06/01/2026
The hardest thing about learning to activate the neurogenic tremors (TRE) is learning to go slow — and that less is more.
"We go slow because your body is wise. The tremors are working through layers — the deepest alarm systems first, then the emotions, and only when those feel safe does the body allow itself to reach what is truly ready to heal. Rushing that process would just re-activate the alarm."
Let me explain.
According to Dr. David Berceli's framework, the tremors are evoked by brainstem reaction, and TRE works through multiple pathways, including the limbic system. The tremor mechanism helps to re-initiate inhibited or frozen pulsation — when the body is confronted by a threat, its pulsation reduces, and if the threat is severe enough, a freeze or dissociation response occurs.
The psoas muscle, located at the base of the spine, is responsible for putting the body into a self-protective position during fight, flight, or freeze. Whenever a person experiences something traumatic or perceived as a threat, the psoas constricts and locks in the tension in the body. Once the tension energy is contracted into the body, it stays there.
Dr. Peter Levine (Waking the Tiger) notes that the shaking and trembling have to do with the resetting of the autonomic nervous system. He found through interviewing people who work with capturing and releasing animals that the animals that didn't go through this kind of shaking and trembling when captured were less likely to survive when released into the wild, suggesting tremoring is how the physiological autonomic nervous system resets itself.
Levine's work explains how shaking, trembling, and instinctive movements are essential embodied responses that can help release trauma safely and effectively, and describes the biological map of flight, fight, freeze, and collapse, and how to break free from paralyzing experiences of fear and trauma.
Levine describes titration as approaching traumatic material one little bit at a time, not all at once. He borrows the term from chemistry, comparing it to mixing an acid and a base: put them together and there can be an explosion, but take it one drop at a time and there is a little fizzle, until eventually the system neutralizes. The end result is not toxic substances but the basic building blocks of life.
The need to go slow is clear because if the shock and affect pathways are still actively firing, they are consuming the system's resources and acting as a barrier. Trying to go faster, deeper, or longer in TRE when those layers are still dysregulated is like trying to have a meaningful conversation with someone while an alarm is going off in the room. The nervous system cannot access the healing layer while it is still in defense mode.
Going slow in TRE is essentially giving the brainstem and limbic layers enough time, space, and witness, self-awareness, the presence of a practitioner, and practiced self-regulation, to feel that they have been seen and are no longer needed as protection. And sometimes, that witness cannot come from within alone. Co-regulation, the experience of having another regulated nervous system present, is not a luxury or a sign of dependency. It is a biological need, especially in the early stages of this work, when the nervous system is still learning that safety is real and available. Polyvagal Theory helps us understand why: our nervous systems are designed to read the social environment for cues of safety and threat. The calm, grounded presence of another person, a practitioner, a group, a trusted peer literally signals to the subcortical brain that the alarm can be lowered. We regulate each other before we can regulate ourselves. This is why I have found, both personally and in my work with others, that I will go deeper and release more when I am supported by another person or a group. Something becomes possible in that held space that is harder to access alone. TRE is taught as a self-help process, and that is one of its great strengths, but working with a trained provider or within a group setting can be an invaluable, and sometimes essential, part of the journey, particularly in the beginning. The goal over time is to internalize that felt sense of safety enough that the body can access it independently. But we often need to borrow it from others first..
What I have witnessed over and over again, in myself and in the people I work with, is that when those protective patterns begin to release, usually somewhere around the six to eight week mark, something quietly remarkable happens. It is almost like watching someone wake up. They begin to remember who they are. They reconnect with what they love. They feel closer to the people around them. The guardedness softens, and in its place comes a kind of ease and presence that was always there underneath, just waiting.
This is precisely what Dr. Stephen Porges' Polyvagal Theory illuminates. Porges mapped the hierarchy of the autonomic nervous system and showed that we are neurologically wired for connection but only when the nervous system feels safe enough to access what he calls the ventral vagal state. When we are living in chronic stress, trauma, or threat, even when that threat is long past, the nervous system remains locked in the lower defensive states: the sympathetic fight-or-flight response, or the dorsal vagal shutdown of freeze and collapse. In these states, connection feels unsafe or simply out of reach. We may go through the motions of relationship, work, and daily life while feeling oddly distant from it all, as if there is glass between us and everything we love. TRE, by gently and repeatedly signaling safety to the nervous system through the body's own innate tremor response, helps shift that baseline. Over time, the window of tolerance widens, the defensive states become less sticky, and the ventral vagal state, the place of warmth, curiosity, playfulness, and genuine connection, becomes more accessible. Not as a performance, but as a felt experience.
It is important to be honest, though: for some people, this unfolding takes much longer than six to eight weeks. For those carrying complex trauma- trauma that began early in life, was prolonged, relational, or occurred before there were words for it, the nervous system has often been in a state of defense for so long that it has come to feel like home. The body does not easily give up what it believes has kept it alive. For these individuals, the process may be measured in months or even years, with progress that is subtle, non-linear, and sometimes only visible in hindsight. A moment of unexpected laughter. Sleeping through the night. Noticing that a conversation felt easy when it once would have felt dangerous. These are not small things. They are the nervous system slowly, carefully learning that it is allowed to rest. That kind of healing deserves patience, skilled support, and deep respect, not comparison to anyone else's timeline.
People are drawn to TRE because of physical pain, anxiety, chronic fatigue, trauma, and burnout, among other things, but what they walk away with is a deeper understanding of themselves, their bodies, their nervous system, and the brain-body connection. Yes, they learn and understand that this is not a quick fix, and for some it takes longer than others. Not to compare their process to others, but to keep turning towards their body, their process, to listen and be with their bodies in the process. They learn how to create a safe space for the body to release old tension patterns, and in doing so, allow themselves to truly rest, heal, and restore. But underneath all of it, what people carry with them is something they may not have expected: hope.
Sources include works by Peter Levine, David Berceli, and others
Written with help of AI.
