Stress is believed by some to cause or contribute to 60 to 90 percent of all visits to the doctor. We know we are stressed when we have feelings of frustration, anger, nervousness, fear, unease and worry. These feelings also directly affect our body—we may experience abdominal pain and headaches, as well as muscle tightness or pain.

Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE) is a technique that uses six simple exercises to release stress and tension from the body
that accumulates from traumatic life experiences, immediate or prolonged stressful situations or our everyday circumstances of life.

These exercises help release deep tension from the body by evoking a self-controlled muscular shaking called neurogenic tremors. These gentle tremors originate deep in the core of the body in the psoas muscles and reverberate outward along the spine, releasing tension from the sacrum to the cranium. The exercises consist of a simple form of stretching and are used to gently trigger these voluntary muscle tremors.

TRE was developed to be a selfhelp technique that can be integrated with and complement other health modalities, including yoga, craniosacral therapy, massage, meditation, exercise and counseling, among others.

The exercises developed from Dr. David Berceli’s work with communities while living in Africa and the Middle East, and are based on the fundamental belief, backed by research, that trauma is primarily an experience of the physical body. He believes that just as the human
body has a natural physical reaction to traumatic and stressful situations, it also has natural physical mechanisms for dealing with and healing from trauma and chronic stress. Bertelli writes, “The human animal is designed to experience, endure and survive traumatic episodes.”

We know the body constantly responds to elevated levels of stress by contracting the muscles to get through tough situations, but we seldom recognize these contractions until we experience pain, discomfort or illness. By practicing this preventive technique, we can prevent stress and tension from elevating to a point of chronic illness, or use it to assist in alleviating chronic, stress-induced illness. Once this technique is learned and mastered over several sessions, it becomes a quick and effective method for consistent relaxation.

When tension is released anywhere in the body, the brain registers a reduction in pain signals, producing new hormones that promote healing. Some have described practicing TRE as getting a massage from the inside out. Once the technique is learned and mastered after
several sessions, the warm-up exercises can be accelerated or replaced with normal exercise activity, like walking or yoga, and the technique then becomes a quick and effective method for consistent relaxation. Eventually, these tremors evoke themselves naturally in a rest position to reduce stress or tension accumulated over the course of the day.

TRE is being used by thousands of people around the world as an effective tool for releasing chronic traumatic stress, physical tension and emotional trauma and release the everyday stress, tension, and anxiety that evolves comes from the daily pressures of life.

Dr. David Bercelli will be presenting at The Science, Spirit and Health Symposium Oct 5th-7th. Information and registration: NewGroundEvents.com.