TRE (Trauma Release Exercises)
Somatic exercises that induce involuntary tremoring to release chronic tension, stress, and trauma stored in the body's psoas and hip flexors
Bottom Line
TRE (Tension & Trauma Releasing Exercises) is a somatic practice developed by Dr. David Berceli that induces neurogenic tremors - involuntary shaking that originates from the psoas muscle. The theory: the body naturally tremors to discharge stress (like animals shaking after a threat), but humans suppress this mechanism. TRE reactivates it.
The evidence is preliminary but promising, with studies showing benefits for PTSD, anxiety, and chronic pain. The experience is unusual - you'll shake involuntarily, sometimes intensely - but most find it deeply relaxing afterward. It's free to learn, low-risk for most people, and provides noticeable effects from the first session.
Worth trying if you carry chronic tension, have trauma history, or are curious about somatic approaches. Start gently and consider working with a certified provider if you have significant trauma.
Science
Core theory:
- The psoas muscle is central to the fight/flight/freeze response
- Chronic stress and trauma create persistent tension in the psoas and surrounding muscles
- Neurogenic tremors are a natural discharge mechanism (seen in animals post-threat)
- Humans often suppress tremoring (viewed as weakness or loss of control)
- TRE exercises fatigue specific muscles to trigger the tremor reflex
Proposed mechanisms:
- Activation of the tremor reflex via muscle fatigue
- Discharge of chronic muscular holding patterns
- Downregulation of the sympathetic nervous system
- Release of myofascial tension
- Completion of incomplete fight/flight responses
- Vagal tone improvement
Key studies:
- Berceli et al. (2014): TRE reduced PTSD symptoms in military personnel
- Nibel (2018): Systematic review showing TRE benefits for PTSD and anxiety
- Heath & Beattie (2014): Improved quality of life and reduced muscle tension
What the evidence shows:
- PTSD symptoms: Moderate reduction in several studies
- Anxiety: Promising preliminary results
- Chronic pain: Some positive findings
- Muscle tension: Consistently reported reduction
- Sleep quality: Often improves
Effect sizes:
- PTSD symptom reduction: Moderate
- Anxiety reduction: Small to moderate
- Muscle tension: Subjectively significant
- HRV improvement: Reported but not well quantified
Limitations:
- Most studies small and uncontrolled
- Mechanism not fully validated
- Placebo effects likely contribute
- Long-term benefits unclear
Supporting Studies
3 peer-reviewed studies
View all studies & compare research →Practical Protocol
The 7 TRE Exercises:
These exercises fatigue the leg muscles and psoas to trigger tremoring.
1. Ankle Stretch (2 min each leg)
- Stand facing wall, one foot back
- Keep back heel down, lean into wall
- Feel stretch in calf and ankle
- Switch legs
2. Calf Stretch (2 min each leg)
- Same position, but bend back knee
- Shifts stretch deeper into Achilles/soleus
- Switch legs
3. Thigh Stretch (2-3 min)
- Stand on one leg, hold other ankle behind
- Pull heel toward glute
- Keep knees together
- Balance using wall if needed
4. Hamstring Stretch (2 min each leg)
- Standing forward fold, one leg at a time
- Or seated forward fold variation
5. Grounding Exercise (3 min)
- Feet shoulder width, bend forward
- Hands on ground or shins
- Slightly bend knees and straighten repeatedly
- Feel legs start to tire and tremble
6. Wall Sit (5-10 min)
- Back against wall, slide down to seated position
- Thighs parallel to ground (or higher if needed)
- Stay until legs burn and shake
- This is the primary tremor-inducing exercise
7. Lying Position (10-20 min) - THE TREMOR PHASE
- Lie on back, soles of feet together (butterfly)
- Knees fall open
- Slowly bring knees toward each other (2-3 inches)
- Tremoring should begin in the legs
- Let tremors spread naturally
- To stop: straighten legs, tremors will cease
First session tips:
- Tremoring is strange at first - let it happen
- Start with just 10-15 min of tremoring
- Stop if overwhelmed (straighten legs)
- Drink water, rest afterward
Frequency:
- Beginners: 2-3x per week, 15-20 min sessions
- Regular practice: 3-4x per week
- Experienced: Can do daily if desired
- Less is more at first - integration matters
Common experiences:
- Tremors start in legs, may spread to torso, arms
- May feel emotions arise (normal)
- Deep relaxation afterward
- Better sleep that night
- May feel tired or emotional for 1-2 days (processing)
Common mistakes:
- Overdoing it early on (start with 10-15 min)
- Trying to control the tremors (let them be involuntary)
- Not allowing recovery time between sessions
- Stopping because it feels weird
Risks & Side Effects
Known risks:
- Emotional release can be intense (old feelings surfacing)
- Over-practice can cause temporary fatigue or soreness
- May destabilize those with significant trauma (use practitioner)
- Not a replacement for trauma therapy
Contraindications:
- Severe PTSD or trauma (work with certified provider first)
- Recent surgery or injury to legs/hips/back
- Pregnancy (modified versions available)
- Active psychosis or dissociative disorders
- Severe chronic pain (start very gently)
Precautions:
- Start with shorter sessions (10-15 min tremoring)
- Don't practice when exhausted
- Have support available if processing trauma
- Stop if feeling overwhelmed
- Allow integration time between sessions
Emotional release:
- Tears, laughter, or anger may arise
- This is considered normal and therapeutic
- However, seek support if it becomes overwhelming
- Those with trauma should consider working with a provider initially
Risk level: Low for general use, moderate for those with significant trauma history. The main risk is overdoing it or processing more than you can handle alone.
