TRE Tension/Trauma Release Exercise

TRE stands for tension or trauma release exercise and is a simple yet extremely powerful way to release stress and tension from the body. TRE consists of series of six standing exercises and two exercises lying on the floor. The exercises are all designed to fatigue the muscles that would naturally be used with a stressful “flight” situation and so enable the bodies natural tremor response to be activated. After a session of TRE, many people report feeling calmer, peaceful and often experience more restful sleep.

TRE was “discovered” by David Berceli whilst working as a social worker in various warn-torn places around the world. At times Berceli was forced to flee to bomb shelters along with the locals he was living with; it was during these times that he made some curious observations: Firstly, no matter where he was in the world everyone would react in the same way when the noise of exploding bombs was heard- everyone would instinctively “flinch” into a protective stance, bringing in their arms to protect their torso. The fact that he observed this in many different countries was a strong indication that the response was a universal human physiological one rather than a cultural one. The second thing that he became aware of was the difference between the adults’ and the children’s responses: after the danger of the imminent threat had passed, the children within the shelters would often start to shake or tremor, and the adults did not. He was very curious about this difference – if the shaking mechanism was physiologically inbuilt – then how come adults don’t deploy it and more significantly what is the impact upon adults for not tremoring or shaking?

During this time Berceli became aware of the work of Peter Levine who was also investigating the physiological impact of trauma within the body and had documented the fact that mammals after encountering serious stress would also often tremor or shake. Berceli believed that as adults we have suppressed our natural tremoring response because of a social fear of displaying vulnerability or anxiety and yet this suppression has cut us off from a very natural and healthy mechanism that helps our nervous system to calm down and relieve us of stress. It is analogous to stopping the release valve on a boiler – if this were to be blocked the resulting pressure would harm the boiler and so it could be argued that stopping our natural trembling or shaking is detrimental to our human health.

TRE is designed to reconnect us to this very natural tremoring mechanism and by doing so help the body release excess stress in a very safe and simple way.