Anna was running late. She had to drop off Sam at the nursery before dashing to work for 9 am, which meant she had to look presentable before leaving the house. Sam had other ideas. He felt like looking out of the window and didn’t want to brush his teeth. And he certainly wasn’t going to wear THAT shirt his mum had picked out. Anna was very frustrated, worried she was going to be late, worried she was going to forget something, worried she was being a really bad mum by getting cross with Sam.

Sound familiar? Think of the last time you felt your stress levels rising. Maybe for you it was triggered by being stuck in the traffic, having a difficult phone conversation, or misplacing your house keys. What did it feel like in your body? Maybe you felt your face flushing, or alternatively felt all the blood run out of your head and face. Probably your heart started to beat faster and your breath became faster and shallower.

All of these are the body’s reaction to a stressful situation – it’s the famous fight, flight or freeze response. The sympathetic nervous system is engaged and various ‘stress biochemicals’ such as adrenalin and cortisol are released into the blood. These cause the physical changes in your body that you feel when you are in stress.

When stress becomes chronic

But this wasn’t the only thing going on for Anna. She was also caring for her seriously ill mother, and also rather worried about her relationship with her husband. He just didn’t seem that interested in her anymore, or was that just her imagination because they were both so busy? As well as the daily small incidents which switched on her sympathetic nervous system, this background chronic stress was continually triggering the release of stress chemicals into her body. At the end of each day she wasn’t able to wind down, fully relax and feel happy with her life, because – well, there were all these other problems to think about. Her parasympathetic nervous system was never able to play its rest and digest role, which would have enabled her body to heal and countered the stressful feelings with ‘feel-good biochemicals’ such as serotonin and endorphins.

Many of us are also in some kind of ongoing situation that causes us to feel chronically stressed, whether it’s trying to get ahead in our career, going through a divorce, or looking after a new baby with no help. Often several different stressful events occur one after the other, and much of the time we just have to get on with the day without processing what happened. The sympathetic nervous system is continually switched on and the stress chemicals continue to flood the body. If we don’t (or can’t) take any action, then we feel worse and worse and eventually the body may become physically ill, or we may become depressed or have panic attacks.

What if you could stop this process in its tracks, talk to you body in terms that it understands, and release the stress from your body as and when it happens? What if you could switch off the sympathetic nervous system and switch on the parasympathetic nervous system within a few minutes? Welcome to EFT tapping!

What is EFT tapping?

EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) is a method of tapping on certain acupressure points on the face, body and hands while we focus on stressful feelings. It has a powerful calming effect. The physical stimulation tells the body in a way it can understand that it is now safe. It enables the body to discharge the stress, switch off the sympathetic nervous system and switch on the parasympathetic nervous system. Research suggests that stimulating the acupressure points tells the brain that all is now safe, and this is evidenced by falling cortisol levels. Studies have proven that levels of cortisol can decrease by 43% after only one hour of EFT tapping[1].

How to do it

A simple version of EFT tapping can be done by yourself and takes only a few minutes. Here’s how:

• Tap with one, two or a few fingers on each of these points in turn.
• Tap about 10 times on each one (don’t count, it’s just a guide).
• Tap hard enough to feel it but not so hard you hurt yourself.
• Tap both sides together or just one side.
• You can tap as often as you want throughout the day.
• Each time you tap, go through all the points by turn 2 or 3 times.