A Quick and Easy Somatic Tool - EFT Tapping

With the residual affects of COVID lockdowns exacerbating and re-triggering symptoms for individuals who have previously struggled with stress, anxiety and or depression; many others over the past 2.5 years have also experienced these conditions for the first time, making the past few years an incredibly challenging period for people.

Attempting to get access to a mental health care professional who can discuss, understand, emphathise and appreciate our individual experiences and how these emotions that we may not have experienced before, (or have become oh so familiar with), is proving incredibly difficult due to the increasingly high demand. This has added further complexity to those who are after support now.

But what if there was a therapy tool that you could easily learn that could help you in the moment to alleviate not only those tough, often judgmental thoughts we have about different issues and or circumstances; but also give us physical relief from those bodily symptoms (such as headaches, stiff neck, tight chest, shallow breathing, shaky hands, nauseas stomach, lack of motivation), that we trigger when we’re feeling stressed, anxious and or depressed?

Leveraging from two different philosophies, western (cognitive) and eastern (somatic) perspectives, what is known as a fourth wave therapy approach that deals directly not just with the mind, but also with physical symptoms driven by our thoughts, has been researched extensively over the past 15 years and is gaining increasing traction as clinical trials continue to further cement this therapy as evidence based.

Emotion Freedom Technique (EFT), otherwise known as Tapping involves using Chinese Acupressure by tapping on 9 Meridien points across the body whilst utilising a cognitive setup statement that refers directly to the problem the individual is struggling with combined with a positive affirmation about one’s self. One round can take from 3-5 minutes and it’s recommended to do 2 to 3 rounds for the adjustments to take affect.

It may feel a little strange undertaking this approach in the initial stages, because it is so vastly different from many other therapies, however the repetitiveness of the statement combined with the tapping helps to reduce the impact of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems that trigger the fight, flight or freeze responses in our behaviour, whilst triggering the vagus ventral nervous system which assists with calming both the mind and body.

Benefits identified through well over 50 Clinical Trials:

When utilising the clinical EFT approach, it has been known to:

-       Reduce cortisol (the stress hormone) by 37%

-       Has the capacity to change our gene representation through our DNA by up to 72 genes (with an hour of tapping)

-       Reduce anxiety by 42%

-       Reduce depression by 35%

-       Reduce PTSD by 32%

-       Reduce blood pressure by 8%

-       Increase happiness by 31%

Bach, D., Groesbeck, G., Stapleton, P., Banton, S., Blickheuser, K., & Church, D. (2018). Journal of Evidence Based Integrative Medicine.

Stapelton. P. (2019). The Science Behind Tapping - A Proven Stress Management Technique for the Mind & Body.

So if you’re open to considering a different, yet quick in the moment approach this can have a great impact on improving your physical and emotional feelings on specific challenges you are dealing with it.

If you’re interested, book in for a session to find out how it works.