22 Aug The Weirdest Thing I’ve Ever Done to De-stress
I’ve done tapping, also known as Emotional Freedom Technique, or EFT, as a way to de-stress. In a nutshell, it’s tapping the side of your hand, top of your head, points on your face, and more, while repeating some phrases about your concern and your acceptance of yourself.
How could this possibly do anything, you may be wondering. First, try it. See how you feel after doing it. Then, see that science has validated EFT. Research has found that EFT can reduce stress, lessen depressive symptoms, reduce anxiety, reduce cortisol (the stress hormone), relieve phobias, relieve tension headaches, help food cravings, and need I go on? Amazing.
That’s what I love about natural treatments and cures. What’s the harm in trying them? Tapping gently on parts of your body is unlikely to have any harm. And it might do some good.
EFT is based on the ancient study of meridians of energy flowing through the body. These meridians are a little harder for science to validate. But the idea is that emotions are energy stored in the body. Really, we know emotions are a thing, but could you point to them? Maybe they are buried inside of us. Tapping in certain ways along the meridians seems to allow the emotional energy to release.
Tapping is similar in some ways to acupressure or acupuncture. Both make use of either needles or pressure along the meridians. They are attempts to release or balance the energy within us. Acupuncture and acupressure have been used for years with success. Maybe the ancients weren’t as ignorant as we have made them out to be.
Why de-stressing is important
Stress is a major issue. It can be the root cause of almost any disease. For example, stress causes your body to release cortisol. Cortisol helps you with fight-or-flight, and it affects every cell in your body. If cortisol hangs around too long, though, it can start to do damage.
So you need to reduce the amount of cortisol running around your body. Because of course you have stress. Everyone has conflicts, deadlines, dangers, frights, arguments, and physical stressors like pain, infection, inflammation, heat, or cold. Some people blame it on modern times, but people throughout history had all these things, including the threats of starvation and being attacked.
You can reduce stress in many ways, like walking, journaling, deep breathing, chatting to a friend, and more. But these methods don’t seem to go as deep as EFT. EFT was compared to ordinary talk therapy and EFT was more effective. Many times our stress reduction involves putting unpleasant thoughts or memories out of our mind, and that’s fine. But EFT makes you think about them. It’s sort of like this analogy: if you pat a dog on the head, he’ll go away and lie down, but if you ignore the dog, he’ll keep sniffing around. The dog, obviously, is your negative emotion.
You call up the unpleasant emotion and deal with it. It won’t control you anymore, at least not as much.
Example tapping session
First, tune into your body and note how stressed you feel–for example if your shoulders are tight, or you have a knot in your stomach. You can rate your stress from 1-10, with 10 being really high stress. Then gently begin tapping with a couple fingers the following points along the meridians: side of the hand, top of the head (with both hands), above the eyebrows, the sides of the eyes, under the eyes, under the nose, under the collarbone, under the armpits (bra strap line for you ladies), and inside of wrist to inside of wrist.
While tapping, repeat phrases with each tapping point. Say, “Even though I ________, I deeply love and accept myself.” Fill in the blank with whatever is worrying you. It could be, even though I have anxiety. OR, even though I was yelled at by my boss. Maybe, even though my mother never loved me. You choose the issue, and it’s ok to vary your phrasing as you progress through the points.
Repeat this sequence several times, or even do it just once. After tapping, tune into your body and rate your stress level again. You will probably give it a lower number. When I do tapping, I usually skip the rating step. I feel calmer all over even after one round of tapping.
For best results, repeat EFT often. It can be part of your bedtime ritual. Or maybe a get-home-from-work ritual so you can leave work issues behind. Or just whenever the need pops up. Most of us have issues from childhood all bottled up inside. Tapping is great for releasing the past. But it’s also great for dealing with recent and minor bothersome events.
See the video for more details.
I am a National Board Certified Functional Medicine Health Coach. I can help you de-stress, whether it’s with EFT or any other technique. I’ll listen to your story and that will be your first step in de-stressing. Contact me and begin to live your healthiest life.
Have you ever tried tapping? Tell us in the Comments.
Dr. Mercola EFT
Dr. Axe Emotional Freedom Technique
Green Med Info Therapeutic action of EFT
Dr. Kara Fitzgerald Podcast
This article is for information purposes only. See Disclaimer below.
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