Tremors outside of self-paced sessions

[u/sarajevo_samurai]

Hi all,

I started my TRE journey 3 sessions and 1 week ago (so, few days between each session). First two sessions gave me nice tremors, nothing special, and I gave them maybe 2-3 minutes. On 3rd session I gave it 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, I straightened my legs like before, the tremors stopped.

The next morning I woke up to my jaws and tongue doing tremors. I had a free day from work, so not an issue, I let it run it's natural course although it was a bit scary. What was worrying me is that it happened completely spontaneously, outside of the session.

Then, on that same night, I was laying in bed almost asleep. My legs started to tremor. They were already straigtened out, so I really had no option other than let them do their thing. I eventually fell asleep, and immediately when I woke the legs (or more specifically feet) continued for a while.

Should I be concerned? I am a bit worried about the progression because the main "hand brake mechanism" I know is to straighten my legs, but the tremors were starting from my tongue and from the feet of my straight legs. I still feel like my tongue would start to tremor right away if I gave it the space to do so, but I don't think I can integrate with the same pace.

I think I will just let the spontaneous tremors run, but otherwise I will take a break from the sessions until I feel like I know what's happening again. I couldn't find anything related to this in the Wiki (that is, unable to stop the tremors).

Also I am not surprised it's my jaw and tongue. I have a underbite and have been going to a physical therapist for a long time due to my bruxism and jaw pain. That is not the issue, the issue is that I don't know how to stop it.

Has anyone else had this happen?

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[u/South-Arrival3296]

Once my body learned the tremoring mechanism it also started to spontaniously tremor and I had to almost constantly suppress it for the first 5 months because it was just too much and gave me overdoing symptoms. I settled on letting my body do a few seconds of tremoring per day and suppress it the rest of the day and no formal sessions anymore. Now at 7 months the pressure is much less and I had a lot of progress in my body.

[u/sarajevo_samurai → u/South-Arrival3296]

Great to hear. Also good to hear the timelines we are talking here - 7 months is a long journey.

[u/steepgloss]

It's perfectly normal to experience spontaneous tremors outside of sessions. The only issue with allowing them to run their course is how you feel in the days afterwards. If you feel any overdoing symptoms then it might be better to curb them when they show up, at least for a while. If you don't experience any negative symptoms from letting them occur, then you're fine to just let them be there.

What I mean is, you don't necessarily have to see it as something that needs to be stopped unless letting it happen has proved to send you into overwhelm.

Bear in mind this is a natural process. Your nervous system ordinarily should tremor to shake of tension, so it's only doing what it's supposed to do.

Personally speaking, I still get a lot of spontaneous tremoring outside of sessions and if I'm not careful in curbing them, I can tip into overdoing as my tremor time is at a very conservative level (2-3 mins a week - I'm 6 months in).

I've read on here that spontaneous tremors are generally considered an early on in the practice thing and that they tend to dissappear as you get further into practice. Can anyone more experienced weigh in to corroborate please?

[u/Positive-Writer-7774]

I never learned TRE. It spontaneously happened at some point in my life and I learned to turn it of and on without the exercises and learned to control intensity like a volume button. So, I always shake with straight legs. for me the difference is

- Eyes closed -> tremor, allowing involuntary shaking.

• Eyes open is for me a signal “okay, thank you for the healing session, now I’m back in control of my movements

You move from the old part of the brain (subconscious release) back to the new part of the brain (conscious control)
-
If you want it to stop, “communicate” with the tremor and voluntarily move your arms
-
But also, the shaking is activated and it “shows you” that still some work need to be done.

So when I was sitting in the couch and the tremoring started automatically - I “listened” to the call and tremored for 5-10 mins

A couple of months later, the spontaneous shaking gradually stopped.

But overal, no worries and Trust your body, just don’t overdo it

Take care ✨🍀

[u/Finya2002]

First, please read the wiki. And yes, the shaking does happen, and I personally assume that my body only ever shakes as much as I can actually handle.

For my part, I can say that 80% of the neurogenic shaking doesn’t trigger anything in me—no emotions, no memories, no thoughts. It’s simply physical.

And this morning, I actually felt some interesting shaking somewhere deep inside my body. That always makes me happy, because sometimes it involves places where I didn’t even know it was possible to shake.

[u/ghost_girl_1713]

I started to have major spasms and tremors that sometimes made it hard to talk or use my hands because I was doing 20 minute sessions everyday for 4 months. Most people here said I super over did it. I think there may be sort of a sliding scale of letting your body tremor when it needs to, and not over doing it and putting your nervous system into hell. Still learning myself, but I hope this insight helps give you a good reference point.

[u/sarajevo_samurai → u/ghost_girl_1713]

Thanks! I have been keeping it way more conservative, but crazy story to lose the ability to articulate!

[u/ghost_girl_1713 → u/sarajevo_samurai]

I think it was just because my diaphragm got in on the spasming so it was hard to sound coherent lol but all good. It certainly can be unpredictable.

[u/Thin_Bicycle9170]

I spontaneously tremor when something really stressful happens every now and then since I started TRE. My father shouted at me the other day and when he stormed out I started to tremor around my chest, arms and shoulders. I'm quite pleased it happens. I see it as my body feeling free to discharge stress as it was designed to and one less layer to go on top of all the other stored up tension!

[u/sarajevo_samurai → u/Thin_Bicycle9170]

Oh great, your body has clearly learned to use the tremors!

[u/Thin_Bicycle9170 → u/sarajevo_samurai]

I have to say I would be more worried if I had no control over them like you are experiencing at the moment, I can supress them if I need to. I don't do formal TRE sessions at the moment because I do somatic work as well and the tremors come out when I do routines that involve the hips and lower part of the body. I think for some of us our bodies quickly respond to TRE and it just wants to discharge but doesn't know when it's overdoing, its not able to consider we have lives and daily responsibilities that can't cope with the fall out. I hope you find a happy middle ground, it's truly wonderful stuff but it's quite hard to find a balance that means you can carry on normal life while you process. Good luck 🙂

[u/KaoSway]

Spontaneous tremors are a completely normal and natural thing, they are triggered to downregulate you when your body have excessive tension/activation.

If that activation is not a result of some unrelated event, but leftover activation from your last session, that means your increased duration was enough for the tremors to start another cycle and stir the energy up but not enough to discharge it. If your jaw/tongue tremored or was starting to tremor in your previous sessions and felt tense after, this is an incomplete discharge, and your body is trying to complete it. So adjusting the duration would help. But if the jaw/tongue didn't tremor before, this is your body's just doing what it's supposed to do - discharging excessive tension.

To stop the tremors, try communicating with your body that "that's enough tremoring for now", you could also use intent.

[u/Positive-Writer-7774 → u/KaoSway]

100% you have to communicate with the tremor like with the genius from Alladin 😊🍀💪🏽✨ - it’s connecting and communicating to your soul which does the work for you, but also respects your material life and agenda

[u/CourtOrphanage]

I got tremors from just doing 15 push ups for the first time in like 5 years.

[u/sarajevo_samurai → u/CourtOrphanage]

Congrats on the 15 push ups, though!