Trauma gets stored in the body as incomplete survival responses, essentially fight-or-flight energy that was activated but never fully discharged. Releasing it involves working with your nervous system through specific physical practices that help complete those responses and restore a sense of safety. This isn’t metaphorical: your muscles, breathing patterns, and posture all carry the imprint of unresolved stress, and there are well-studied techniques for unwinding it.
Why Trauma Gets Stuck Physically
Your autonomic nervous system operates in three basic modes. The first is a calm, socially engaged state where you feel safe. The second is mobilization, the classic fight-or-flight response. The third is shutdown, a freeze state where the body essentially plays dead. These aren’t choices you make. Your nervous system detects threats and shifts between states automatically, through a process called neuroception, which scans for danger without your conscious awareness.
When a threatening event happens and you can’t fight or flee successfully, that mobilized energy doesn’t just evaporate. Animals in the wild discharge it naturally: after escaping a predator, they shake and tremor until the activation passes. Humans tend to suppress this instinct. We hold still because we’re embarrassed, or because we’re trying to appear calm for others. The result is energy that stays locked in the body, particularly in muscles connected to the stress response.
The psoas muscle is a key example. This deep hip flexor connects your spine to your thighbone on each side, and it’s extremely sensitive to fight-or-flight signals. When your nervous system detects danger, the psoas contracts, either to help you run or to pull you into a protective fetal position during a freeze response. Chronic stress or unresolved trauma can leave this muscle in a state of semi-permanent tension, contributing to hip tightness, lower back pain, and a body that feels perpetually braced for impact.
Somatic Experiencing: The Drop-by-Drop Approach
Somatic experiencing, developed by Dr. Peter Levine, treats trauma as stuck energy rather than a purely psychological problem. The core idea is that you don’t need to relive the traumatic event in detail. Instead, you work with the physical sensations it left behind, and you do it slowly.
The method relies on two key techniques: titration and pendulation. Titration borrows its name from chemistry, where a substance is added drop by drop to produce a controlled reaction. In practice, this means approaching traumatic material in small, manageable doses rather than diving into the deep end. You might notice a tightness in your chest when a difficult memory surfaces, stay with that sensation for 30 seconds, and then deliberately shift your attention to the feeling of your feet on the floor. You let your nervous system settle before touching the activation again, a little deeper each time.
Pendulation is the rhythm that makes titration work. It’s the conscious practice of swinging between activation and safety, like a pendulum. You feel the beginning of tears, let a few come, then look around the room and name what you see. You sense anger rising, acknowledge it, then take a breath and feel the support of the chair beneath you. This back-and-forth teaches your nervous system something it may have forgotten: that distress is not permanent, and that settling is always available. Over time, the body learns it can move through activation without getting stuck in it.
Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises
TRE takes a more direct physical approach. Developed by Dr. David Berceli, these exercises target the psoas and surrounding muscles to trigger neurogenic tremors, the same involuntary shaking that animals use to discharge stress. The tremors aren’t something you perform consciously. Instead, a series of exercises fatigues specific muscle groups until the body begins shaking on its own.
What makes TRE distinctive is that it works from the bottom up. Rather than starting with thoughts or memories and working down to the body, it engages the oldest, most instinctive part of the brain first. The tremoring then ripples upward through the limbic system (which processes emotion) and the higher brain. This creates what practitioners describe as an integrated regulatory experience, one that doesn’t require you to talk about or even remember the original trauma. Many people report feeling lighter, calmer, and less physically tense after sessions, though the intensity of the tremors can be startling at first.
Breathwork for Nervous System Regulation
Your breath is one of the few direct lines you have to your vagus nerve, the long nerve that runs from your brainstem through your chest and abdomen and plays a central role in shifting your nervous system out of threat mode. Slow, deliberate breathing with a longer exhale activates the vagus nerve and signals safety to your body.
A straightforward technique backed by Cedars-Sinai: breathe in through your nose for a count of six, then out through your mouth for a count of eight. Let your belly expand on the inhale and contract on the exhale. Even a few minutes of this pattern keeps your vagus nerve active and nudges your nervous system toward its calm, socially engaged state. The key is the extended exhale, which is what triggers the parasympathetic response. This won’t resolve deep trauma on its own, but it’s an accessible daily practice that builds your capacity to tolerate and process difficult sensations when they arise.
Trauma-Informed Yoga
Trauma-informed yoga differs from a standard yoga class in important ways. It’s not designed to take you back to the source of your pain. Its purpose is to help you become more aware of what’s happening in your body, rebuilding the connection between physical sensation and emotional experience that trauma often severs. Classes typically emphasize choice and control: you’re invited into poses rather than instructed, and you’re encouraged to modify or skip anything that doesn’t feel right.
The clinical evidence is strong. In a study of 64 women living with chronic, treatment-resistant PTSD, participants were randomly assigned to either trauma-informed yoga or supportive health education. After the program, 52% of the yoga group no longer met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD, compared to 21% in the education group. Those results were comparable to well-researched psychological and pharmaceutical treatments, which is notable for a population that had already proven resistant to conventional approaches. Breathwork plays a central role in these sessions, reinforcing the vagus nerve activation that helps the body shift out of a threat state.
EMDR and Body-Based Processing
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) sits at the intersection of body-based and talk therapy. During a session, you focus on a traumatic memory while following a bilateral stimulus, typically the therapist’s finger moving back and forth or tapping alternating sides of your body. This appears to help the brain reprocess the memory so it no longer triggers the same intense physical and emotional response.
Multiple meta-analyses show EMDR produces moderate to strong effects in reducing PTSD symptoms and depression, with many participants losing their PTSD diagnosis entirely. A 2025 review found it comparably effective to trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, which has long been considered the gold standard. The National Center for PTSD cites moderate-grade evidence supporting its efficacy across ten randomized controlled trials. For people who find purely verbal therapy frustrating or insufficient, EMDR offers a way to engage the body’s processing systems alongside the mind.
How to Start Safely
The principle behind all of these methods is the same: go slowly. Trauma release isn’t about having a dramatic cathartic experience. It’s about gradually expanding your nervous system’s capacity to move between activation and calm without getting stuck. Rushing the process, or attempting intense body-based work without adequate support, can re-traumatize rather than heal.
If you’re new to this work, simple vagus nerve practices like extended-exhale breathing are a low-risk starting point. TRE can be learned through guided instruction and practiced at home, though starting with a certified practitioner helps you learn to regulate the intensity of the tremors. Somatic experiencing and EMDR are best done with trained therapists who can help you navigate what surfaces.
Some conditions call for extra caution. Body-based trauma work may not be appropriate if you experience severe dissociation, untreated psychosis, or active substance use that affects your awareness. In these cases, stabilization through other forms of therapy typically comes first. The body keeps the score, as the saying goes, but reading that score is a skill that develops over time, not something you force in a single session.