Trainee Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE®) trainer Krzysztof Karauda says that we should let our bodies decide how to release tension, citing shaking and tremoring as natural ways to regain equilibrium after stressful situations.
Our bodies experience all kinds of emotions, including anxiety. We freeze, our muscles tense. After facing extremely stressful, life-threatening situations, animals start shuddering in order to readjust. Young children do the same, and one might say they’re simply shaking off their fear. This natural bodily reflex became the basis for TRE®, a therapeutic stress-relief technique.
Maria Hawranek: Could you explain what TRE is, in a nutshell?
Krzysztof Karauda: TRE stands for Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises. It’s a body workout method based on neurogenic tremors, a self-healing mechanism we are all genetically equipped with. These tremors occur spontaneously in stressful situations or directly afterward, and serve to regulate the nervous system and entire body. The bioenergetic therapist David Berceli noticed this over thirty years ago, and devised a method to remind people how to tap this natural resource.
I saw a video of a cheetah attacking an antelope. After seizing it by the throat, the cheetah is then forced to flee from a pack of hyenas. Once the cheetah has disappeared, the antelope initially lies motionless, but soon gets its breath back, and finally stands up, its whole body trembling. Do all animals react this way? Do humans, too?
Anyone who has seen a frightened dog must have noticed it shuddering. In the scientific paper “The Felid Purr: A Healing Mechanism?,” researcher Elizabeth von Muggenthaler noted that, since cat purring requires energy expenditure, which animals do not waste senselessly in dangerous situations, it must be somehow beneficial to their survival and self-healing process. The Canadian doctor Hans Selye, the first scientist to demonstrate the existence of biological stress, developed the stress-reaction model GAS (general adaptation syndrome), detailing the body’s first line of defense against potentially harmful stressors. He noticed that animals which are not allowed to go through the tremoring phase after experiencing a stressful event were more prone to stress in subsequent life-threatening situations. People have been aware of the beneficial effects of vibrations for at least five thousand years. The mechanism is used in various body-work practices—e.g., Hatha yoga has the shankhaprakshalana procedure for cleansing the digestive tract, which includes neurogenic tremoring. Shaking is known worldwide and is part of many ritual dances, so it seems we know how to use it.
In that case, why don’t we see people shaking at work, or at home after an argument?
Recently my friend, a TRE Provider—as trainers of this method are known—who works at a kindergarten, noticed a little girl sitting sadly at the side of the room. She went up and asked what was wrong. When the girl started speaking, she began to shake, but my friend just let her keep talking. Even though the child was shaking, she told her that it was fine, and the girl burst into sobs of relief. In the meantime, seeing an adult hugging their friend, seemingly unsurprised, the other children also stopped paying attention. After a while, the girl calmed down and went off to play.
Now just imagine what happens if a parent sees their child suddenly start shaking, and says “I think it’s epilepsy! Let’s go to a doctor!” When a child hears that, they stop tremoring, for fear of going to hospital. Some parents will actually take them to a neurologist, for example. Since children’s bodies are still growing, the doctor might spot some kind of anomaly on an EEG. If parents get scared when they see their child shaking, or a schoolteacher asks “Why are you shaking like that? Focus on the lesson!” or scolds them for a restless leg, then this natural mechanism is culturally inhibited. Even as adults, if we know we can apply it, we still don’t, because it’s been unconsciously suppressed.
How did David Berceli rediscover it for people today?
On the one hand, Berceli is a bioenergetic therapist, influenced by the work of the Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich and, of course, the American psychotherapist Alexander Lowen—who both believed that vibration was an element of the bodily healing process. On the other hand, Berceli’s experience is important: he spent years in the Middle East and hazardous or war-torn countries. He noted that, during air raids, adults and children would go to the shelters, then as soon as it was over, the children would start shaking naturally. Try as they might, the adults couldn’t calm them down, because the mechanism takes over the whole body. When they went outside again, the adults were still stressed, but the children gradually relaxed and were soon running around, playing. Berceli suspected that this mechanism might turn out to be more universal than it seemed—it is therapeutic, as well as innate. Quite simply, it’s part of us.
Where does trauma lodge itself in the body?
Humans consist mainly of a body, which is endowed with a mind, intellect, or soul—call it what you will. That means we encode tension both on a psychological level (in relationship models and how we react to our surroundings and ourselves) as well as on a physical level (in muscular models and the functioning of our organs, fascia, and skeleton). It’s hard to tell what is taking place and where. For example, when the body reacts to a threat, it stiffens up, impairing the functions of everything below the diaphragm, including digestion. If the stress is chronic, it can translate into pain, irritable bowel syndrome, or liver or pancreatic disease. If your stomach aches, you clasp it, bent over slightly—which contracts your stomach and tenses the extensor muscles in your back, creating tension on both sides of the body. Sometimes it’s hard to diagnose where the stress is. In that respect, the TRE method is universal—we let the body decide for itself where the vibrations should appear, in which order, and with which intensity and amplitude. It’s a very natural process. Some things we do know for certain: if someone gets angry, it usually affects the stomach and liver. The fight-or-flight reaction can immobilize those organs, as digestive processes stop being a priority. But we must remember that the models are only a guide, and it depends on each individual.
