Written by Hadi Jalali | Published on February 5, 2023 | Last revised on on April 30, 2023

How to Relieve Stress by Shaking

Areas of focus: anxiety | mood | stress

Long-term stress and anxiety can not only harm your mental and cognitive health, but also have a negative impact on your digestive system, muscle growth, sexual function, and immune system. So it’s important to have access to tools to manage stress. Shaking can be one such tool.

 

📅  How often: multiple times a day
⌛  Time required: <2 minutes

Benefits

  • Reduced muscualr tension.
  • Enhanced mood (via endorphin release).
  • Temporary improvement in circulation and oxygenation
  • Restored emotional balance.
  • Fine-tuned mind-body connection.

My take

I learned about shaking over a year ago. For months, I used it every morning right after waking up, then once or twice throughout the day when I felt tense. Now, I still shake if I feel tense in the morning, but especially right before other calming practices. It takes the edge off any physical unease I might be feeling, making it easier to breathe, meditate, or even focus on writing afterwards.

Research on this type of shaking is lacking, but this is such a quick and accessible practice that I felt it was important to share. I’ve extracted explanations on therapeutic shaking from research on vibration therapy (therapy using devices that shake the whole body, or that apply vibrations to one body part) and neurogenic tremoring for stress relief (a type of involuntary shaking that’s intentionally triggered using specific exercises, popularized under the acronym TRE by Dr David Berceli), but self-induced, therapeutic shaking is more of an experiential practice.

The habit: therapeutic shaking

  1. Stand up. Soften your knees. Make sure you have some free space around you so you don’t unintentionally hit a person or an object. And if you’re self-conscious, go somewhere private. You only need a few minutes.
  2. Slow down and deepen your breath. Your exhales should last at least four seconds. Breathe this way throughout the rest of the practice.
  3. Start by lightly shaking your right hand. Gradually shake your hand more energetically, and let the shaking move up to your elbow, then your shoulder, eventually taking over your entire arm. Shake, wiggle, move however you like. Make it as vigorous as it’s comfortable. Continue for 30 seconds, or up to one minute.
  4. Pause and feel the difference between your arms. Notice differences in tension, stiffness, or lightness.
  5. Shake your left arm in the same gradual manner, starting from your hand and moving up. Continue for up to one minute. Pause and notice the sensations in your arm.
  6. Next, move onto your right leg. First shake the foot, and slowly intensify the shaking to include your whole leg. Hold on to a wall for balance if you like. Continue for 30 seconds, or up to one minute. As with your arms, pause and feel your leg before moving on.
  7. Repeat on your left leg for 30 seconds, or up to one minute.
  8. Next, shake your whole upper body. You’ll notice your arms, legs and head joining along. Shake up and down, side to side, speed up, slow down. If you feel comfortable, shake your arms more and include even your leg, moving and twitching and wiggling. Continue for up to one minute, then gently slow down, continuing to breathe slowly and deeply.
  9. Take a minute to detect any change. Notice the tension or relaxation in your muscles. Feel your heartbeat. Observe the movements of your body while you breathe.

Key points

  • Be mindful of your breath throughout the entire practice, and make sure your exhales are longer than your inhales and last at least four seconds.
  • Every time you stop shaking, pay close attention to the physical sensations in your body, how they may have changed, and how you feel overall.
  • Be aware of your physical limitations, and don’t shake in any way that’s painful.
  • Mind your balance! Practice seated if you think you might fall.
  • Note that the effects of shaking the body for stress relief can vary among people, and may not be suitable for everyone.

Tips

The practice can last from one to several minutes, depending on how your body reacts.

More intensity isn’t better: this is one of the reasons we pause and feel the body. Shake, feel the effect, and adjust your next round of shaking.

In the habit, we’ve asked you to pay close attention to your bodily sensations and your breath. This type of body awareness is a key aspect of this habit. To apply stress reduction methods effectively, you have to be able to notice your physical and emotional state when a shift occurs.
There are two reasons for this:

  • If you can’t detect your stress when it begins, it will be difficult to use stress-reduction methods like shaking at the appropriate time. You might realize you’re stressed only after an exhausting day of physical tension and rapid breathing.
  • Most symptoms of stress also work as tools to counter it.
    For example, your rate of breathing speeds up when you’re stressed. So to respond to stress, you can take slow, deep breaths. It might sound simplistic, but this actually sends a safety signal to your nervous system and lowers your overall level of stress. It’s essentially a feedback mechanism.
    The more you’re able to notice the symptoms, the better you can use them as methods to calm down.

