Can I learn to shake my stress away?

I try Tension & Trauma Releasing Exercise to see if it does what it says on the tin

Photo by Dominik Jirovský on Unsplash

This is not the first time I've heard it's possible to shake our stress away. Last year, in an illuminating conversation with a psychotherapist about how we can better manage feeling frustrated she told me about an unusual technique she swore by. The technique? Shaking your arms in the air while stamping your feet. She was adamant it’s a good way to release anger and agitation. I found it mad that something we all did so instinctively as children, and were trained out of, could be key to helping us handle our adult stresses.

The shaking technique reared its head again when I was midway through my training to be a holistic massage therapist. Our tutor was demonstrating how to start a treatment by holding the client in place with one hand while using the other hand to nudge their arms and legs with some force, until their body took on a rhythmic rocking motion of its own. She explained it’s a way of encouraging the muscles to relax. It switches on your body's rest and digest mode, which is when we feel that kind of dream-like relaxation. It was only when I experienced the pre-treatment shake for the first time as a client, I felt its effectiveness as it jolted my mind out of ruminating over the day’s stresses and into relaxation mode.

So it feels as if, over the last couple of years, there’s been a trail of breadcrumbs that have led me to trying ‘shaking meditation,’ ‘trembling therapy,’ or as it’s formally known ‘Tension & Trauma Releasing Exercises’ (TRE®). It’s a series of exercises that activate a natural reflex of shakes and vibrations in your body. The idea is that those shakes encourage your body to release tension and calm your nervous system which, for most of us living busy modern lives, is on high alert.

When I chat to Sylvia, the certified Tension & Trauma Releasing Exercise Provider who has invited me to my first session, she tells me that the mention of trauma in the exercise programme’s name had initially thrown her off it. “I couldn’t quite bring myself to engage with it because ‘trauma’ was in the name. Trauma? Not me! My stiff upper lip got the better of me,” she says.

I’d had the same thought process myself. Tension, yes, that’s something I'm holding, like most of my fellow white-collar workers who stare at screens all day. I feel it in my neck, shoulders and - as a massage therapist confirmed for me during a treatment last week - my jaw, too.

Trauma, though, really isn’t a word I'd have used to describe my emotional wellbeing. But I’m arranging my session with Sylvia at the same time as I’m reading Dr Meg Arroll's Tiny Traumas. Her book asks you to draw your attention away from significant negative events - 'Big T Traumas' as she calls them - that have occurred in your life. Instead, she asks you to hone in on smaller negative experiences -  'Tiny T Traumas’ - that might be having a bigger impact on your emotional wellbeing than you realise.

"Imagine your life is a boat," writes Dr Meg. "You're sailing along year after year. Over time, your boat knocks against some rocks, there's a heavy storm and fish nibble at the bottom of the hull. Each of these small bits of wear and tear on their own aren't a problem, especially if you are aware of the damage and have tools to repair it. However, sailing is busy work and sometimes you don't notice a leak, particularly if you've been bobbing around in the wind and rain. Usually, it's only when you start to have problems - for instance, you start losing momentum without knowing why - that you begin to realise you might be in trouble. This, in a nutshell, is Tiny T Trauma."

These last few years have been full of seismic changes for all of us. I, for one, noticed that the uncertainty during, and following, the pandemic meant I was more agitated by small things. I also moved house and changed jobs in the last six months of 2022 and perhaps these bigger changes - to my work and home life - distracted me from dealing some of the smaller things that I might have otherwise been more aware of. Maybe, because we had to, we all became a little numb to these smaller 'psychological scrapes' as Dr Meg describes them. I’m hoping this TRE session might help me deal with the smaller frustrations in my life in healthier way.

It's a gloomy winter day when I meet Sylvia on Zoom for my first session, yoga mat, blanket and cushions at the ready. I’m all ears, eager to hear about a new tool that could make for a calmer year. Sylvia explains that to start with, I must tire out my muscles with some simple exercises. That part, at least, feels pleasingly familiar and eases me into the session. At her instruction, I dutifully stand against the wall in a squat, then partake in some thorough stretching.

Now it’s time to get in situ, ready for the shake or ‘tremor’ as Sylvia describes it. She directs me to lie flat on my back with my feet sole-to-sole in a butterfly position, tipping my knees out to the side. Holding that position, I lift my knees an inch towards the centre and feel the first flutter of the involuntary tremor. Sylvia had pre-warned me that some people find the tremoring a little overwhelming, like they’re out of control of their own body. The longer I stay in position, the stronger the tremor gets but to the naked eye, it's really just a little tremble.

After a minute of tremoring, Sylvia suggests I stop. One minute is plenty for your first time, she explains. Then, just like a yoga class, it concludes with some relaxing breathwork. It was a soothing session and I close the Zoom meeting feeling a lot more balanced than when I had entered it.

I ask Sylvia about what brings people to TRE and how it helps them. She tells me that for most, it’s the combination of mind-body benefits. “We’re holding tension in our muscles and through the tremoring process that’s released so it should feel better. Tremoring can also reach tension in areas of our muscles that massage therapists can’t. At the same time, we’re also resetting and rebooting our nervous system. So, people who are highly stressed find TRE brings them relief, it lowers the baseline of their stress levels over time.”

I’ll need a few more sessions before I say for certain if it’s had the desired effect on my stress levels. But I leave with a much-needed reminder of how important it is to deal with the little frustrations in life when they arise, and the tools that are there to help us. A little shake in some form – whether it’s shaking your hands out in the work loos or a subtle foot tap at your desk – is a good way to catch frustrations as they arise and recalibrate in a short space of time. It’s also slightly more socially acceptable than shaking your arms in the air and stamping your feet.