Intro
Tapping, aka Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), combines psychotherapy with your body’s acupressure points for better mental health. I always feel a shift in my state when I do it; I feel like I can break out of my negative thought patterns more quickly and move into a higher vibration of feeling my best. Like pretty much anything, the experience gets better the more often you practise it! If ever there was a time to practise a new stress relief technique, it’s now! Stress is becoming more and more amplified. If you have been feeling extra anxious, lonely, depressed, or just unmotivated, you’re not alone. But there are ways you can fight back and stay strong both physically and mentally! I use a variety of mental health tools to stay on track. Most helpful to me are meditation, a gratitude journal, and tapping.
What is tapping?
EFT/tapping was developed through the 1980s by acupuncturists, and was mainly popularized by Gary Craig, who published The EFT Manual in the late 1990s. EFT combines the physical benefits of acupuncture with the cognitive benefits of conventional therapy for a much faster, more complete treatment of emotional issues, and the physical and performance issues that often result.
We use a simple two pronged process wherein we (1) mentally “tune in” to specific issues while (2) stimulating certain meridian points on the body by tapping on them with our fingertips. Properly done, EFT appears to balance disturbances in the meridian system and thus often reduces the conventional therapy procedures from months or years down to minutes or hours. The basic Tapping process is easy to learn, can be done anywhere, and can be used to provide impressive do-it-yourself results. Tapping is based around Chinese energy meridians in your body used in the acupuncture, acupressure, and other healing modalities. In EFT, you apply acupressure-like stimulation to those key points by tapping on them with your fingertips.
How do you do it?
The main goal is to focus on whatever issue is most on your mind, and work through it. While focusing on your negative emotion, you use two or more finger tips on each hand to tap roughly 5-7 times each on nine of the body’s meridian points.
Tap in this order:
- karate chop edge (pinky side) of one of your hands (doesn’t matter which, I like to stick with my dominant right side)
- top of your head
- the beginning of your eyebrows (in the center of your forehead)
- temples (both sides of your head next to your eyebrow ends)
- under the eyes
- under the nose
- chin
- sternum (where the sternum, collarbone and first rib meet)
- under one of your armpits
Start by identifying what you are feeling. Name the emotion/thought and give it a number from 1-10 (10=worst). Begin by tapping the karate chop point and repeating 3 times: “Even though I have this (emotion or thought), I love and accept myself completely.” Use a light pressure, like as if you were tapping someone in a concert crowd to let you pass through. Keep talking and tapping, moving through the sequence of your body as many times as you want. You can talk about anything—say how you feel honestly, out loud. Make sure you breathe deeply. You can do it for as long or little time as you need. End the final tapping flow on the karate chop point again, with positive affirmations. Say, “Even though I feel X, I am Y or I am doing Z.” In this case, Y=badass compliments about yourself. Find a way to turn your problem into positive action. At the end of your tapping session, reassess how you feel. Rate your emotion or thought again on a scale from 1-10 and notice if that helped bring it down.
What if you’re skeptical?
There haven’t been many studies done on tapping, but a 2019 NIH review of the studies on EFT’s benefits found that it can reduce symptoms of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and pain. Talking through our issues out loud can help us work through what’s going on in our minds/emotionally. Activating your body through touch is a strong way to heal. And we know that our bodies have energy points. So in combining all of those, tapping has some strong benefits.
I do a tapping session every day—it can take as long or as little as you have, even just five minutes. It always makes me feel better and more aligned. It won’t work for everyone, just like any method. You have to be committed and present and willing to give it a shot. But when you do, it’s awesome and had led many people to powerful breakthroughs.