Frequently Asked Questions

TRE® stands for Tension, Stress & Trauma Releasing Exercises designed by David Berceli. These are 7 exercises which stretch and tire out the muscles, activating a natural therapeutic tremor reflex in the body.

The neurogenic tremors help reset the reflexes and habits in the Central Nervous System (CNS).

• In tension & trauma, old primitive reflex parts of the brain are stuck in defence strategies. Over-protective reflexes contract our bodies for “fight or flight” or shutdown the body in “freeze”
• Old reflexes, old parts of the brain can get stuck and it changes our body
• TRE is a safe and easy way of releasing long-held tension patterns and waking up the body, taking the body from contraction to expansion
• Over time people report feeling more alive, joyful, confident, safe and connected to their body through the simple process of shaking

Events from the past can affect us, including really old things from birth, TRE can help us let go of these old events, which can be healed & transformed, waking up the parts of our body that are hidden and unavailable.

Essentially, we are reconnecting you to your body through your tremoring. It’s not talk therapy – what’s nice for us, is that we don’t have to talk about things. I’m a big fan of psychotherapy which can be really useful at the right time, but TRE is something extra.

TRE acts as a system reboot, regulating Cortisol & Adrenalin (the go quick hormones) which can cause a multitude of symptoms including: anger, anxiety, sadness & panic attacks, back ache, Sciatica, Infertility, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Inflammation, Insomnia, High blood pressure, Heart disease etc.

Our experience in the TRE community is that TRE is an effective anti stress tool and many people report benefits of improved sleep. We have also seen that tremoring improves other symptoms:

• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Restless Leg Syndrome
• Premenstrual Syndrome
• Perimenopause

The great thing about TRE is that these are self regulating exercises, so you can do them from the comfort of your own home whenever you want to

Initially though, I will guide and support you to make sense of things that can arise during the transformational process. I will teach you:

• Simple grounding techniques to help keep you fully embodied, present and safe
• Bringing you back into your body, in the event you day dream off, feel floaty, feel very sad, become hyper alert, or very hot or cold.

When you’re first starting out, we recommend having 2 sessions per week.

• In our experience, if we work more intensely at the beginning, you’ll need to work much less in the long term
  For the best results, these classes should be no more than 2 weeks apart
• Because like therapy, you tend to lose the cumulative effect if we have long pauses in-between
• Your continuous development will give you new skills, which will be more embedded and habitual.

Happy shaking!

TRE® is simple and powerful

For many people, even with a complex trauma history, not talking, just shaking, coming into their body, working on their own, or in anonymity of a group, is life changing.

These limits can also be hard for some people; who may benefit from finding a community, social justice measures, appropriate medication, ongoing one-to-one talking therapeutic support. In these cases TRE works best as part of a package of care.

No 2 clients are the same, all have different histories, experiences and physiology. No one knows how to treat trauma successfully for all clients and we do not claim TRE is cure for all people. Nothing works all the time for everybody, this is the same for any intervention. Treating trauma is complex and evidence is unclear

TRE has some good research and theory, with lots of anecdotal evidence and passionate advocates. Our experience in the TRE community is that TRE is an effective anti stress tool and many people report benefits of improved sleep. We have also seen that tremoring improves other symptoms:

• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Restless Leg Syndrome
• 9 out of 10 women report an improvement in Premenstrual Syndrome
• Perimenopause

Current trends in western medicine of working with trauma are based on:

• Finding better medications to dampen down body responses (e.g. beta blockers and anti-psychotics etc)
• CBT as the gold standard therapeutic intervention (e.g. NICE UK ). The evidence base for CBT is mixed at best
• Most trauma theorists are focused on some form of graded exposure to intense sensations and teaching emotional regulation
• The better ones appreciate emotions emerge from the body.

There is excellent theory and very good developing evidence about changing primitive reflexes.

• Using shaking to prevent getting stuck in protective reflexes is the core of the TRE model. There are a number of exciting modalities trying to find the best ways of down-regulating over protective reflexes via embodiment (e.g. EMDR, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction MBSR, body based psychotherapy approaches and other ‘trauma informed’ embodiment approaches).
• The goal is changing the body in the first instance; not starting with the mind and focusing on cognitive understanding and tools.

Some of the talking treatments used for trauma, do not come out very well in some long term studies. (For example brief intervention therapies , talking treatments and research on talking treatments post 9-11 in USA was not supportive).

A great metaphor for how TRE works is ‘waking your body up’.

• We don’t just shake to release, we also shake to connect
• Shaking safely generates new feelings of connection, helping us find sensations that are inherently anti-dissociative.

The programs I offer are simple and powerful.  They include a number of different modalities including TRE, Yoga, Qigong, Breathwork, Pilates and much more.  

