‘Tapping’ Your Way to Calm Can Happen in 5 Minutes With 5 Steps

New research shows the ‘tapping’ technique reduces anxiety, depression, and PTSD

Photo: Luis Quintero/Unsplash

For years people thought the practice of “tapping,” aka Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), was, well, crazy, to put it kindly. But after 100+ clinical trials have shown its efficacy, even the hard-won U.S. Veterans Administration (VA) got hip to the idea.

EFT/Tapping is a brief intervention that combines elements of somatic stimulation, exposure, and cognitive therapy — and you use your own fingertips to do it. In short, it involves quick, repeated light-touch on specific acupressure points — or energy “hot spots” — to restore balance to the body’s system. The points send electrochemical impulses to the limbic and cortical regions of the brain that control stress and fear; this breaks the neural links that are causing distressing emotions and unsettling bodily sensations.

Typically, the tapping is combined with identifying a specific concern or distressing issue a person is challenged by rating it on a scale of one to 10 and then engaging in a two-part statement. The first part of the statement exposes the issue, while the second part reframes it in the context of self-acceptance. For example, “Even though I’m feeling all this anxiety, I choose to relax and feel safe now” or “Even though I’m struggling at the moment not to be depressed, I deeply and completely accept myself.”

A large-scale study of individuals suffering from anxiety across 11 clinics over a 5.5-year period showed 90% of participants found improvement using tapping, compared to 63% who used cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT).

The findings for studies on EFT are rather astonishing.

• A large-scale study of individuals suffering from anxiety across 11 clinics over a 5.5-year period showed 90% of participants found improvement using tapping, compared to 63% who used cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). Only three tapping sessions were needed to feel a reduction in symptoms. Complete relief was seen in 76% of participants who tapped, compared with 51% who…