MEETING up with distant relatives you don’t like, the pressure of making the perfect meal, gridlocked traffic on the roads, and Uncle Bert drinking too much sherry.
These are just some of the first-world problems that people endure over the Christmas period with stress levels going nuclear a few days out from Santa’s arrival.
But instead of reaching for another glass of wine or shouting at your better half, the Fremantle-based Emotional Intelligence Society of Australia are encouraging folk to embrace “stress tremors” and release them naturally.
• (above) A workshop by the Emotional Intelligence Society of Australia with instructor Kate Keisler (below)
Emerging research from the US suggests tremors may be your body’s natural mechanism to release tension, rather than cause it, claims EISA deputy chair Dr Nigel Gribble.
“This research flips the traditional idea that stress tremors are bad for you on its head,” he says.
“Rather than suppressing these tremors, we encouraged participants to release them in a series of guided, instructor-led Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises created by the pioneer of this research, Dr David Berceli.”
Certified TRE instructor Kate Keisler says it’s all about keeping the body moving.
“If we are overwhelmed, our body goes into shutdown, which limits our movement,” she says.
“Since we rely on movement to receive feedback on what is happening in the body to access our executive functioning skills, we need to move our bodies to understand our needs and emotions.”
Keisler recently held a TRE workshop in Nedlands that included 30 minutes of tailor-made exercises and a 45-minute presentation on polyvagal theory, explaining tremor responses and how our bodies move in response to stress.
“Those attending the workshop did a series of stretches starting from stretching the ankles, through to the psoas muscles in the hips,” she says.
“Each person moved through the different positions to stretch and fatigue the muscles to connect to the spontaneous involuntary movements.”
Dr Gribble has been studying emotional intelligence for more than a decade and is a senior lecturer and researcher in occupational therapy at Curtin University.
• EISA deputy chair Dr Nigel Gribble.
In 2019 he completed a PhD on the impact of fieldwork placements on the emotional intelligence of occupational therapy, speech pathology and physiotherapy students.
He says tension release exercises are a great away to improve self-awareness and emotional regulation.
“Self-awareness is such a critical component of emotional intelligence that involves recognising our emotions, understanding their triggers, and identifying how these emotions influence our thoughts and behaviours,” Dr Gribble says.
“Tension release exercises fosters self-awareness by encouraging individuals to tune into bodily sensations, stress patterns, and areas of tension. This awareness can reveal unacknowledged emotions stored in the body.”
But don’t get stressed-out about being stressed, Keisler says it’s normal to feel tension now and again.
“Our nervous system is wired to return to calm when it becomes stressed,” she says.
“This is how we grow resilience, we become stressed, return to calm and each time our capacity to cope with stress increases. What becomes unhealthy with stress is when we are not able to return back to being calm and regulated.
“This can occur when we are living in chronic stress, or if an event has happened and our system isn’t aware that it is over and time to switch back into normal mode.”
The not-for-profit Emotional Intelligence Society of Australia was officially launched in WA in 2021. The educational organisation brings together researchers, scholars and professionals from around the globe who are interested in applying the principles of emotional intelligence.
To find out more see eisa.org.au.