There’s no correct way to shake. After a few sessions, feel free to experiment! Instead of progressing limb by limb, you can jump straight into shaking your entire body if you feel comfortable.

Do I need this habit?

Robert Sapolsky, an expert on the topic, says it best: 

The stress response is built around ‘it’s an emergency, build later, grow later’. If everyday is an emergency, you pay the price for it.

The way we respond to stress evolved for dealing with short term physical crises, not long-term psychological reasons. Chronic stress and anxiety not only distress the mind and the brain, but also negatively affect digestion, growth (including muscle growth and tissue repair), libido, and immunity. They increase the risk for hypertension (high blood pressure), heart disease, and type 2 diabetes (a condition where the body becomes resistant to the effects of insulin and can’t control blood sugar levels effectively).

When you’re stressed, you should have access to tools to address it. This habit can be one of them.

What are the effects?

  • Shaking the body helps to release accumulated tension in the muscles, which can be a major contributor to stress and discomfort. This can lead to a sense of relaxation and increased mobility after a single session.
  • The physical stimulation of shaking can trigger the release of endorphins, leading to a reduction in pain and an improvement in overall mood. This can also happen with a single session, but will be subtle.
  • Shaking can help increase circulation and oxygenation of the body by promoting blood flow to the muscles. This increased flow can enhance overall energy levels, and also improve overall physical and mental performance to a small degree.
  • Body awareness will lead to better mind-body communication. This can promote a sense of connection to your body, leading to improved emotional regulation over time.

What’s the science?

How do physical sensations like touch relate to emotions?

Touch activates receptors in your skin, which send a signal to the brain. The brain processes the signal in the somatosensory cortex as well as the emotional cortex.

The somatosensory cortex defines whether the touch is soft, rough, slow, fast, hot, or cold. The emotional cortex, on the other hand, associates emotion with touch.

Touch also engages with the vagus nerve by activating nerve endings. The vagus nerve emerges from the brain and communicates with the heart, lungs, and digestive tract. Via touch, the vagus nerve acts as a brake for the body’s stress response and lowers heart rate and blood pressure.

How does shaking reduce muscle tension?

Shaking can reduce muscular tension by altering the state of muscle fibers. When a muscle is tense, its fibers become shortened and rigid. The repetitive and fast contractions and relaxations of muscle fibers during shaking can help to “loosen” the fibers and reduce their stiffness.

How does shaking improve mood?

The rapid and repetitive contractions and relaxations of muscle fibers during shaking can stimulate pain receptors in the brain, triggering the release of endorphins. Endorphins are neurotransmitters that act as natural painkillers and mood enhancers by binding to specific receptors in the brain.

The increased blood flow that results from shaking can also help enhance the effects of endorphins, leading to a larger reduction in pain and an improvement in mood.

Shaking also stimulates mechanoreceptors in the muscles and skin. These are sensory receptors that are activated by pressure or stretch, and are responsible for transmitting information about movement and touch to the nervous system. When they are activated during shaking, they send nerve impulses to the nervous system. These nerve impulses travel along sensory nerves and are processed in the spinal cord and brain, leading to the regulation of hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline, and the release of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin. These neurotransmitters can help regulate emotional well-being and promote feelings of happiness and relaxation.

How does shaking increase circulation and oxygenation?

Shaking can increase blood flow by creating small disturbances in the blood vessels, which signals the blood vessels to dilate and allow more blood to flow to the area. This increased blood flow helps to deliver oxygen and nutrients to muscle fibers.

Shaking the body can also activate the lymphatic system, which is responsible for removing waste products from the body.

Research citations

These trials examine the effect of Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) which trigger therapeutic tremors as a means of releasing stress:

This trial looks at vibrotactile stimulation and how it can shift the nervous system from fight-or-flight to rest-and-digest:

This paper discusses the relationship between interoception (body-sensing) and emotions:

This trial examined changes in anxiety and stress after massage and vibration therapy:

These trials look at the effects of different vibration frequencies on parameters such as heart rate and metabolic response:

This trial observed that vagus nerve stimulation blocked stress-induced increases in certain biomarkers of inflammation in patients with PTSD: