SUPPORTING YOUR MIND, HEART, BODY AND SPIRIT
High Anxiety to Inner Calm
I invite you to use this intro video to Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) with accompanying detailed instructions to support mental wellness, and as a way to manage stress. I have created a video demonstration to guide you through the process so you can practice it in your home, on your own, or over video with friends and family.
Many of us are experiencing increased anxiety as we learn how to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. Those of us who were already anxious are likely experiencing higher levels without access to the same resources. We are not able to rely on our social support networks and other methods of managing anxiety in the ways to which we are accustomed. When we are anxious, our stress hormones increase, our minds race and we lose the ability to witness our experience. We begin to think from a panicked and survival-based place that limits our vision of our options (tunnel vision). This spiral can perpetuate negative consequences emotionally, mentally and physically.
Fortunately, there are many tools we can use to shift and discharge stuck energy and emotions through our physical bodies. This helps us reduce stress hormones, slowing the mind and regaining our inner witness (equilibrium and sense of calm). This series of is aimed at offering tools to help build a self-care practice as we all learn to navigate this changing time.
Like the classic Mel Brooks film, many of us are experiencing High Anxiety. Try the tapping technique above with accompanying handout to help improve your emotional well-being.
If you want to learn more or go deeper with this practice, many therapists are trained in this technique and can assist you with EFT, or you may schedule a telemedicine visit with me to help you.
Group Tapping Decreases Stress Hormones The researcher Dawson Church and colleagues conducted a study in 2012, where they found that a 1-hour session of EFT reduced cortisol (an important stress hormone) levels in patients by 24.9% - which was considered a HUGE drop at the time. The director of the lab who did the analysis later said that he had "never seen such a large drop in cortisol following a mental health intervention.....". The Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology (ACEP) member Peta Stapleton and colleagues at Bond University in Australia recently replicated Church's original study. The study differed from the Church et al study in that they used "group tapping" rather than individual tapping, otherwise the protocols were very similar. They found that cortisol levels dropped 43% in one hour of group EFT treatment. In March this year the paper was published in Psychological Trauma, an American Psychological Association journal. For the full paper click here