The Tremors:

This blog post is a part of a series of posts where I present and translate to English excerpts from various media articles about TRE that have been published in Norway and other Scandinavian countries.

Article in DN magazine 2012, Dagens Næringsliv

The founder of TRE, David Berceli was in Norway several times over a three-year period and helped start the Norwegian TRE community. Several articles were written about TRE in connection with this. I present a series of blogs about some of these articles.

On April 14th. 2012, DN Magazine published an article about TRE, followed by an article about a TRE course led by the movement therapist and dance teacher Cathrine Scharff Thommessen.

TRE was developed by the American environmental worker and trauma therapist David Berceli after a stay in the war-torn countries in the Middle East. Here he observed how people reacted under strong fear, and observed how people shook and trembled, including when they were in bomb shelters. Instead of assuming that the tremor represents something negative and that it is but a symptom of stress, it was his observation that the tremor loosens emotional tensions and dampens the powerful activation that is triggered in the body in connection with frightening experiences.

“Trembling is nature’s way of reacting after the body has responded to fear. Imagine an antelope being frightened by a lion. It runs and runs. When it is safe, it stops running. What does it do then? It will now often stand and tremble,” says Cathrine Scharff Thommessen to DN Magazine.

“Berceli observed how people moved when they were frightened”, says Thommessen, “When the bombs fell, they curled up. It is the body’s spontaneous response when you get scared.”

One of the participants in the quake course – a doctor, anthropologist, and professor of social medicine, geriatrics, and general medicine at UiO, Ida Hydle says to DN Magazine, “TRE is a method that is well-founded and documented”. She believes that “Exercise provides better sleep and stress management,” and adds, “today we have methods to study the dynamic interaction between muscles, peripheral nerves and the brain. We can observe the brain’s way of handling impulses and how the impulses go to the brain. Our nervous system is built in such a way that more signals go from the body to the brain than the opposite (the brain to the body). Therefore, there is an opportunity to influence the human brain through our bodies.”

Thommessen emphasizes that most participants can practice this method at home, and that it is safe. But pregnant women, those who have epilepsy or live with mental illnesses should use the method only with professional guidance.

The article presents different participants – A business consultant who wants to use TRE to learn to destress during a stressful workday, as a kind of alternative to meditation. An actor who uses TRE in his work, as he teaches at the Norwegian Actor Institute in voice use and theatre subjects. “Students use it as a part of the warm-up to be present. They are prepared and connected, and find the sound in their body”.

Hydle herself uses TRE for training and in everyday life. “After four or five miles on skis or bicycles, I lie down on the floor and tremble. It prevents soreness. After both physical and mental stress, TRE makes me calmer in my body, calmer in my head and calmer in my thinking, I feel balanced and healthy and tired.”

You can read the whole article from DN magazine here.

Are you interested in learning more about TRE? Please read more about our TRE instructor training here.