How to Release Stress from Your Body with BLS

To release stress from your body, name where you feel it, slow your exhale for a minute, then run 3 to 5 rounds of bilateral stimulation (BLS), like the butterfly hug or side-to-side eye movements, pausing to notice the shift. BLS, the core technique in EMDR therapy, is shown to lower physiological arousal, the state keeping your muscles clenched.

Your shoulders are up by your ears. Your jaw hasn’t unclenched since that meeting. You’ve stretched, you’ve tried to shrug it off, and your body just won’t let go. That stuck feeling is real, and it has a physiological cause worth understanding before you try to force it away.

What’s actually happening in your body when you’re stressed?

Muscle tension under stress starts as a protective reflex: your body braces the way it would against a physical blow. With a single stressful moment, that tension usually rises and falls on its own. According to the American Psychological Association, chronic stress is different. It keeps muscles in a more or less constant state of guardedness, and that sustained tightness is linked to tension headaches, migraines, and low-back and shoulder pain, especially from job stress.

That’s the piece a stretch alone can’t fully address: the guardedness is coming from your nervous system’s ongoing threat signal, not just from the muscle itself. Bilateral stimulation, the rhythmic left-right technique at the center of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy, is thought to work on that signal directly. A 2008 study in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders tracked EMDR sessions and found that, over the course of a session, heart rate dropped and heart-rate variability rose, both markers of a nervous system shifting out of alarm mode, the same state that keeps muscles clenched. A 2025 study in BJPsych Open found that both visual and tactile bilateral stimulation increased heart-rate variability and reduced respiration rate in healthy participants, not just people with PTSD, suggesting the calming effect isn’t limited to trauma processing.

Tension that lives in the body this persistently often has roots in stress that’s been building for a while, not just today’s tight shoulders. If that sounds familiar, our guide to stress and burnout goes deeper on the chronic version of this pattern.

A bilateral-stimulation reset for physical tension

Do this seated, standing, or lying down, wherever you can pause for five minutes.

Step 1: Locate it

Scan from head to feet and name one or two spots holding the most tension: jaw, neck, shoulders, chest, stomach. You’re not trying to relax it yet, just noticing where it lives right now.

Step 2: Lengthen your exhale

Breathe in normally, then let your exhale run a few seconds longer than your inhale. Repeat for about a minute. This won’t dissolve deep tension on its own, but it nudges your nervous system toward its calmer, parasympathetic mode before the next step.

Step 3: Run 3 to 5 rounds of bilateral stimulation

Pick one method:

• Butterfly hug: cross your arms over your chest, hands on opposite upper arms, and tap left-right, left-right at a slow, steady pace. Described by EMDRIA, it’s a widely used self-administered BLS method.
• Eye movements: pick two points about shoulder-width apart and move your gaze steadily between them.
• Alternating tones: any left-right panning audio track through headphones works the same way.

Run each round for 30 to 60 seconds, then pause for a breath. A 2018 review of EMDR’s mechanisms in Frontiers in Psychology points to BLS producing effects consistent with lower physiological arousal, the underlying state your muscles are bracing against.

Step 4: Re-scan and repeat if needed

Go back to the spot you named in Step 1. Rate it roughly 0 to 10. Still tight? Run 2 to 3 more rounds. Many people notice a real, if partial, shift within the first five minutes.

Progressive muscle relaxation, deliberately tensing then releasing each muscle group, is another well-studied option here. A 2024 systematic review in Psychology Research and Behavior Management covering 46 studies found it reliably reduces stress, and it pairs well with a BLS round rather than replacing it.

Tracking rounds and body sensations at once is a lot to hold while you’re tense. EmEase, a self-guided EMDR app, runs the same left-right technique with an on-screen moving target or alternating tones, paced however you like, in the web app. The beginner’s guide to self-guided bilateral stimulation walks through pacing and choosing a method in more detail.

Does the research back this up?

Reasonably well, with an honest limit. The clearest evidence is physiological: EMDR-linked eye movements and tactile bilateral stimulation are consistently associated with lower autonomic arousal and better heart-rate variability, both markers your body reads as “the threat has passed.” That’s a plausible mechanism for easing stress-held muscle tension, since tension and arousal are tightly linked. What the research doesn’t show is BLS treating specific physical symptoms like chronic back pain or medical muscle conditions directly; most of these studies measure general arousal, not tension in a named muscle group. Think of this reset as a research-grounded nervous-system tool, not a clinically proven treatment for a physical ailment.

When a body-tension reset isn’t enough

This protocol fits ordinary stress-held tension: a tight jaw after a hard day, shoulders that won’t drop, a stomach in knots before something stressful. It’s not a substitute for care if:

• Tension is constant and unrelieved, even on calm days, or is paired with pain that limits movement. That’s worth a conversation with a doctor or physical therapist.
• Racing heart or chest tightness shows up with the tension, especially without a clear trigger. Our guide to panic sensations covers that pattern and when to loop in a professional.
• The tension feels tied to a specific memory or event, not just general stress. That kind of processing goes better with a trained professional than alone.
• This is one symptom among many of stress that’s affecting sleep, work, or relationships most days. Our emotional regulation toolkit covers the broader picture, and our anxiety and stress reset is a close companion to this one.

Your body has been holding this signal for a reason. Giving your nervous system a clear “stand down” message, rather than fighting the tension directly, is often what finally lets it listen.