E02 - The Wellness Toolbox: A Journalist Explores Neurogenic Tremoring

This week, Alex sits down with Daniel Seifert, a journalist whose work has appeared in the BBC, New York Times, and National Geographic. Daniel shares how he stumbled upon neurogenic tremoring through YouTube videos while looking for ways to manage deadline stress. What started as curious exploration quickly became a regular practice that helped him sleep better, release jaw tension, and feel more at ease in his body. His story is a reminder that our bodies already know how to heal—sometimes we just need to rediscover the natural mechanisms that are built right in!

Daniel's experience goes beyond just physical relief—he noticed how tremoring seemed to "dissolve the hyphen between mind and body," making him more receptive to music and even improving his posture. He compares the tremoring response to laughter: both are natural, sometimes uncontrollable movements that bring deep release and relief. Alex adds fascinating context about how Dr. David Berceli developed this approach after observing natural tremoring responses in war zones, recognizing that what many see as just "shaking with fear" might actually be the body's innate wisdom trying to complete the stress cycle.

The conversation flows into how tremoring complements other wellness practices that Daniel enjoys, from Tai Chi to breathwork to sauna and cold plunging. Alex shares stories of how this simple practice is spreading through fire departments, religious communities, and meditation centers—creating powerful results when paired with other modalities. Whether you're new to body-based practices or a seasoned wellness enthusiast, this warm conversation offers a friendly introduction to how inviting your body's natural tremors might become a game-changer in your healing toolkit.

Key Highlights: 
0:00 - Introduction to Daniel's story
4:12 - Discovering tremoring on YouTube
8:30 - "What happened during my first tremoring session"
13:45 - When tremoring leads to spontaneous laughter
18:23 - How Tai Chi complements neurogenic tremoring
22:50 - Enhanced music appreciation after tremoring
27:15 - The posture benefits Daniel experienced
33:40 - "Your body knows how to heal"
39:10 - Invitation vs resistance in the body
42:30 - Tips for tremoring beginners
48:15 - Breathwork and tremoring: perfect partners
52:40 - The Feldenkrais connection
56:20 - Surprising insights about athletic bodies and tremoring
59:45 - How firefighters are using tremoring
1:03:12 - Meditation becomes deeper after tremoring

Links & Resources
Shaking Medicine: https://www.amazon.com/Shaking-Medicine-Healing-Ecstatic-Movement/dp/1594771499 
Wilhelm Reich: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Wilhelm-Reich 
Alexander Lowen: https://www.lowenfoundation.org/about-alexander-lowen 
Institute for Zen Leadership: https://zenleader.global/ 

Find us Online: 
Neurogenic Integration: https://neurogenic-integration.com/ 
Instagram: @neurogenicintegration

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Neurogenic Integration Podcast, where we explore the incredible potential of neurogenic tremoring beyond the basics. I'm Alex Green.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

And I am Sebia Sun Shields. Together, we'll be diving into how this natural innate process can be seen and applied across different professions, healing modalities, and in scientific research.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Whether you're a practitioner, a coach, a therapist, a body worker, or a researcher, this podcast is for you.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Join us as we uncover the science, share experiences, and explore how neurogenic integration is revolutionizing the way we approach stress, trauma, and well-being.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

So take a breath, get comfortable, and let's dive in. We're gonna have a conversation about TRE, tension and trauma releasing exercises, and neurogenic tremoring in general. And uh Daniel is a uh writer and editor with over 15 years of experience uh writing stories for major global publications, including the BBC, the New York Times, National Geographic, and Time magazine and others. And uh Dan and I connected uh by email. This is our first time uh connecting for a conversation, but uh he shared with me just a little bit of some uh interesting experiences he had when he began uh practicing neurogenic tremoring, and I said, wow, I'd be interested in hearing a little bit more, and so that was enough to get uh Dan on the on the line for a conversation. So in any case, Dan, thanks so much for joining today.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Yeah, thanks for having me. Well, I'm joining selfishly as well. Um you know, uh love to tell my story, but as a as a journalist, I'm here also to kind of pick your brains, and I'm I'm so curious about this um this new modality that I've found. So yeah, it's gonna be a good two-way conversation.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Yeah, that's perfect. Yeah, that's what we we we've agreed ahead of time that yeah, I get to interview Dan, but he's usually in the interviewing chair, so he said uh, you know, he wants to he wants to ask some questions too. And I said, Yeah, perfect. Let's do that. We'll have a a bit of a back and forth. Well, Dan, why don't you start by just sharing a little bit about maybe even just uh if you want to include some uh biographical detail, that's that's fine, but just tell us a little bit about you and then leading into uh how TRE, this this uh shaking tremoring practice came on your radar.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Sure. I mean I think a lot of people come to these things um, you know, because of their lifestyle, their work. No matter what uh industry you're working in, you know, we all face time crunches and challenges. So I think most people nowadays, we are looking, and and this is the one good thing I think with a lot of algorithms, um, is that you know, YouTube and all these channels, they then start to seed these things. You do a quick Google search on like, is this a good de-stressing technique? Um, and then very random things start to come up. So um, yeah, you know, working uh where there's there's always a deadline, and I've uh worked a lot in in agencies as well. Um, you know, these are you're always looking for a way where you can kind of center yourself, um, you know, calm the stresses physically and mentally. Um, and obviously you hope that's going to be a silver bullet. Um, and you know, TRE, I think we're gonna come, um, something that I had never heard of, so it feels a little bit like that. Um, I only discovered it um, you know, in the past year or so. Um, but I think that was it. Uh it popped up randomly um as a YouTube video. Um I clicked, you know, you click one and then you click a couple others, you get really interested. Um, and then obviously you try it. And I think the the good thing with it is it's you know, there's no sensei required. Um, all of these are there people just in their um backroom. Um the effect is obviously dramatic, but I it was really fascinating how all that technically is needed, at least physically, is just to kind of find the position um where you invite the tremors. And you know, I've worked a lot in branding as well. I think the branding of inviting tremors is such a fascinating way to immediately reframe how we think about stress, how we think about um what we think is bad. Um, tremors always something we are taught, especially in many society. Connotation, sure. Bad connotation, so to invite tremors. So the short story is that you know, I actually within uh a couple of tries, I was able to actually do it quite quickly. Um, and just the effects were amazing uh in terms of you know, jaw jaw um tightness was kind of gone, you know, I slept amazingly that night. That's the short answer. The the long answer um is that I think things come to you um when you're ready a little bit, um, and not to get too too kind of hippie about it. But um I think if I had just been your average stress person who had never tried any other thing in the wellness space, right? And something like this had popped up, I would have dismissed it as just seeming like a strange fad. Um so I think I've had a long journey of kind of experiencing um modalities that are actually quite simple but incredibly effective. Um so the first thing I can uh remember is um getting into acupressure, um Chinese acupressure points. Um I live in some core where um you'll see reflexology parlors, which are um kind of places that that rub your feet, and the thinking um in Chinese culture is that if this is your foot, um the different portions, you know, if you rub here, this actually will affect your um bowel system. If you rub here, it will you know affect your your neck.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Um so my I don't think rubbing is the right word, Dan, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Yes, it is it can be uh certainly the first time it is um intense. Um but even actually a little bit of pressure I find is is enough to kind of change things. Um so I've I've experienced those since growing up because my mom kind of would take me along when she went um as an ex-pat brat, you know, moving around Asia. We you you find these places everywhere, uh they are again incredibly effective. You know, you go in jet-lagged and with a bit of a hangover and a headache, um, and through that intervention, which again seems completely um irrational that you know something so localized could affect the whole body. Sure. Um and then that kind of leads you, you kind of know it's always there, and then one day I I uh just a few years ago I had a headache, um, so I kind of googled acupressure points for headache. Um, and this, I mean, if listeners take away anything, I think this is so incredibly useful. I tell everyone, and as in so many cases, people kind of don't really do it, but if you have a headache, this little webby part of your hand here, you massage that. Um, when you have a headache, you can feel the knots within there. Yeah, um, you massage each one of those quite hard for about 30 seconds each, um, then actually most of the time like the the headache will be 80% gone. Um, and again, you know that in in this time of so many claims of clickbait, um it's so easy to feel that these things are um just kind of not true and just you know for for the clicks. Um but again, these are interventions that they don't cost anything. So I kind of the reason I think I'm so willing to try something like TRE is just you know, if it's a low-cost intervention, um why not try? You know, my body is far from a temple, but I think you can see it a little bit as a as an experimentation lab. Um, of you know, what are techniques that in a time when everyone is is suffering from stress and anxiety, you know, difficulty sleeping overwork, what works for you? Um so um yeah, uh the accupressure was was on one of those. Another thing that I think just kind of helped because with TRE I think you need to be sort of physically open as well as mentally, which we can talk about later. But um helping reopen that kind of mental openness was um another phenomenon which has kind of been simmering for years and has gained fire only about 10 years ago. But um, since I was a child, I experienced what was not yet then known as ASMR, which is the optiminous sensory meridian response, which is a very scientific name that was only made up by someone, a non-scientist, I believe, um, about 10-15 years ago, for something that I think people have experienced for ages, and they just would call it, you know, the tingles. And what it is is this very interesting response to often audio, um, but sometimes just personal attention, um, you know, your your parent kind of stroking your neck as a child when you go to sleep. And it's this incredibly intense sensation of tingles, um, you know, and even some people call it a kind of uh head orgasm, um, which again it's not a sexual thing at all, it's just a um all-over body feeling of very calming tingles that um I think it's almost like whether you can roll your tongue or not. Some people experience it, right? Do not, it's something like maybe one in five do. Um, and it did not have a name until about 10-15 years ago. And now, if you look on YouTube, it is everywhere. It's a global phenomenon, brands have jumped on it, um, you know, the the ASM artists, as they are called, um, they you know, see millions of hits and subscribers. Um, and again, this this was just something where uh you kind of have to be receptive to these things a little bit, I think. Um, and if you are, then it just shows what your body is kind of capable of. I had no idea that this was something that can help. And similarly to TRE, I think after a session of ASMR, which you are for most people, you are then able to kind of turn it on or off, or you know, yes, I'm I need to experience some tingles now.

SPEAKER_03 10:31

Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

It kind of has that same effect of just kind of calming and centering and um you know that allowing you to sleep better, and you know they've done studies on it now, it lowers your blood blood pressure and all that jazz. So these were stepping stepping stones, I think, that allowed me to kind of be ready as a as a kind of you know, I'm I'm very into science and what works, and is this actually a claim that works? So um to then come to TRE is something that is such a dramatic in terms of its look, um, modality, um, and just be ready for as a consumer, as a practitioner, as you know, an interested party. Um so that's that's a very long story.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Yeah, yeah, no, that's wonderful. That's wonderful. What do you remember about your first uh TRE session? It said that you it sounded like within a couple of tries following a YouTube video you were able to uh uh stimulate the neurogenic tremor reflex successfully. Um but what do you yeah, what what how would you do what yeah, what do you remember about that?

SPEAKER_01 11:38

Yeah, so funnily enough, I uh journal off and on and I looked at my uh my old ones um to see if I could find anything. Um so this is um my entry from Thursday, 20th of February 2024. So I can I can ping the date, which is nice. Nice. Um wait, sorry, nope, um hold fire. That is the when I said did TRE again today. Um okay, Wednesday, 19th February. Um tried TRE brackets, trauma tension release exercises, where you basically exhaust the muscles till they shake uncontrollably, and it works. Exclamation mark. Good to know. Of course, afterwards I was exhausted. Um a week after, uh, did TRE again today, and man, is it dramatic and effective? Um, whole body quivers and judders about like you're having a fit, um, and then interesting side modality. Uh, that plus Tai Chi, which I had just kind of started exploring.

SPEAKER_03 12:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

Interesting week for body awareness, um, had a real sense, a real meditative sense of presence and calm after the TRE. Should it be a daily thing? Question mark. Um, so it's interesting to kind of look back on on all of that. I think so that's that was kind of my um fairly unpoetic way of just you know my instant response. Um, in terms of what I remember from the experience, I think it was fascinating how it kind of made me think of um laughter a little bit, um, just as a physical response that is kind of controllable and not controllable and very similar, all over fakes, and you kind of you need to really give yourself to that experience, and you know, because if an alien came to Earth and saw someone laughing, you would think there's a horrible thing. This this this corpus is losing control of what's happening. Right, right. Um and an interesting connection actually, which I then read about a few days later, was um, these were the first couple sessions. I think by the third-fourth, I had an experience where I finished my TRE, um, was sitting on the couch, and then I guess it was kind of still still going, the neurogenic response. Sure. And I started to kind of breathe very deeply, um, and not in an unpleasant way at all. And and again, it's that mental state of okay, this is interesting, I'm gonna observe this, what's what's happening? Um, and I started to just kind of laugh. Um, and I I guess it was kind of that the body just kind of releasing that extra burst um of tension. Yeah, so really fascinating, and just kind of viewing something that I had never heard of. Uh, and I think when you've never heard of something and it has such a dramatic response, you kind of you're almost angry at the world. Like, why have I never heard of this? Why why is this not being taught in school?

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Right. Right. Yeah, super interesting. Um okay, I'm gonna stay on my line of I I have thoughts, but I'm gonna I'm gonna pursue my line of questioning here. So um, yeah, remind me to come back out. I want to talk about the laughing. Uh there's a few things I'm bookmarking in my in my mind here. But so, okay, so you were kind of, you know, you were definitely having a response, you were curious as what I'm hearing. Um, and then what? You stuck with it, or you know, it became something intermittent, or or yeah, what what you know you had you had written the question, can I do this every day? Like what what happened, what happened to that?

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Um it I think it very quickly became um not daily, um, but certainly multiple times a week, um, and interesting to kind of see when I'm completely you know, very relaxed week, uh I'm on holiday or whatever, um it kind of is it's almost like the body is saying, yeah, okay, great, but it's you don't really need it. And then when I'm super stressed, um, I'm under deadline, I have a tough meeting coming up or something, um, I found the the quality of the tremors is even more intense. Um and um I think the first few sessions um weirdly were were longer. Um they were 10-15 minutes. Now actually I find that um they don't last for more than five minutes. Um I guess this would be the first of my journalistic questions for you is is um in terms of the responses that you see um when you're when you're teaching, um is there a correlation um for the most part on average between um you know the amount of stress that is kind of built up in a in a person's system and needs to be released, if there is a lot of it that tend to be um kind of more intensive shakes? Is there a correlation there?