They are informative and will give you lots of information about

• Sleep
• Premenstrual Tension
• Perimenopause & Menopause
• Fitness
• Stress
• Hormones
• Your nervous system
• And much more…

However their are limits to the programs, because no 2 people are the same.  Everyone has different histories, experiences and physiology and because of this, there is no guarantee that they will work for everyone.  

These programs are aimed at people who are not suffering with Trauma, active Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or Premenstrual Dysphoric disorder. If you are suffering with any of these, then I recommend Tailor-made One-on-One Sessions instead.

For the best results:

• Please don’t miss sessions unless you are ill and therefore unable to
• Going on holiday is not a reason for missing a session, because the programs are online and can be practiced anywhere
• You need to be consistent, because like therapy, you tend to lose the cumulative effort if we have long pauses in-between
• You need to complete the programs, to experience the journey and notice the changes in your system.
• Your continuous development will give you new skills, which will be more embedded and habitual

• TRE® has not been evaluated by the US Food & Drug Administration or the American Medical Association or NICE in the UK.
• This technology is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
• Medical advice must only be obtained from a physician or qualified health practitioner.
• Results may vary between individuals.
• There are no guarantees, expressed, or implied.

Whilst the program “The Power of Sleep” can help you sleep better, it offers no guarantees in terms of reducing your need to urinate.<br>

The Power of Sleep program targets the Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis, help resetting your survival response and calming you, which tends to have a positive effect on sleep.<br>

When Oestrogen decreases this can make you need the toilet more often.<br>

Waking in the middle of the night to urinate can be a sign of other underlying health issues, that need to be explored with a medical physician, as it can be a symptom of Diabetes.  So please do get the necessary tests to rule out any underlying illnesses.<br>

I also give tips that will help you sleep through the night, including not drinking diuretics close to bed time etc.

Stress has a powerful effect on our menstrual cycle, often making it irregular, because our brain thinks it’s not safe for us to reproduce. <br>

I have had a client who thought she was Menopausal because her bleed had stopped entirely, only to have her period come back once she left the relationship she was in, which was toxic. <br>

There are however many reasons for your period becoming irregular and Perimenopause is one of them. So please do go to the Medical physician and get the appropriate tests done, to rule out any underlying illnesses.<br>

The TRE community has seen that 9 out of 10 clients’ Premenstrual Tension improve.<br>

The TRE community has also said that TRE can increase fertility, if the infertility was due to stress.  There are many other reasons for infertility, so again please get the appropriate tests done by a medical physician <br>

My programs and classes are not for everyone

Whilst the plan is aimed to help most people, I advise anyone who has serious body/mind issues to first seek medical help (doctors or psychotherapists).

I would specifically hold off from doing this plan if you have any of the below conditions which are contraindications in David Berceli’s TRE training manual.

Physical limitations

• Irregular blood pressure (high or low)
• Irregular heart conditions (surgery, pacemakers, arrhythmia)
• Physical limitations (broken bones, strains, sprains, chronic aches)
• Operations
• Hypo or hyperglycemia (medications)
• Pregnancy
• Epilepsy

Psychiatric conditions (with medication)

• Manic/depressive
• Bi-polar conditions
• Schizophrenia
• Severe depression
• Psychosis
• Borderline personality disorder

Absolutely – you can stop the tremoring whenever you want to, and I will teach you how to do this.

The Graduate classes are for people who are experienced shakers, who understand grounding and how to self regulate

• I advise a minimum of 12 individual shakes before being eligible to take part in these classes
• In the classes I can help you progress the shakes into different areas of your body
• I will also focus on a range of topics

This can often be a sign of doing too much too soon. Sometimes the sensations in our body can feel more intense It’s important to do some grounding.

If it’s been more than 48 hours since your last shake and you feel worse, with an intensity of more than 6 out of 10, it’s advisable to do a mini shake, taking it very slowly, which will help reset this.

For the mini shake, do this in stages – it really is about going slow and honouring your body. Even a minute can result in change. Set a timer for

• 1 minute
• 2 minutes
• 3 minutes
• 4 minutes
• 5 minutes and integrate once the timer goes off.

If anything feels as though it is going too quick, or you feel as though you are dreamy and floaty and ungrounded, stop tremoring. Put the brakes on by letting you legs go flat and flexing your feet.

It’s worth booking in for a Guide Supervision with Allegra who can help you down-regulate and ground you.

• Every other day is a strong practice in which you will notice deep change in your system
• It’s important to leave a day of integration between each session
• Ideally shakes should be between 15 to 20 minutes
• Experiment with the times of day you shake
• Make sure you keep a diary where you record your sleep, dreams, emotions etc. because this will help you get to know your triggers externally and internally

No – you will get to a point where you don’t need to, because your body will shake without. However, I find it’s great to still do a couple of the exercises, because I feel more grounded and connected to my body and I tend to get more out of the tremor sessions when I do