Who It's For
Ideal for:
- Those with chronic muscle tension, especially in hips/lower back
- People experiencing ongoing stress or anxiety
- Those curious about somatic approaches to wellbeing
- Athletes and performers managing performance anxiety
- People who "hold tension" in their body
- Those who feel emotions "stuck" in their body
Especially helpful for:
- First responders, military, healthcare workers (occupational stress)
- Those with PTSD (ideally with provider support)
- People who've tried talk therapy but still feel "body tension"
- Those who experienced childhood adversity
- Anyone who notices shaking when stressed but suppresses it
May need modification or provider support:
- Significant trauma history
- Active PTSD symptoms
- Dissociative tendencies
- Severe anxiety disorders
- Those taking psychiatric medications (inform your doctor)
Not recommended for:
- Active psychosis
- Recent surgery
- Those who become severely destabilized by body sensations
How to Track Results
What to measure:
- Pre/post tension rating (1-10 scale)
- Pre/post anxiety level
- Sleep quality that night
- Overall weekly stress/tension levels
- Any emotional processing (journaling)
Session tracking:
- Duration of tremoring phase
- Intensity of tremors (1-10)
- Areas of body involved
- Emotional experiences
- Post-session state
Tools:
- Simple journal or notes app
- HRV tracker (optional) - some notice HRV improvements
- Oura Ring or similar for sleep tracking
Timeline:
- Session 1: Learning exercises, first tremor experience, immediate relaxation
- Week 1-2: Getting comfortable with the process
- Week 2-4: Noticing reduction in baseline tension
- Month 2+: Integration, may need less frequent practice
Signs it's working:
- Feel more relaxed after sessions
- Reduced chronic muscle tension
- Better sleep quality
- Less reactive to stress
- More body awareness
- Old tensions or emotions processing
Top Products
No equipment required
TRE requires only floor space. Optional items:
Comfort items:
- Yoga mat - $15-30, for lying position
- Yoga blanket - $15-25, for warmth during tremoring
- Meditation cushion - $20-40, optional support
Learning resources:
- Certified TRE Provider session: $75-150
- TRE Online Course: $50-100
- David Berceli's books and DVDs
Cost Breakdown
Cost: $0-200
Free approach:
- Learn from YouTube videos (many available)
- Practice at home with no equipment
Guided approach:
- Book: $15-20
- Online course: $50-100
- In-person session with provider: $75-150
- Workshop: $100-200
Recommended for beginners:
At least one session with a certified provider ($75-150) helps ensure proper form and provides support if strong emotions arise. After that, self-practice is free.
Cost-per-benefit assessment:
Excellent ROI. The method is free to practice ongoing. Investment in initial guidance is worthwhile but not required.
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Discussed in Podcasts
15 curated moments from top health podcasts. Click any timestamp to play.
Children tremor freely in bomb shelters while adults suppress it
Berceli describes the pivotal moment in a bomb shelter when he observed children tremoring freely with terror while teenagers tried to control it and adults suppressed it entirely, revealing how cultural conditioning trains us out of a natural stress-discharge mechanism.
"And I could feel them tremoring with terror in their body. And it was fascinating, actually. But when I looked around the room, all of the small children were tremoring quite freely. They had no inhibition to do it."
Wild mammals don't get PTSD because they tremor regularly
Berceli explains that wild mammals tremor regularly after stressful events and don't develop PTSD, while domesticated animals that suppress this response do suffer from post-traumatic stress — pointing to tremoring as a built-in self-regulation mechanism.
"As far as we know, every mammal species tremors. And through several books that I've been reading, actually mammals in the wild tremor very regularly, and they don't suffer from post-traumatic stress."
Step-by-step TRE technique using butterfly position
Berceli walks through the core TRE exercise — lying on your back, feet together with knees open in butterfly position, lifting the pelvis for one to two minutes, then slowly closing the knees an inch at a time until involuntary tremoring activates and moves through the body's tension patterns.
"All they have to do is lay down on their back, put the bottoms of their feet together and let their knees fall open, sort of like the butterfly or the frog position in yoga."
TRE is a lifelong practice like healthy eating
Berceli explains that TRE should be maintained for life — just five minutes once or twice a week keeps the mechanism active so the body can immediately respond with tremoring when future stress or trauma occurs.