SPEAKER_00 16:27

Yeah, it's a really good question. Um and there's yeah, there's some nuance here, but but uh on average, yes. So if if somebody who's in well, uh either there's a buildup of stress, which also might have a correlate to muscular tension, sort of having a baseline of you know chronic muscle tension. When we're in a more uh when there is uh that condition or or and it's when somebody's stressed, one way to look at it is they're running it a little bit more into their sympathetic or fight or flight nervous system. So yes, when when that is when there's more stress physiology taking place, then on average the tremoring is gonna be uh faster, more dynamic, having b having bigger movements potentially, or just a sense of more uh action. Uh oftentimes, like what you know, you're saying on a vacation, uh, maybe I don't need it, I'm on vacation or it's a rest day. And but if you did, if you were to do it on a vacation and you were in a less stressed physiology, my guess is you could definitely still tremor, maybe even quite uh uh successfully and interestingly. Um but uh there's a good chance it would have a softer quality, um, that it would, you know, not you would not be quite as high energy. And and also if you take somebody who begins because they're using it for stress or uh uh sort of attention uh release purposes, and then they stay with it with some consistency over time. But on average what you're gonna be seeing is is what was originally like pretty, you know, kind of full movements, maybe even a lot of heat coming from the body. Um we would tend uh you you would expect to see sort of a mellowing, a softening um over time as somebody as somebody's sort of nervous system set point sort of shifted into a less uh baseline stress physiology. Yeah, interesting. So yeah. Yeah, okay, cool. Well, so um okay, so so so i this was it was about it was February of 2024, you found it, you started using it a little bit, and is it like you know, so now it's a little more than a year later. Is it kind of the same? It's like it's sort of you'll it's an as-need practice. It's like when you can sort of feel it, you know, you're under you're under deadline, you're under stress, you can kind of tell when it would feel good to do. Is that is that how you use it now?

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Yeah, totally. Um and I talked a little bit about kind of just having almost a a toolbox. Um things, and I think it's so useful to have not just one thing to rely on, um, because then if you only have a hammer, every you know, every task needs to have it. Everything's a nail. Yeah. Everything's in the L. Um, so it's been interesting. Uh looking back on my journals, it was interesting to see that I kind of immediately said that it's interesting to pair it with Tai Chi. Um Tai Chi, because again, there's a lot to learn there. That one was something that I kind of did a few YouTube videos. I haven't done any classes yet, and I really should.

SPEAKER_03 19:32

Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Um, so I think I started then and then kind of let that go. Recently, just in the past month, I've I've actually started doing Tai Chi every day, touch wood. Um, you know, let's talk again in a month if I continue the streak. Um, and it's interesting to um sometimes pair those things in the morning, um, but also just mentally to kind of again just kind of sit and have the time and examine and say, well, what are these things doing for me? Um and for me, TRE is uh, these might be blunt metaphors, but it's what springs to mind. TRE is the kind of um burst of flame, you know, very external, and and and literally that's what my hands will do. Um the this movement almost just like clear, clear out. Yeah, type T is um, and obviously that's you know that's kind of fast, and these are the movements, right? So it's kind of almost uh similar to that flame again, it's very kind of um frenetic. Right. Although internally, obviously, again, and this is what's so fascinating about TRE is that the body is absolutely like this, but inside you're you know, you're just observing and it's great, and I I find that kind of so fascinating about the um about kind of how it presents itself. Whereas Tai Chi, um, if TRE is that kind of outward speed, TRE is that kind of, and these are words that people use all the time, right? So, you know, gentle, flowing, internal, meditative, sure. Um and the feeling um after um tai chi then is this kind of sense. I mean, and again, it's used all the time. People always say, you know, I feel centered, I feel calm. Um after TRE, I feel um spent is probably not the right word, but it's kind of almost you know, when you come back from a run and you just kind of feel like, you know, it's that um that sigh of you know, things have been released. Um so those are those are two things. And then, you know, again, just other things to talk about in terms of life lifestyle interventions that really help me. Um I'm I'm Swedish, so I've um over the relationship with my my wife um over the years, I have pulled her into the uh orbit of sawnness.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Um I was I was hoping that's what you were about to say. Yeah, good.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

Where where was that sentence gonna end? Um uh sawn as in cold cold plunge. Sure. Um, and she has now kind of said this is absolutely amazing. Again, it's it's such a kind A simple, you know, to you wouldn't even call it a technique, but again, just kind of allowing the muscles to relax from the heat and then just the endorphin hit to the nervous system of that coldness. So that's a regular intervention as well. I mentioned the acupressure things like uh box breathing, um, which I don't know if if uh you've heard of, so it's uh again, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Um breathing in and then a retention and then exhale and a retention, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

Um, you know, so using that's the the short list of things I would say, using those kind of as and when, sometimes pairing one with the other, um, you know, obviously I think making sure that you're not relying on one too much. Um and just kind of having that peace of mind that when life hands you lemons, um you can um make TRE lemonade. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

Nice. Um in the in the email that you wrote, you shared a few things that you felt you attributed to your your your TRE experience once you had gotten started. I think you mentioned you kind of had you'd made that connection to ASMR and that sensitivity. And I think you even commented that in some ways that intensified um following TRE. And then a couple of the other things you mentioned uh if memory serves were let's see, um something about uh being a bit more sensitive to music. So I'd I'd like to hear what that was. Standing up taller, that's one we hear quite a bit. So I want to I want to hear that version for you. Um I don't know what else, I'm not sure what else you might have shared, but yeah, but in terms of yeah, that sensitivity piece, whether that was around ASMR or to music, yeah, what tell us share a little bit about what you noticed with that.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Yeah, I mean I think that was um fairly short-lived, and and I guess um be interesting to learn from you whether everyone kind of has their own honeymoon period where um you know, similarly to after you go to the car or you have a massage after something, you kind of I I do feel like the sensory input from the world, everyone is gonna have something where they're it's almost something they've been ignoring because they've been so stressful and inward-looking or something like that. But yeah, music was um was one of them, um, and just kind of uh weirdly, you know, connecting emotionally to songs that I had kind of not really cared about before. There's always that track that you skip in your in your favorite um album, and then suddenly um it was quite dramatic because songs that you just really don't like, and then suddenly you're hearing it the day or an hour after uh your second TRE session, and it's like wow. And whether that, I don't know, is just kind of the endorphins of the joy of discovering something new, and you know that this is going to be something really useful for you, you're in a better frame of mind. Um, and you know, that that kind of um monkey mind is has been silenced a little bit, and you're just a bit more kind of intuitive and able to connect with the kind of the senses of the world. Um, I would imagine it's probably um very deeply tied then to the fact that I was standing stronger and just this simple thing of you know, the diagram, the diaphragm now has more air. Um my spine isn't kind of like creaking like an year old. So again, it's just interesting how these dots suddenly get connected, you know, these things that should be happening and how your kind of daily life could be. TRE, I guess, is kind of that thread that knits them together, um, at least at least for me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Yeah. Super cool. Well, and on that theme of sort of standing taller, I think you're onto something with that, just even postural. I mean, what are the sort of the um The way we teach it in TRE is that um part of what we believe TRE is doing is it's un it's uh it's undoing our stress physiology, which sort of has a a neural a neurohormonal neurological component to it, but posturally it does too. So when we are in stress physi and you know everybody knows that most people know that when they're stressed their shoulders get more tight, maybe they're maybe they notice that their jaw gets more tight. But very rarely is uh is uh is the muscle changes uh gonna be as local as just that. So so a more uh a more complete um summary of what gets involved in when we're in in more of a chronic uh fight or flight state or stress physiology in general, is that very typically we're gonna control we're gonna move into a more anterior posture. Um and so very often that's the diaphragm tightening, lower down, it's this it's the deep core, the psoas muscles uh creating the tightening. And and even before I did this work when my when my work was uh as a structural integration bodywork therapist where we did a lot of work deep in the pelvis and the core and this and that. And I would always make the comment, we all know our shoulders get tightened, but if your shoulders are tight, you're so almost for sure your psoas is responding to stress in that same way too, and your diaphragm and all of these things. So our explanation is that when we are um we believe that the neurogenic tremor process is, in a sense, the completion phase of stress physiology. It's it's the it's the inborn biological mechanism that that is intended to uh transition from I've been activated because due to some sort of stress, that threat detection is no longer there. Now there is a biological pathway towards undoing protective or or uh physiological responses, including that muscle muscle uh uh tone. So kind of we can lengthen the psoas, we can release the diaphragm, like happened with your you know, when you when you made the comment about laughing, laughing and crying are so common experiences with TRE, sometimes during the tremoring, sometimes coming afterwards where things are kind of rip rippling through. Um but yeah, all of those go along with um sort of returning us to an up a more upright state. And as you made the comment, when we are in a when we're when we're more upright, um just even neurohormonally, we are there's a change. We tend to be a little bit more upbeat. There's sort of mood shifts that are associated with posture. So it are these things all really link together in interesting ways.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

You talked a bit then about those kind of the kind of internal uh you know, pelvic diaphragm. Um and I'm gonna ask a cheeky question because it will hopefully help my practice and charge me for the mini lesson after.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

I will, I will.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

Um yeah, because I think in terms of and again, it's it's useful, it's interesting how you you find this practice and it just helps you pay more attention to your body around where the stress is. And I think for me a lot of it is in this solar plexus diaphragm area, which um, you know, for me, I find that certainly, you know, for the limbs, the hips, these kind of, I guess almost kind of broad battlefields you might call them, um, are very easy because they're they're so flexible. Um what is what is your sense of how those tremors can kind of be invited just more into the into the core, into the diaphragm, these things that don't necessarily kind of shift as much.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

So it's they don't move as easily, they're not like limbs that move as much. Yeah, very common. So um uh uh lots of different strategies, but I'll tell you my favorite um, or at least the initial versions I would go to. To me, a lot of it is with your own br the use of your own breath and oftentimes the use of your own touch. So the way that I would facilitate probably is sort of getting the the tremoring process going, and I would invite you to literally just rest your hands on the pl any place where you feel that your breathing has any restriction. And we can't just immediately shift uh where our breath has a constriction. But uh even touch alone tends to, in a sense, bring more of the sort of awareness of an area. So already you m even laying hands on different parts of your body itself is likely to have an a j an influence on how the tremoring is is moving through you. And but then in terms of inviting breath, so so I like having hands sort of as a reference because now you can breathe into it. And I I I use an image sometimes with my clients. I say, okay, imagine your you know your hands are resting gently on your sometimes it's the chest where it needs this, sometimes it's the solar plexus, sometimes it's the lower abdomen. This the same idea could be used anywhere where there's not as much um freedom of expansion to the breath, is laying the hands there and then using your in-breath to gently uh to literally feel that you're raising your hands towards the ceiling. And the analogy I sometimes use is the tide coming in and the the boat is being lifted by the rising tide. And then on the exhalation, releasing in a way that you can literally feel your hand, not pushing or anything like that. And and and oftentimes working in cycles of three. So maybe you would or two, three, something like that. So if if you were laying down tremoring right now and you're noticing that, yeah, I got a lot of movement, but I can just sense that this area could be more open. That's where I would start. I would have you rest your hands there, see what changes happen, even just from that, and then start to work with little cycles, not like ten minutes or anything, just two or three breaths where you're really inviting as much expansion and then release, and then letting it go, letting the body reorganize in a sense it's like, how did you take that in? And then repeating that a few times. Um that would be sort of my uh number one approach. There's other things too, like you could uh physically you could um potentially do like a little bit of rotation. That might uh like if you kind of did a self-hug and then let your spine roll a little bit left and right, that might sort of start to work your rib cage and thus your diaphragm. Um we could get fancy, you could take a rolled up towel and put it underneath your your back uh manually, creating a little bit of an arch that might support sort of something opening up. So it would depend upon the particulars, but those are some of the things that we might play with to see if we could uh but working with the intention of breath, in some ways uh I get the best results from that.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Yeah, interesting. Um, when you when you're in this kind of space, I think of discovering a new um, you know, it's it's cheesy to say something that literally broadens your horizons. It's interesting how the connections happen because you said um, you know, think of think of kind of the boat boat rising.

SPEAKER_03 32:48

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

Um and interestingly for another project recently, and slightly for myself as well, I kind of created a uh sort of an acronym for myself just to kind of always return to when I am hyper stressed five minutes before a meeting or something, and that acronym is boat. Um so B for box breathing, O for um observing mindfully, A for um asking yourself, um, okay, I'm stressed about this meeting. Um I had a meeting three months ago, very similar to this. Am I still stressed about that? No. And it's just that that ability to mentally reframe. So, and then T, interestingly, in this case, is not TRE, but um top three tasks. You know, this just prioritizing this is the action points that I need. Um so yeah, it's just funny when you you start to kind of now that vote also for me, just as a reminder, can be okay, that's that's how I should be treating my breath for the particular thing. Um it's just any way I think you find that you can kind of use these mnemonics.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

Um kind of little little cues, yeah. That's so cool. Um awesome. Well, let's, yeah, maybe we could weave in some like there's things I've been reflecting on as I've heard you're sharing. Maybe I'll comment on one of those, but then why don't we yeah, why don't we do a little back and forth? Maybe there's some of your questions that you wanna wanna bring in. Um the one one comment I that I as you were sharing, um I'm gonna refresh my own memory here. Um Yeah, no, it was about the sort of the the the reframe or this you you you mentioned kind of the branding language of inviting tremors. And I I think that's there is something really important there because I I I think that was actually probably what I think of as um Dr. Braselli's uh sort of key insight was that he was in these really stressful situations, kind of he was sort of working in war zones and things like that, and he was seeing a lot of people b respond to stress like mortar shelling and and things like that. And he himself was subject to it. And he almost developed, I I'm not gonna quite use the tr the word dark humor, but he is a little bit funny the way he talks about it because he'll say, you know, here we you know, you get so used to being in a bomb shelter and the bombs are going, you know, sh uh shelling is going off. And he said he started to kind of observe how people would go into their um uh sort of protective response and it was sort of and it became almost a little bit funny to him that like, you know, whether they were Muslim or Jewish or old or young or what language they spoke, it w the it was if you were watching that it was as though this was a rehearsed, you know, everybody was on the you know, in perfect timing doing the same movement. And um and then as he noticed, you know, kids wouldn't tremor more easily, sometimes adults would, sometimes he would, he would try to stop it. And and I think the big uh sort of shift he started to make was what if um you know what if what if this isn't just a side effect of fear, which is the way it's commonly looked at societally, uh you know, um, you know, shaking with fear uh as sort of a concept, or what if this isn't or even if you when as he started to get become more curious and he looked at the medical research, almost all references in medical or psychological literature to tremoring, they're never about the therapeutic fact or the uh a a term I've learned since bisective. Um they're always about a they're always linked to a path pathology. Sometimes it's neurodegenerative, like with Parkinson's disease, um, sometimes it's connected to general anxiety, things like that. But so I think his big shift was, hey, maybe, maybe the um sure there is a there is a negative context here, there's scary things going on, but maybe the shaking itself uh isn't just a random side effect, maybe there's something positive there. And then to me the next step of that is what if you invite, using your word, what if you invite this response not in a scary context, not because a bomb just went off, not because, you know, but but actually in relative calm or safety. Um then what if you invite it, then then what happens? Um and very often it's a very positive uh downshift, down regulation, opening up musculoskeletally, sometimes opening up psychoemotionally in these ways that you've d you've referenced a little bit for yourself. So that that shift of from tremor as pathology to uh something to be to be solicited, uh I think is a really important one.

SPEAKER_01 37:41

Yeah, I was listening to a podcast, um, I think it was just yesterday, um, around uh Tai Chi and its kind of effects. And um sadly I can't remember the exact speaker, but he had a really powerful phrase um where for him um and you know he studied it, he practiced it, um, and for him he framed it, Tai Chi, as um dissolving the hyphen between uh mind-body, which I think is a fascinating way to look at it. And it applies to so many things, he's already one of them, um, where that word invite is doing so much work for us to see something uh that we are taught from childhood and in every Hollywood movie. If you tremble, you're a wimp. If you're trembling, it's uh something to be gotten rid of and you know, go to a doctor, get a shot, uh whatever. Um so reframing that into something that and maybe that's why my first session made me think of laughter. So laughter is exactly the same. We are trembling uncontrollably, and we absolutely welcome that. Um so yeah, I mean, you know, the word invite, the word reframe, they're they're so powerful if you can kind of um understand what is what is happening. Uh yeah. Yeah, yeah, very cool. One question I had um then um how kind of Dr. Briselli started to to develop this. Um and you know, as a journalist, I'm always interested in the in the kind of story, both how a particular modality is created, but also just like what is the is there a larger cultural context here? And I was trying to find other you know um ancient histories, um shamanic rites, uh you know, uh Eastern kind of thinking where kind of um people throughout the past have maybe understood that trembling can be a good thing and can then actually have kind of health benefits. I haven't found anything yet, but I was curious to see whether that's been kind of as part of your deeper understanding.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

No, no, it's a it's a good question, and there and there definitely is a lot of there are a lot of historical examples and precedents, both both um indigenously East-West, um, and also to some extent through some other other more recent Western modalities. So um, and I I'm not an expert on the on the indigenous side of it. Um there's there's a book called Shaking Medicine that goes into that history a bit. I'm forgetting the guy's name, it's like Brad Keaney or something like that, who has done a little bit of an anthropological look at um uh tremoring as as a component of indigenous practices. Um there's also a a friend and colleague of mine is a physical therapist who um in uh uh east coast of the United States, and he he and a team did a cool uh article uh for uh bodywork literature, uh I forget the journal exactly, but he uh his field of manual therapy, and this is where I got this term bicep, which is that which which is uh but their paper was basically saying, look, spontaneous movement and tremoring comes up a lot. Um it comes up in various modalities, it comes up in bodywork therapies, it comes it it there's historical examples like uh they reference a few like uh Kalahari Bush tribe where shaking as an ecstatic practice is common. Um I believe there's a Qigong lineage, or probably multiple actually, where where made so voluntary shaking voluntary shaking is definitely part of of uh qigong, but then I think there are some where there's an involuntary uh component as well. Um the shaker tradition in the United States, sort of a derivative of Quaker, um, that this was a religious practice where literally they had uh shaking as a component of it. So these are sort of more on the religious or indigenous side. Um so there are so the anyway, my colleague Joel, they there's some I'm thinking there's there's there they have good references for that in that paper, uh, which I'll send to you. Um but but then on the Western side of things, the Wilhelm Reich uh is sort of considered the founder, grandfather of sort of Western body psychotherapy. He kind of developed this concept of body armor and he kind of had his own theories around sort of an energy medicine perspective, uh uh referring to body energy as orgone and and kind of had some therapeutic techniques. And then a a a successor of his, Alexander Lohan, uh developed something called bioenergetics. And in bioenergetics, uh tremoring is a component of that. And somewhere along Dr. Burselli's journey, he got curious. I think after he was observing all of this, and then seeing that that was a part of uh this body psychotherapy program. So he trained and certified that new Alexander Lowen. Alexander Lohan was sort of very supportive of the direction that uh Dr. Berselli was taking things. And then in a few other Western um trauma modalities, like one that I'm trained in, for example, is somatic experiencing, uh, and there's some related or like an EMDR, these are sort of modern trauma uh therapies. And tremoring will often show up organically, not not stimulated intentionally the way that we do in TRE, but as a um uh as a component as somebody goes through the a processing around a trauma from a body based approach, very often tremoring happens. Uh and that's also very much true in the body work world and the acupuncture world, whereas any body worker acupuncturist who's worked on a lot of people, this was this was I won't go into it right now, but that's my own origin story. That's how I got curious about it. Is I I it happened to me, and then I started saying. Seeing it in other people so often in a bodywork setting. What the heck is this shaking that happens that they can stop it, but if they let it go, it actually sort of blossoms into a kind of a releasing experience. So um So I think the short answer is yes. I I don't think Dr. Bricelli definitely didn't invent something new. I mean, the idea is if this is a if this is sort of part of our evolutionary biology that we share with all mammals, it would stand to reason that um that this would not be the only way that that this is being uh accessed. But why is it not more known? Why is it still sort of um why is it um yeah, so sort of so niche? Uh not sure. Um I'm I'm curious about that.

SPEAKER_01 44:47

Yeah, and it's it's fascinating. I mean, you know, coming from uh kind of marketing background, it's interesting, these things, you know, what it takes for them to catch light or not. Um sometimes it's it's really just in the ether. Um, you know, I mentioned ASMR, and it's similar to what you just said, you know, this kind of tingling sensation has no doubt been around for as long as as human civilization has been around. Right. And I remember growing up, you know, asking friends about this um in the in the 90s, you know, this, you know, what what are you even talking about? Um and like, yes, I have it too, but I mean it doesn't have a like what is huh? What is this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um you know, all of us and I would uh in university just before it even got a term, then it started to catch light because I was searching for it, and then people would say, like, you know, tingling video, whisper video. Um, but it took that that branding, I think, um for it to catch light. And it's you know, I'm now asking the same questions of TRE a little bit. It has the branding. Um I'm fascinated about how it's being used by um you know to treat refugees in the military. Sure. Um but yeah, it's not there yet. It hasn't become the new um ice plunge.

SPEAKER_00 46:03

New cold plunging, yeah. I you you had asked before we got on the before we hit record, you know, that you that you know, maybe you would bring this up. And um I I don't know for sure either, you know, when when is something but when is something going to uh explode or or sort of into the sort of popular consciousness or zeitgeist, but I I my intuition is that is that we're moving in that direction. I and I don't know if it will be at the same level that we see um uh cold plunging and this and that. But the the example that I commonly use is breath work, in that ten years ago, if you had done a Google search for breath work class, breath work training, breath work certification, there'd be may that's probably at the very beginning of when Wim Hof was um and his breath work was becoming well known. But n um but there would not be a lot. There would there would only be a little bit. And then, you know, around 2020, 2021, uh James Nestor's book came out, Breathe, and then uh suddenly people became much more interested in in in a and a lot of this always goes into athletics, and I I I actually think TRE might really take off in athletic circles.

SPEAKER_03 47:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:18

Um but no, so like with breathwork, you know, and and I think there's been a major proliferation of it. Uh and um you know, and breathwork was certainly popular in yoga classes and pranayama, but again, it just sort of really exploded um in the last ten years and even especially the last five years. I have this hunch that tremoring is gonna is going to be similar. I'm not certain that it's gonna be exclusively in the sort of the TRE domain. I you know, I sort of watch the space through um uh social media, Instagram, things like that. And there are other treming tremoring modalities that seem to have been that uh there's there's a person, uh Keith Motz, I think is his name, he has a community um uh of tremoring practice. They approach it a little bit differently, but with a lot of overlap. So I have this hunch that uh like right now, if you look up, if you did a YouTube search around why is my body shaking and tremoring, you're gonna find YouTube videos probably about TRE. I have this feeling that maybe in five or ten years there it will be more known and maybe a little bit more diversified across different sort of groups and modalities.

SPEAKER_01 48:38

Yeah, and sometimes it's the unfortunate thing that uh you kind of just need a critical mass of um of need. Um and we're already in the age of anxiety, but uh you know, read read only headline and things are are you know gonna get a lot more stressful and unpredictable for people around the world in in so many different ways. Um so just the search for a technique um is is certainly gonna go up and up. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 49:07

But I to me what I think will will be the success of Tremoring as an approach is the fact that it is the fact that it can to me it sort of has the ingredients of sort of spreading or virality, and not virality because just for the fun of it or for the marketing boost, but if it's effective, it has the right ingredients for spreading because it can be pretty easily taught and learned, just in the same way you found it on a YouTube video you showed your wife. Um so it it can sort of spread word of mouth that way. That has very much been a part of Dr. Briselli's hope around it was that you know he you know he's a clinical uh uh social worker. He could have he could have developed this and said, look, only uh psychotherapists can learn this because it's about trauma. But actually he went the opposite direction. I mean, there's a lot of psychotherapists who learn it, don't get me wrong, but he kind of went the opposite direction. He said, Look, about 90% of the world's population does not have access to to psychotherapy in the way that uh we typically would. The reason this was so effective when I was I'm paraphrasing David right now, the reason this was so effective effective when he was living in um uh Lebanon, South Sudan, these different places, was not because one-on-one he worked with people like a psychotherapist, but because he taught groups, he sometimes taught families, he sometimes taught uh groups that loved it and continued and sub and and did it on their own when he was gonna travel somewhere else. Um so it's it's it's those things that uh make it move. An example in my world right now is I've got a a cool opportunity uh this year where I'm I'm there's a a a group of um Catholic missionary uh sisters, nuns, who live in Ireland, but their their um their mission work is around the world, a lot of it is in Africa. And already they've been they've known about TRE for about 10 years, they use it here and there, but they finally decided, hey, listen, we as the sort of leadership team, let's let's get trained up, let's learn this, and then let's sort of systematically try to spread this through our our community. So I'm working with these six people to train them as uh facilitators within their context, and then now they're gonna start to propagate it through the different missionaries. And another example of that on that sort of spreading phenomenon is is with the New York Fire Department. So about 18 months ago, we had a cohort of about 10 people or so who learned who somebody had found it. He was a body worker, he said, This is cool. The the fitness unit in the fire department academy said, Yeah, let's learn that. We're into breath work, we're into other stuff. What's this? Dr. Perselli went out there, he did an initial training, they loved it, and then this this cohort of guys, especially through there's three or four who've ended up forming this little team, uh, they have now uh it's baked into the for the the new firemen recruits, they go through their 10-week training, they do TRE consistently, hundreds of them at a time. Um they're now traveling to fire departments around the United States because they're saying, look, you guys should be incorporating this. So that's an example. Look, we only had to train these few people and get them interested enough, and then now they are doing that spreading on their own. So to me, when I look at examples like that, I believe that um there's very much the likelihood, I think, that we're gonna see more of a spreading of this uh in the coming years.

SPEAKER_01 52:51

Yeah, and it uh it makes me think of um for some reason uh kind of what what happens culturally in the in the health world after World War I. Um you were mentioning a bit about you know PTSD, and then you know you watch these um now that I can kind of smooth the f the frame rate. Um I'm not sure why whether I was researching a story, but looking at videos from you know 1918 of shell-shot uh soldiers and the and the trembles that they had. Um and how essentially you know suddenly Western Europe was flooded with millions of men who kind of needed this help. And then I think from those modalities then you know then came um a complete change in restorative plastic surgery, you know, a completely new field was developed because it's needed. Um the Alexander technique um of kind of centering your body, I believe that came out of the you know the trenches of World War I as well. Interesting. I don't know that history, yeah. I I believe so, I mean I might be wrong, but yeah, certainly World War I is seen as this time where you know mass, um, a mass problem dictated the need for solutions. And again, you know, coming back to that slightly pessimistic worldview of you know conflict happening all over the world, um, you know, millions of civilians and soldiers and everyone in between are kind of going to need to uh discover these ways that can that can help themselves. Um but I think I mentioned World War I as well because it it kind of leads me to a question, and you talked about it a little bit, of um and certainly with shell shock, you know, the that uncontrollable trembling is such a key symptom. But what separates them? Because they are they're trembling, but they're not experiencing the um the kind of release and and relief. So is that again about this hyphen between body and mind? It's because the um the tremors, I guess, are seen as a symptom. So mentally it's the the kind of emotional and release that is needed, that positivity is not happening because of the mind cycle, or what's your your thinking on what's going on there?

SPEAKER_00 54:58

Yeah, my thinking in that example is that they um the tremors that they're displaying are very much the evidence that the body is seeking a is seeking a discharge, let's just use that word. Um and it's showing that through these movements and tremors. The the people they don't have the uh understanding or awareness. On the one hand, they certainly might be there the likelihood of trying to sort of suppress it because they're viewing it as a symptom rather than as uh the beginning of something that might be a resolution. So one of it is the me part of it would be the mental attitude. But two, it's just it's it's then the not um is uh what these soldiers would find if they were to s probably this would be best if they had support, because this a supporting person can create a lot of s safety and containment uh but could show them that actually if they follow that, if they stay curious, if they give permission to it, and if they instead of uh inhibiting it, it's likely to on the on the one hand increase and they might even they might even go into a little bit of a uh they might orient towards some of the the stress on the that they had experienced. They might even the they might go into memory associated to their shell shock, they might go into stress physiology of the in a sense their their nervous system orienting back to the conditions that initiated this, which isn't comfortable necessarily. But if that can be supported and stretched out. So one of the to me, one of the good news is about um uh trauma resolution in general and TRE specifically, is that uh the to me a good news is we don't have to do everything all at once. There's this principle of titration, this idea that we can break things into more digestible units of processing such that such that we can do it, it feels doable. Yeah, maybe there's some activation energy, but it's not overwhelming. In a sense, we can we can live to do another tremor, you know, rather than you know, do it once and it's so scary that we don't want to do it again. So when especially when we're using it for trauma, um our idea is to can we help the person uh first reframe it that it's the body trying to help them, to they don't have to do it all at once, and that if they're willing, if there's a little bit of a leap of faith involved that they can in a sense trust their body, uh that that that may well lead to not just the compulsive repetition of the tremoring, but a a more of a completion or a discharge, which is what we would be looking for.

SPEAKER_01 57:53

Yeah, interesting. So do you face when you um I guess either tell you know your social circle or people you meet what you do, or um maybe a new um kind of client comes in? How often is there kind of still this in-baked resistance, maybe like people are coming to you because they they they want the results, but there is this maybe sense of a mental lock of uh you know releasing control um and and kind of again that reframe the ability to invite to something that feels negative.

SPEAKER_00 58:29

Yeah, I'm I I it's a it's a good comment. I mean, I sort of have two categories of people. I have people who are who may have heard about it, and in fact they're coming in because they're coming to me because they've either tried it or they're or they they've heard about it, there's some curiosity. So those people are are going to be, you know, already on the receptive side of things. They've they've maybe bought into this idea that they're that there's a neurobiological process, there's a there's a um an analogy to the animal world where we see this kinds of um tremoring and discharge happening. So so those people are gonna be definitely more receptive. Um other people they don't they they I am educating them about that. But I I I don't know. I I my style as I say, um, you know, I by the way, TRE isn't the only tool that I use, so I usually am kind of explaining a little bit the the um the collection of of approaches that I use. And when I get to TRE, I say, well, this one's a little bit strange, but let me let me tell you about it. So I just sort of say that right out the bat. And I say what's strange about it is it's um it's a physical process, something that I am gonna actually show you how to do or guide you in. And what's weird about it is after we do sort of a relaxation, kind of a getting into the body breathing thing, I'm gonna take you through a sequence of movements, and the result of that is your body's gonna start to have a little bit of a a tremble or a tremor. And it's not the kind of you could stop it, it's not like you can't stop it once we get it started. In fact, I'm gonna show you that we can turn on this um what's called the neurogenic tremor reflex. I w to do my what I would do is I'd show you that we can activate this process and we can work with it and self-regulate it. And and then I ex- then I go into the psycho a little bit. Well what this what this tremor reflex is, is it's a it's an it's a process that our body uses to downshift out of stress physiology. And so I just kind of state that as a fact, because in my view it is a fact. And um I oftentimes, once in a while somebody says, you know, that doesn't sound like it's for me, but m most often not. Most people are s are curious and they want to give it a try, and then they do, and they realize that it's um interesting. And in my experiences for some people, right away it's sort of like, wow, this is like a big aha, and this was like the it's I could my like body wanted to do this. I didn't this was the thing I've been waiting for. I didn't even realize it. And and so sometimes it's like this like total eureka situation, um, which is always cool. That's very fun to facilitate when that's the situation. And other times it's not as dramatic as all of that, it's more of a curiosity, it's a novelty. You know, my my my goal with uh any first session is sort of like I want to get them curious enough and have it be not have anything negative happen such that they would be willing to try it again. Because in my view, like coming back to your wife, for example, um my goal always is like I don't care, the starting point, I don't care. Somebody can be skeptical, they can be all of those things are fine. In my experience, if you if if you can keep their buy-in for a couple of sessions, in in 99.9% of instances, you know, we can kind of lead somebody into connect in that, yes, they too have that neurogenic travel reflex, they can activate it, and it might be very interesting and meaningful for them. So yeah, that's a little bit how I frame it.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:07

Yeah. And um do you find that there are I talked a little about how I kind of pair it with with various things, are there um other modalities or just kind of in terms of uh a session um that you find are particularly useful to start or end um a TRE session, whether that's I mean, I don't know, meditating or going for a run, um, are there kind of you know couplings that that you find um really embed the feeling or you know change the way you feel throughout the day, even just on a personal basis, I guess?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:42

Definitely. Like that's that's actually like a big zone of inquiry for me right now is this sort of the sense of pairing, pairing or coupling. So yeah, let me answer this two ways. First, I'm gonna I'll I'll come back to the main question, but I'm gonna I'm gonna rewind the tape a little bit. So for me, when I first became curious about this, the the re the first reason was a personal one that a couple times when I had gone through uh Rolfing structural integration, the bodywork session, I had had big spontaneous uh shakes and releases that were sort of stimulated by the bodywork that I could tell were really significant for me. Um but nobody nobody could explain what they didn't have any language around the nervous system, so it was like a mystery experience. And so and then and then later that was my first therapeutic work was doing structural integration body work, and I would see the same thing. So initially my my sort of curiosity was sort of both personal and professional because I saw it it it it happening in those environments, and I thought it was so cool that instead of just waiting for the stars to align when like this type of thing would just happen in organically, that actually there's a methodology to cultivate it and to work with it. So that was kind of an original context. But then the next so I kind of did that, but in my sort of my sort of my professional work, it was like working with in the bodywork setting. But on the more uh personal side, uh I was very active in a um Zen meditation community. I I still am, but I was I was more active in sort of uh participating in retreats and helping with uh beginner meditation retreats and things like that. And so I started playing around with it in those settings. And even for me, like if I was doing a seven-day uh uh meditation intensive on the downtime or like at night before I would spend a lot of time tremoring. And my experience was that that a little bit helped me physically because uh spending time in in you know, spending a lot of time sitting in your body can kind of get stiff and achy. So that was probably my original inspiration. Um, but then I also started to feel that the tremoring actually supported my m my meditative process, that over the course of a week of of sitting, like I'm I'm using a retreat as an example, I found that tremoring often uh sort of led me down the pathway of sort of kind of quieting the outer world and also my sort of body rebelling against the sitting posture. I just found that it was kind of like an accelerator. And then with um and then with students, so we did this work for a while. This is part of an organization called the Institute for Zen Leadership, which was uh basically working with business leaders and then introducing breathing and Zen meditation was sort of a part of the curriculum by this um woman, Gin Ginny Whitelaw, in the United States. So I was kind of assisting in those things, and we would and so we would have these uh retreats where it was like three, four days, people would come in, very often there. This was their beginning uh meditation experience. It might be new for them. And uh on the first night, we would do a group TRE session, or maybe every night, or something like that. And and what we learned pretty quickly was that uh it it was like a really it it created a a shift very quickly that after that some that people would say like wow I now I'm like really here. I was sort of I was on my I was still part of me was still on the airplane or back at home with my family, but all right, now I'm really sort of here with you. Or people would say, you know, we kind of do a little circle of sharing or something. They'd say, you know, I I can't, you know, earlier I felt like sort of an individual, I didn't know all of you. Now I some even though I don't really know all of you that much better, I somehow feel like in connection where I'm I'm now part of this group. Little comments like that that sort of told us, okay, so that's interesting. Um and then uh in general we felt that it it in the three or four days of you know, this was sort of a new for them to be meditating, we felt that adding this in uh got people that you know that that mind-body connection sort of just picked it up much more quickly, and I don't know, it it worked really well. So that's sort of one example of a pairing. I think that I think that tremoring has a massive application in uh meditative communities. And we're seeing that sort of um vipassana communities are sometimes really so there's a handful of TRE people around the world who are, you know, kind of really exploring that particular angle. Um but these days what I'm so interested in is uh yeah, what what can support tremoring going deeper? Because in my experience, there's sort of a beginning phase of tremoring when it's new and your body's doing it, and that's great. But I've gotten interested in like, well, all right, you already know how to tremor. Like what is there any value in it? Is there any value in it beyond just okay, I'm stressed because I've got a deadline and now I'm less stressed? Is is there anything further than that potentially? And I believe that there is. And uh starting in the pandemic in in 2020, when that all happened, I st when my first instinct was there's not a lot I can do about this, but I can do online Zoom classes um and just invite anybody who wants to to tremor. So I I started a group, it was daily for most of into 2021. It was sort of just a morning group, and it was became a very international group of people who just not everybody came every day, but it was just sort of a daily tremor session. And I kept that going uh since then, but not not not every day. But now over time we had a lot of people who had tremored many, many times because they're there's years of consistent practice. So in the last uh twelve or eighteen months, what we have been doing is intentionally, um sometimes it's me, and then I've collaborated with other teachers, where we are we're in an hour's tremor class online where we're doing about 30 minutes of another practice and then pairing that with Thierry. So for one of my modalities is the Feldenkrais method, it's a movement-based approach, a little bit similar to Alexander technique. There's a sort of a shared lineage there. It's a very it's kind of a slow meditative movement practice. You could almost there'd be some analogies to sort of qigong or or Tai Chi, but coming from a very Western approach, um, I look at it as a very nuanced work that's about voluntary movement, and I look at TRE as a as a very nuanced approach that's about involuntary movement, and I find there to be a very interesting intersection. But so anyway, so that's what I do. And so um i i you know, and your comment here in your journal was I tired out all my muscles and then I tre to the point of exhaustion and then I then I shook. And many people that's how we begin tremoring is like sort of brute forcing our body, and then we get a big release. But what but what this isn't only me doing this, what we can often do as people are n are not beginners is we don't need all of that exhaustion or things like that. That actually working through the pathway of of of relaxation sometimes goes quite a bit deeper. So in in the sessions that I lead, first we do a lot of uh body scan awareness work, and then we start to explore breath work and movement. This takes us about 30 minutes or so, where in a sense we've really tuned in uh at and and already created a bit of a downshift because it's almost like we did a 30-minute move movement meditation. Now we go into our tremoring, and what most people experience is the the tremoring is different, it's more fluid, different movements come up, uh new new areas of tension that previously were not part of tremoring start to become included or to let go and release. So that's that's that exploration. Some of my colleagues are working with uh breath work. So sometimes my colleague uh in Norway, Sieve Yosong Shields, she'll do uh sometimes it's box breathing, sometimes it's other breath patterns, uh usually with music. That's sort of the lead-in process, and then and then transitioning into tremoring. Um we another uh colleague, Jenna Anderson, she works, she'll do qigong as a warm-up, and then so so we're doing quite a bit of that exploration. Um so I don't know, I part of it is because you know these people have been tremoring for a long time, and it would be in a sense boring to just sort of have the same experience. So what we're all a little bit seeking is what what else is there here? What what will sort of move the needle a little bit more? Um so that's that's kind of that ongoing project.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:06

