Tension & Trauma Release
Tension & Trauma Release Process
Self-regulated nervous system recovery
Tension & Trauma Release works with the body’s natural mechanism for releasing stored tension through neurogenic tremoring – the same involuntary shaking response animals use after a threat passes, and one that traditional and indigenous practices across many cultures have drawn on for generations, but modern life has taught most of us to suppress this. In sessions, specific exercises fatigue the legs and pelvis until the body begins to tremor on its own, reactivating that response deliberately rather than waiting for it to happen on its own.
How tension & trauma release works
The physiology centres on the psoas muscle and how the nervous system stores defensive responses. The psoas connects the spine to the legs and holds chronic tension from both physical stress and emotional threat. When fight or flight responses activate repeatedly without completion, the muscle stays contracted, keeping the nervous system in a state of readiness. Seven exercises gently fatigue the legs and pelvis to trigger the tremor mechanism – once shaking starts, the brainstem takes over, moving through the body in whatever pattern the nervous system needs, releasing held tension from fascia, muscles, and connective tissue. No revisiting the story, no analysing what’s being released.
How Tension & Trauma Release Helps
Chronic tension, trauma, anxiety & sleep
- Chronic muscle tension and pain
- Tension headaches and jaw clenching
- Sleep disturbances and hypervigilance
- Anxiety and panic responses
- Overwhelm and difficulty regulating emotions
- Post-traumatic stress and PTSD symptoms
- Emotional numbness and shutdown
- Recovery from surgery or injury
- Digestive issues linked to nervous system dysregulation
- Physical tension from developmental or birth trauma
- Restlessness and inability to feel settled in your body
Most people come to the Tension and Trauma Release Process when they notice their body won’t settle, even when life feels manageable – waking up tight, holding tension through the day, finding that relaxation techniques don’t touch what’s accumulated over years. The tremors can feel strange at first, but the nervous system recognises the process. After sessions, people often report the best night’s sleep they’ve had in a long time, and feel calmer or more present in their body than they have in years.
What To Expect In A Session
Guided sessions in person & online
Sessions typically last 60-90 minutes and begin with seven exercises – simple movements done lying down or standing that target the legs, hips, and core. Once the tremoring starts, you lie down and allow it to continue for 10-20 minutes. Over time and with practice, you learn to regulate intensity by adjusting your position or pausing when needed.
This is self-regulated work. You’re in control of how much happens and when to stop. I’m there to guide the process, help you track what your body is doing, and teach you how to manage activation so the nervous system doesn’t tip into overwhelm. Tremoring looks different for everyone – vigorous in some people, subtle vibrations in others, moving through the legs, torso, or jaw depending on what the body needs to discharge. There’s no correct pattern. Once you’ve learned the process, it becomes a self-practice you can use at home, two or three times a week for maintenance or more frequently if you’re working through something specific. What matters is having practitioner support until you can reliably read your own body’s signals.
Tension & Trauma Release vs Somatic Healing
How TRE compares to other approaches
Somatic healing approaches typically work with the body’s responses to trauma through guided awareness, felt-sense exploration, and completing defensive movements that were interrupted during traumatic events – usually with a practitioner tracking and guiding the process through talking and real-time sensation work.
Tension and Trauma Release is more physical and less verbal. The tremoring mechanism is activated through exercises rather than narrative, and because the process is self-initiated by the body, once you’ve learned it, you can use it without a practitioner present. That makes it more accessible for people who don’t want to talk through experience, or who find body-focused attention difficult to sustain in a clinical setting.
Tension and Trauma Release tends to feel more direct – less interpretation involved, more immediate discharge. Both work with incomplete survival responses but through different entry points, and some people find value in using both. I use this method alongside Brainspotting and Nutrigenomics as part of a whole-system approach.
A Whole-System Approach
Nervous system, brain & biology
Inside The Happy Reset® Inherited Patterns Project, Tension & Trauma Release sits alongside Brainspotting and Nutrigenomics. The three work together because the patterns most people are carrying don’t live in one place – they show up in the body, in the way the brain processes experience, and in how the nervous system is supported at a biological level. The balance between the three changes depending on what emerges and what you need at any given point in the work.
Training & practice
As a certified Tension & Trauma Release provider trained through TRE® UK, I work within their trauma-informed guidelines. The training sits alongside my traditional lineage and indigenous practice where movement, tremor and ritual were never treated as separate from grief, fear or recovery. Sessions are offered in person and online throughout the UK.
Tension Release
Body
Your body remembers the story, and already knows how to release it
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Your nervous system holds onto stress, trauma and tension – often for years. Tension and trauma release works with your body’s own innate mechanism for discharging what’s been stored, without needing to talk it through or relive it. Clients often notice a physical sense of release during the first session, and the effects build over time as the nervous system recalibrates.
Brainspotting
Mind
Breakthroughs happen in spaces your brain already knows it has access to
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Brainspotting uses your eye position to access where emotional and somatic material is held in the brain. It works with pathways that talking alone can’t reach, which is why it often gets to patterns that years of conventional therapy haven’t moved. The processing happens internally – your brain does the work, the rest unfolds around you.
Nutrigenomics
Nutrition
What if you need different nutrients and foods to everyone else?
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Your genetic makeup determines how you process nutrients, handle stress hormones, and regulate energy. Nutrigenomics maps that picture so we can build an approach around your biology rather than generic guidelines. No two people get the same plan, as no two people have the same genetic profile. For most clients, this is the piece nobody else has ever looked at.
The Impact Of This Work
Across one-to-one sessions, corporate workshops and keynote experiences, people notice genuine transformation - better sleep, clearer thinking, stronger resilience and sustainable change. The Happy Reset® method works because it addresses your whole system, not just symptoms. The feedback I receive from happy clients, reflects what happens when people finally feel supported in a way that makes sense for their unique bodies, mind and wiring.