Trauma expert Steve Haines has set out to change the way we deal with stress and trauma with the use of TRE, which focuses around setting up natural tremor mechanisms inside the body to create new neural pathways inside the brain that enhance the mind-body connection, lowers anxiety and reduces pain. The most fundamental question your brain is concerned with is ‘Am I Safe Right Now?’ If no, controlled shaking can help our brains understand it does not always have to predict the worst case scenario and helps create a safe and fear-free mind.

TRE is a ‘self-regulation’ tool and an active self-exploration method.  It’s basically you healing you. The goal of TRE is to set up a natural shaking mechanism inside the body by using a simple set of seven exercises.  People often feel it’s a form of ‘shaking meditation’.

During the sessions people are taught how to switch on tremors, how to pay attention to the feelings generated and also how to stop the tremors. TRE aims to safely allow the tremors to generate new feelings inside you and switch off over-active threat detection systems. Shaking releases tight muscles and wakes up our connection to ourselves.  Think of it as a reboot to the nervous system where the involuntary shaking acts as a burst of good news from the shaking muscles straight to the central nervous system. Each time someone shakes a series of different feelings are triggered.

When our stress response is engaged, the protective reflexes can stay in place, for minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years and, tragically, decades.  So how do we switch off trauma? With skill, practice and the right context we can reset the primitive parts of the brain to work from the present moment. Shaking, skilful bodywork, learning to feel, and learning to move again can help create a sense of safety. Feel better by shaking it off in 2019.