"You have to do it for the rest of your life. It's no different than saying eating a healthy diet. Do it for the rest of your life."
How unfinished stress responses get trapped in the body
Christa explains the physiological mechanism behind stored trauma — when the fight-or-flight response doesn't complete its full cycle, energy gets trapped in the body and manifests as chronic tension, insomnia, digestive issues, and unexplained pain.
"And when we start to experience stress in our lives and we don't allow for that stress experience to complete its full cycle, it gets sort of stuck."
TRE as a backdoor to processing trauma without talking
Christa describes TRE as a "backdoor" approach that lets the body process trauma without requiring conscious awareness or verbal processing of what happened — particularly valuable for pre-verbal trauma, complex ongoing trauma, and people who are talked out in therapy.
"just do these exercises and get to tremoring. It was kind of like, like the gateway I needed when I didn't want to maybe revisit something that felt traumatic. I was like, well, maybe if we just do this body thing, then that will, I think because I'm a person who avoids negative emotions, right? So this felt like kind of like a backdoor way to kind of like approach them and maybe release them without having to kind of like face them head on. Does that make sense?"
Why kids naturally shake off stress and adults train it out
Christa explains that children innately know how to complete stress responses through shaking and big physical movements, but adults systematically condition this out of them by telling them to sit still, stop crying, and control their bodies.
"The thing is about this shaking response is that little kids can do it on their own. And you may have seen a child after a big cry or a big emotional experience."
Window of tolerance and self-regulation with TRE
Christa explains how TRE helps widen the window of tolerance over time, allowing practitioners to handle more stress before tipping into hyper-arousal or hypo-arousal states — essentially building resilience through regular practice.
"It's helping to, over time, restore that window of tolerance and actually help to widen it so that you can handle more stress before tipping over."
What TRE is and how David Berceli created it
Diane explains TRE as a series of simple exercises that reconnect people with their body's natural neurogenic tremoring mechanism, created by Dr. David Berceli after experiencing PTSD symptoms following time in war-torn Beirut. She uses the classic antelope-lion example to show how all mammals shake off stress.
"This is a simple technique, a series of really super simple exercises that help you reconnect with your body's natural way to release and integrate stressful and even traumatic events from the body, from the nervous system."
TRE activates the psoas and vagus nerve for parasympathetic dominance
Diane describes how TRE tremors typically initiate from the psoas muscles, activating the vagus nerve system and building vagal tone — shifting the body from sympathetic fight-or-flight into parasympathetic calm, enabling curiosity, joy, and groundedness.
"And this tremor or vibration quite often will initiate from those psoas muscles. And it also goes into activating what's called the vagus nerve system."
Tremor envy — when controlled bodies struggle to let go
Diane shares her experience of "tremor envy" during TRE training with David Berceli — as a Pilates instructor with strong core control, she couldn't tremor at first, similar to a jockey in the group. This shows that highly controlled bodies may need more time and practice to release.
"We were having what's called in the TRE world tremor envy. We were like so jealous. Like, I want to do that. Why can't my body do it?"
How Berceli discovered TRE in war zones
Berceli describes how living through repeated bombings and shootings forced him to notice the natural tremoring response from a new perspective — that the body shakes not from weakness but to discharge an excited energy charge and restore the nervous system to baseline.
"And every time either before or after something would happen, a shooting, a bombing, something like that, many people in the community would start to shake and tremble."
Who to Follow
Founder:
- David Berceli, PhD - Developer of TRE, international trauma specialist
Related somatic researchers:
- Peter Levine, PhD - Somatic Experiencing founder, author of "Waking the Tiger"
- Bessel van der Kolk, MD - Trauma researcher, "The Body Keeps the Score"
- Stephen Porges, PhD - Polyvagal Theory developer
- Pat Ogden, PhD - Sensorimotor Psychotherapy founder
Practitioners:
- Over 40 certified TRE providers worldwide
- Growing use in military and first responder communities
- Adopted by some yoga and somatic therapy practitioners
Synergies & Conflicts
Pairs well with:
- Yoga - TRE can follow yoga practice
- Mindfulness Meditation - Body awareness enhances both
- Sauna - Heat relaxation + tremoring
- Self-Myofascial Release - Complement for tension release
- NSDR - Deep relaxation after TRE
Somatic stack:
- Light movement or yoga (10-15 min)
- TRE exercises (15-20 min)
- Rest in stillness (5-10 min)
- Optional: NSDR or meditation
For chronic tension:
- Morning: Mobility work
- Evening: TRE 2-3x per week
- Regular: Foam rolling and stretching
- Weekly: Sauna or massage
Complements:
- Vagus Nerve Stimulation - Both target autonomic regulation
- Box Breathing - Use before TRE to settle
- HRV Training - Track autonomic improvements
For trauma processing:
- Consider pairing with therapy (somatic or traditional)
- TRE can support but not replace professional trauma treatment
- Go slowly, prioritize stability
What People Say
Why it's gaining attention:
Common positive reports:
Common concerns:
Organizational adoption: