain levels, healing of old injuries, relief from grief, relief from chronic health problems, and dramatic recovery from PTSD.

“Helplessness is a universal state for people overwhelmed by traumatic stress. Gaining control of their symptoms, their body, and their life is an essential part of the healing process. TRE is a powerful tool to achieve this. I have personally used TRE and have taught them to friends and patients with remarkable results.”

– Robert Scaer MD, Author of the Body Bears the Burden: Trauma Dissociation and Disease

Letting the Body Speak Its Mind

“Let the body speak its mind.” – Peter Levine, Waking the Tiger

TRE® uses several gentle exercises that fatigue and stretch the core muscles in order to activate therapeutic tremors. Some want supervision and guidance the first few times they experience the shaking. However, it is easy to teach yourself if you feel adventurous.

The best part about TRE® is that it lets the body speak its own mind so it can heal you in a way that only it knows how to do. Because of this I believe TRE may be the most effective form of myofascial unwinding and emotional release there is, dealing with the scourges of fibrosis and blocked emotional energy in ways we don’t yet understand by bypassing our conscious mind so that our inner wisdom can do what it does best.

Check out the observations I’ve made of my TRE® sessions.