At yoga sessions, attendees are told that tension tends to cluster around the hips and pelvis.
That’s just part of the story, since tremoring can occur anywhere, all over the body. For me, the oddest thing was to feel my gums trembling, but the fascia do indeed entwine our bodies and can contract, extend, and shift their position. Some people feel their ears quivering. With TRE, we don’t interpret what it means if tremoring occurs in a specific place; all we care about is whether the body can tremor easily and safely.
Originally, the abbreviation TRE only included the word “trauma.” Berceli added “tension” later, expanding the method to cover tension and trauma. What is known about this tension and its sources? Is it only related to extreme experiences—such as beatings or rape—or everyday life as well?
Any situation—even a light suddenly changing from green to red, or the intense, exhausting noise of a city—generates tension that can be addressed through TRE. The sheer fact that we’re alive is sufficiently stressful for the body to respond by tremoring when needed. If we do so freely and naturally, the tremoring is brief, as in animals. But we often fail to release our tension on the fly. Some of it we explain away with mechanisms to protect our minds, and the rest we convert into our character—in a sense, rebuilding our bodies. My own tremoring was incredibly violent at first—if your body is deeply stressed, releasing it gently is difficult. But with time, it became like a cat’s purring. The TRE method is contraindicated in several cases: pregnancy, epilepsy, fluctuating blood pressure, serious heart conditions, being under the influence of psychoactive substances, and decompensated diabetes. Apart from that, anyone can practice it safely. We don’t ask when to tremor, just as we don’t ask when to use our livers or stomachs. It’s just a part of life.
So is it not the case that we should aim for a situation in which these tremors no longer exist?
A healthy body vibrates naturally. If someone doesn’t experience stress, they’re either brain-damaged or dead—the only two states that prevent neurogenic tremors. Life literally pulses within us. I once saw an MRI scan of somebody’s chest in action: the organs all shift around, some pressing, some moving, massaging, shrinking, growing; they’re like jellyfish swimming. Wherever tension appears, the body gently contracts and subdues it. Everyone has felt that.
Does anyone experience difficult emotions while shaking?
Yes. That’s why our TRE training teaches how to recognize one’s own defense mechanisms, because how much we open up to the people we’re going to work with depends on how well we know ourselves. We learn how to simply be there and use our own adjusted nervous system to help the other person’s body adjust, feel, and carry on. TRE sessions are voluntary; you can stop them at any point, as with each of the exercises. The one rule is that you should only move if you find it comfortable. If an exercise is hurting, then stop. You should try not to let the sensation exceed a five or seven on your personal ten-point scale, so you always stay in your safe zone, without overdoing it.
Why?
It’s based on a theory of the American psychiatrist and neurobiologist Stephen Porges, who—generalizing—described how our bodies have attuned themselves to serve our highly advanced minds, and vice versa. The theory clearly implies that reaction methods can potentially revive traumas. If the nervous system opens up too quickly, all the accumulated energy from a difficult experience is released at once, inundating the entire system, especially those components that develop earliest—the diencephalon and limbic system. This forces the body to shut down again, which is why we should always work slowly with the nervous system.
Has TRE been scientifically proven to be effective? Does the method improve sleep, for example, as many practitioners claim?
A lot of research is still underway. So far, the most interesting study was by a Danish clinical psychologist, Michael Morin Nissen, working with multiple sclerosis patients. It seems that TRE can work as a tool to relieve the disease’s symptoms and improve quality of life. The most credible research to date—sadly unavailable to the public—was conducted by the US Department of Defense. Their analysis is ongoing, but the results proved so valuable that the US Army is using TRE as a preventive method for relieving PTSD. Much research has been devoted to the effectiveness of vibrations in general, such as whole-body vibration—a technique often used by Russian ballet pros and Norwegian Olympic athletes. Tremors have been shown to have a painkilling effect and improve blood flow, helping the body regenerate. They’re great after weight and endurance training. I’m impressed by the results I’ve observed among my clients. But it’s hard to predict how each individual will react to neurogenic tremoring—since they’re reacting to themselves and their own history.
What is the tension-relieving process like, outside of the sessions?
