TRE (Trauma Release Exercises) in West London
What is TRE?
TRE stands for Tension and Trauma Release Exercises. It's a series of seven simple movements which, done in an environment of safety, invite the body's natural tremor response, discharging stuck defensive energy from your nervous system, and releasing deeply held muscular tension.
Doing TRE will help you literally shake off tension, trauma, stress and pain. It helps you become more resilient, by allowing your nervous system to release stuck stress and return to a state of balance and calm.
It helps you connect to, and find safety in, your body, move out of chronic and acute states of fight, flight or freeze, and build a greater capacity to tolerate difficult feelings.
It can feel like a huge relief- shedding layers of accumulated bracing and guarding, and being able to flow into a profoundly relaxed state- which over time, can become your new baseline.
TRE is designed as a self help tool. Once you've experienced the process in the safe hands of a competent therapist, you can take it with you and practice by yourself for life.
I teach TRE in West London online, working with people across London and the rest of the UK. In only two sessions you'll have the skills and confidence to carry on using TRE as part of your regular self care routine, and whenever your body needs it.
Here’s a brief explanation of TRE by its founder, David Berceli.
Online TRE works well alongside Pain Neuroscience Education and Cognitive Hypnotherapy for anxiety, trauma, stress, depression, insomnia and chronic pain. It complements the broader Breath Body Mind Method, supporting nervous system flexibility alongside cognitive, subconscious and other Somatic Therapy.
What can TRE help with?
People come to TRE carrying very different things, and it tends to meet them where they are. Some arrive with chronic pain that's stopped responding to anything else, and find the tremoring can release tension that hasn’t responded to other approaches.
Others are living with anxiety or the ongoing strain of chronic stress, and TRE gives that energy somewhere to go instead of staying stored in the body.
TRE is also widely used alongside trauma and PTSD recovery, for depression, for insomnia when the nervous system won't let the body settle at night, and simply for the deeply held muscular tension so many of us carry while assuming it's just part of who we are.
It also just feels wonderful!
“Ella was amazing in supporting me to feel safe and comfortable whilst doing TRE. She also helped me find parts I had lost in myself.
I’d highly recommend her services to anyone”
What happens in the body
TRE works by selectively tiring the muscles of the lower body, especially the calves, quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, adductors and psoas. Lying down in a receptive position after the exercises allows neurogenic tremors to arise from the central nervous system itself. You'll usually feel them first in the muscles that did the work in session 1, then in session 2 they tend to travel, moving up through the diaphragm, along the spine, into the neck, jaw and shoulders- wherever your body needs them.
This kind of tremor is a normal part of how warm blooded animals complete a stress response, and is very different to pathological tremoring (such as in Parkinsons or dystonia).
Have you ever seen the way that 2 male ducks fight over females in any river or pond? Afterwards, they do a little shake- then they will swim together unperturbed, as if nothing happened, their fight never to bother them again.
However, humans have inhibited this response due to societal and parental expectations of ‘keeping it together’- but that energy doesn’t disappear. It gets stored as an incomplete survival response, showing up as tension, pain, and an inability to relax.
How TRE works
The core condition of a TRE practice is feeling safe.
Learning the exercises and experiencing the tremors/ integration period whilst being taught by a trained practitioner sufficiently skilled, empathic, and regulated to hold space for people is a vital part of the process to begin with, before a personal practice is established.
Without safety, there is no therapeutic value to the practice. This safety is developed through the rapport between facilitator and person practicing, and the felt experience of remaining grounded throughout the practice.
By being compassionately witnessed, and feeling present in one’s body whilst connected to their environment and the people around them, the person doing TRE feels safe to let go, be curious about and trust the process, trust their body, experience the tremors as enjoyable, and allow the nervous system to move out of survival states into a more parasympathetically dominant state.
“I recently had my first TRE session with Ella. I really didn’t know what to expect but Ella explained and demonstrated everything really clearly.
I have been suffering with very constricted hips and lower back that stretching and massage was not really helping. After doing the very straightforward preparation exercises I then started to experience the release tremors.
Ella was very supportive and kept explaining everything that was happening as it is a quite unusual sensation at first.
I ended the session on a high! With my hips feeling considerably better. I have continued to use the method to maintain the release.
I would highly recommend Ella to anyone who is suffering any physical or emotional stress. She is very empathic and kind and offers the perfect level of support throughout” - Nicky
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Yes, its one of the main purposes of TRE. Many people find TRE supportive for nervous system regulation because tremoring discharges accumulated stress, tension and survival energy from the body.
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Yes. TRE can help you feel calmer, more grounded and more connected to your body, by reducing accumulated physiological stress and tension.
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Yes TRE is fantastic for relieving stress.
Many people use TRE to support recovery from chronic stress and nervous system overload. The tremoring process helps to release accumulated tension from the body and promote a greater sense of safety and relaxation.
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TRE tremors are natural muscular vibrations generated by the body. People experience them differently, though many describe sensations of release, warmth, relaxation, emotional relief or reduced physical tension. They can feel like waves, wobbles, shaking, rocking or bouncing.
For more info about TRE from PTSD UK, click here.