A number of participants took part in tension, stress and trauma relief exercise training in North Battleford last weekend.
TRE (tension, stress and trauma relief exercise) Global Certification training took place from Friday to Sunday at the Tropical Inn.
The training was conducted by Joan McDonald, an RSW and TRE certification trainer for Canada, Thailand and Nepal.
“Tension trauma relief exercises are a series of six exercises that one does to stress the particular set of muscles in the body that activate within the body a natural mechanism that’s called the tremor mechanism that we all have, that we’re designed to use to release stress and trauma from our bodies,” said McDonald.
That mechanism is in all mammals, she said. But humans “have really shut that mechanism down.”
What she means is “it’s probably not socially acceptable to go around shaking and tremoring, so we have the ability to override that mechanism in our bodies,” she said.
However, occasionally, most people have “had an experience where they’ve been shaking, maybe because they were excited or had an accident or were afraid.”
But that is actually a mechanism to release the buildup of tension and stress, she said.
The exercises that were learned over the weekend were designed to activate that tremor mechanism in the body.
“If you develop a practise of about three times a week, shaking for about 15 minutes, then it helps release that stress that we live with over time, and helps to turn off the biochemistry related to stress,” she said.
When TRE is put into regular practice, people find they sleep better, McDonald said. As well, it cuts down on the emotional reactivity from stress, such as irritability, panic or loss of concentration.
“All those are signs of stress so when you do TRE on a regular practise, those symptoms and signs start to dissipate,” said McDonald.
The result, she says, is people who feel healthier and better through their life.
The people who would benefit from this is “anybody,” said McDonald, running the continuum from people who suffer post-traumatic stress disorder to people who simply have stress in their everyday lives.
“All of us can benefit from this as a way of regulating our nervous system and being calmer and more relaxed,” said McDonald. As well, there is interest in the practice from people who work professionally in areas such as psychology, massage therapists, chiropractors or physical therapists.
As well, anyone can learn the process, but some can integrate it into their own various backgrounds, said McDonald.
Those who were in attendance included people there for their own personal use of the training, while others were there to learn how to teach it to others, said McDonald.
This is the first session of the training. There is another session back in North Battleford in the fall.