Yeah, and I think it's I I totally get what you are saying in that TRA feels like such a um segment of something else. Um and maybe it's because I've kind of been uh interested in in Tai Chi and obviously in the Qi Gong, which are based on Taoism, that famous symbol of the of the yin yang. Um so I mean I think in terms of our modern day we know that pairing things can really help, but TR feels like a modality that has a lot of mirrors that can kind of help almost create the a full package that is, as you say, something deeper. And I think it's I mean, really fascinating that you were exploring such a powerful question of like how could we we kind of we know this works in people, but it's still uh you know, early days, I guess, about exploring the full horizons of um how it can be one segment of kind of uh multi- multimodalities, I suppose. Right. Yep, very much so.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:11

Yeah. So for your wife, so my my wish for your wife is that she would my curiosity for her is if she I mean, first of all, I do think that the you know some level of of m mental buy-in helps. Um I think there can I think there can be skepticism and very much to still still succeed. I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:35

Um Yeah, I don't think actually it's not skepticism because she's certainly seen me um kind of twitch around like a fish on the floor, and I've told her that it's absolutely amazing. Um so you know, she definitely wants to, she's tried a couple times. So I don't know, it it almost seems to be more um the willingness is there, but just the if if you are that personality type and so many people kind of self-label as type A.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:00

Type Are a control free or yeah, yeah, people self-identify in that way.

unknown 1:14:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:05

Weirdly, I feel like you never hear people self-identify as the opposite, um, the the kind of non-control free. Um so yeah, it's um yeah, it's for me, it seems like a kind of uh mental switch, and it's almost like kind of learning to whistle a little bit. Like if if it's one of those things where you see everyone doing it and you're trying and trying, it's just kind of hardly.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:31

I don't know your wife's your wife's specifically, but but for that type, um for me uh what often can be the shift is is approaching it more through a relaxation lens. Meaning that and so so so for example, before trying the the the more active movements like the bridge, the hip bridge or lifting up the knees prior to that, even spending a few minutes, uh even up to ten minutes of um uh conscious breathing or uh body scan meditation, anything that can kind of already downshift the nervous system a little bit as a precursor, to me that's a good that's a good it's more likely that they're gonna be more receptive to tremoring. So for for kind of one getting you know a good relaxation response initially, and then then being slow with the the the the main sequence where your knees are open, you lift, and then you bring the knees up. Um yeah, being being slow with it, um, which doesn't mean stretching it out inordinately, but but not being in a rush, not sort of having that mental hypervigilance of is something happening, is something happening, but a little bit kind of like letting go of um attachment to outcome. When when people are in the building up phase, I'll often try to almost like distract them a little bit, like do other movements like roll the head a little bit, take relaxing breathing, relaxing breaths, in a sense, take their mind off what's happening in their legs, some and then they might be more likely to start to get the quiver because they're not sort of hyper-vigilantly watching for it. Um these are little things that might add up to uh your wife sort of minding it a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:26

My hypothesis as well is I mean, she's super fit as um, you know, spin and tennis and running and yoga and everything in between. So my hypothesis is the reason I was able to do it so quickly is because I am uh you know a schlub with kind of weak, weak little chicken legs.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:44

So, you know, I do I do a stress position and they start to tremble in about 18 seconds, um, whereas she, you know, can squat and run for days, or she's like, Well, you know what's so funny, it's so funny because the the the there's this and that's very much the stereotype in the TRE world that if somebody is ultra fit, they might need it might be like trying to like work through a brick wall and you might need to super duper fatigue them. And the here's the weird thing that is definitely sometimes the case. But for for about two or three years, I worked with athletes at a very, very elite gym, and uh this was in Madison, Wisconsin when I was living there. And these were like people who were like, you know, just gotten out of the NHL pros and professional athletes, essentially. High levels of fitness, no question about it. And I was started to work with them, and I had the I was like, oh God, I'm gonna have to get them like squatting with weights, and I mean, how am I possibly gonna do this? And what was so interesting was that at least for the majority of them, mo I would say probably even two-thirds, um, they actually even doing the normal process, I actually my to my surprise, um these people actually on average were more sensitized, meaning that even would that they would start quivering sooner. And so I've since really changed my view. So so there is that type. Somebody I think of it a lot with um people who do a lot of Pilates. Pilates is very control-oriented in its movement. I kind of do think that that sets you up. You're there's so much practice around precision and control, that I do think then the shift into the letting go into tremoring is is a bit of an issue. But with um but the more I've worked with athletes, I find that that what I used to think of as a sort of a hard rule actually very often isn't the case. So I don't know, there's still things I'm learning about, like why is it that some people tremor more easily, and and there's a lot of complexity there.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:55

Yeah. Well, watch this space. I'm I'm gonna be on her case and keep on selling the benefits of it on the regular. So you know, maybe maybe this time next year she will um she'll be a convert. Totally.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:09

Awesome. Well, Dan, I really appreciate you just sharing your own personal um experience and your curiosities and the questions that have come up for you as you practice. So um, yeah, this has been a good thing. It's been it's been a pleasure, yeah, and great to to kind of learn more about this this um you know fascinating aspect. Yeah, thank you. Very cool. Awesome. Thanks, Dan.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:31

That's it for today's episode. We hope you found inspiration and new insights into the power of neurogenic droning.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:38

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SPEAKER_02 1:19:48

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