There are many different possibilities. The vibrations usually deactivate the defense mechanisms, and the body starts to feel secure. Next, various bodily repair mechanisms kick in automatically, giving a heightened sense of freedom in body and mind, as tension ceases to be an issue. Then people become more creative, as they gain improved access to their humanity. We see some people overwhelmed with anxiety. They get panic attacks that cause tremors in the chest and solar plexus, which frightens them even more, when in fact it’s a repair mechanism. In that situation, if someone knows what’s going on, they don’t try to stop the vibrations; they accept them and feel better. Sometimes they don’t even need therapy, although, as Berceli says, when you work with traumas—because they can also be physical—you often uncover stories you want to tell, indicating that you ought to start psychotherapy. Occasionally, the vibrations let someone experience a new level of contact with themselves—as if they’ve woken up from a dream. They come to the next session and say “Well, I did tremble a little, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about. In the middle of the week, I realized I couldn’t go on living like this.” And then all of a sudden a switch turns on. People might spend years seeking a way to reach themselves, and feel as if they’ve failed, then something draws them to TRE. During a session, their bodies start “giving back” some of their history, which encourages them to work on themselves; to reflect on their past, deal with it, establish new boundaries in relationships, and alter their lifestyle.
Did you take up TRE precisely because there are some experiences that simply can’t be talked through?
I couldn’t have put it better. At one point, I already had the knowledge, and my mind was in order, but I still felt terrible—I was suffering from lower-back pain, and my neurologist said “Yoga, Pilates, and stretching, or you’ll end up in an operating theater in five years or so.” A friend of mine came across a TRE course—neither of us knew what it was. So we tried it, and that was six years ago. After one short workshop, I felt better than ever before; I found peace, calm, and solace. I decided to study it, and now I’m a trainee TRE teacher. I became a yoga instructor and a masseur, too.
How do the physical traumas you mentioned reveal themselves during a session?
One of my clients nearly drowned as a child. During TRE, he recalled the physical event, gasping for air and thrashing around. But once he had reconstructed it in safe conditions, he felt he had conquered his fate. His body’s healing process was complete, he had survived—just like the antelope in the video—and it was finally over. Women often recall giving birth—how they shook uncontrollably afterward, and no amount of blankets would help. Sometimes, doctors medicate to inhibit these tremors, or if there are no other symptoms, the nurses say: “This does happen after giving birth, so let it be.” Once a woman stops worrying, the tremors are beneficial for her body, which considers every operation and torn tissue life-threatening—whether we know it or not. Neurogenic tremoring lets us break out of that threatened state to feel safe again, allowing the body to heal faster and burn up all the chemicals released by defense mechanisms. I remember a woman who’d had a C-section, and at a TRE session she said: “I feel like I’m actually giving birth.” Her tremoring was really intense, similar to postpartum chills. More than ten years later, she experienced a reaction that had been stifled by the anesthetic during childbirth. A natural extreme-tension model was activated, which set off the vibrations, and suddenly everything in her body changed. After the session, she felt fine. and we never saw her again.
It’s hard to believe that an experience hidden away in the body can resurface years later.
All our life experience is constantly present in our bodies. But our nervous system only allows certain things to filter through into a small region of our consciousness, preventing it all from killing us. That’s why we are startled by a sudden recollection from forty years ago. To our brains, it always existed, but there was just no way to access it. As a psychotherapist, I know that we only start to remember some things once we’re ready and stable again. There are times when someone in therapy says: “I thought that was all dealt with, and I didn’t need to bother anymore, but then it came back on its own.” Yes, it comes back, but on another level, like a bird soaring upward on a thermal—if you look down upon it, it just seems to be circling, but from the side, you can see that it’s constantly rising.
Berceli recommends fifteen minutes of TRE daily, and says you can exercise while watching TV or listening to music. I was surprised—most workouts require attentive presence, concentration, and directing your breath toward areas of tension.
I think that was David Berceli poking a stick into an anthill. How can you attain a “here-and-now” state if reaching it is your goal in itself? The more you concentrate on the target, the less you are present in your body. Having the choice to switch your attention between a movie and your body offers relief. You stop striving to achieve the “here and now.” Obviously, we have a developmental culture nowadays, so we often hear how meditation and being in touch with our bodies are vital. Yet the more this becomes the goal, the further away we drift. TRE isn’t about being artificially “here and now”—it’s all about feeling and breathing. If you need to do something, you shouldn’t overdo it.
Parts of this interview have been edited and condensed for clarity and brevity.
Krzysztof Karauda:
Doctor of Humanities, psychologist, psychotherapist, certified trainee TRE® trainer, and specialist in assisting domestic violence victims. Works at the Polish Milton H. Erickson Institute in Łódź.
Read similar:
