Nervous System Regulation with EFT: How It Works

Are you looking for a natural way to calm and regulate your nervous system?

EFT or the emotional freedom techniques is a beautiful practice that can help you do exactly that.

Hello my name is Lauren Nicole Fonville and I am a certified and accredited EFT trainer through EFT International and today what I want to do is talk to you about what tapping is,

How it works,

Why it works and briefly show you where the points are.

So what is EFT?

EFT is this very gentle practice that you tap on certain points of the body while simultaneously acknowledging the emotions that you are feeling and this is a process that can help with a wide variety of conditions including anxiety,

Stress,

Overwhelm but it has also been shown to help reduce symptoms of PTSD,

It's been shown to help reduce cravings and even reduce physical pain.

So if you're experiencing any of those things and I know that that is a lot,

Tapping can help with it and if you're skeptical of it know that that's okay too because this is an evidence-based practice.

There is science behind this and why it works and I'm going to share a little bit of that today as well.

So what we're doing is we're tapping on certain points and the points that we're tapping on are the end points of the meridians.

The meridians are how energy moves through the body so you've likely heard of meridians perhaps if you've gone to a yoga class or maybe if you've gone to an acupuncturist.

They take those tiny little needles and they put them in at certain points of the body and those points that they're putting them in at are the end points of the meridians.

So what we do with tapping is apply gentle pressure so we're either tapping on the points or you can gently massage the points that is completely up to you and what feels best in your body and this is a practice that helps to keep that energy moving and I'm a visual person so I always like to use this example of in the summertime if you're outside and you're watering your garden and then suddenly the hose stops and you look back and you see that there's a kink in the line.

What do you have to do?

You have to go over and you have to unkink that line so that the water can flow through and that you can continue to water your garden,

Right?

Same kind of idea with tapping.

Tapping on these different points helps to unkink the line,

Helps to get the energy moving so that you start to feel better and then as I mentioned there is science behind this and I like to use this visualization of the brain.

So if we pretend that my brain here,

My brain here,

If we pretend that my fist here is my brain and this part of my brain here is the prefrontal cortex,

We're going to pretend that's this part of my knuckles here,

Information comes up the brainstem to the prefrontal cortex where we make these good sound decisions,

Right?

Now if you're someone that's dealing with chronic anxiety,

Chronic stress,

Chronic overwhelm,

What can happen is information is coming up the brainstem trying to get to that prefrontal cortex but this alarm system,

We're going to pretend that my thumb here is the amygdala,

The amygdala is the part of the brain that controls fight,

Flight,

Or freeze,

This alarm starts to go off and when this alarm is going off it's sending cortisol into the body and so when it's sending cortisol into the body that's the stress hormone and now when information is trying to get up to the prefrontal cortex it cannot get there.

So these are those moments where you may feel so stressed out,

So overwhelmed,

Or dealing with so much pain you may even say to yourself,

I can't even think straight right now because you literally can't,

You literally can't access that part of the brain.

So when we're tapping on these points it's sending a message to the amygdala and it's saying,

Hey amygdala this is not a life or death situation,

You don't need to be creating all this cortisol,

So slowly that amygdala starts to calm down,

That alarm starts to stop firing and the prefrontal cortex can come back online so now you can think a little bit more clearly and feel more grounded in your body and that's really what this practice is all about because nobody wants to be making decisions when you're in this state and you can't think straight right,

So if you can calm that down it's going to feel really good.

So there is a doctor whose name is Dr.

Peta Stapleton,

She's based over in Australia,

She's done lots of studies on tapping,

She's one of the the top researchers for it and one of the studies that she did showed that tapping on these points can reduce the amount of cortisol in the body by up to 43 percent,

That is a really really big number.

So if you take anything away from this short little video today maybe it's simply when you start to feel really stressed and overwhelmed you know that you can come to any of the points and start tapping on it and doing some deep breathing and that in itself is going to help to lower the cortisol levels and help you feel a little bit calmer and then of course there's this added component of speaking out loud and acknowledging how you're feeling and we'll get to that next.

But I'm going to jump in and show you where these points are so I invite you to tap along with me,

We'll start on the pinky side of the hand,

You can do either hand,

You can go back and forth between the two if you like.

I have some clients that say they feel uneven if aren't doing both of them so give it a try see what feels good for you.

If tapping on any of these points bothers you for whatever reason,

Skip over the point and don't do it.

So it's really important that you take responsibility for your health and well-being through this process.

Coming to the top of the head you can do this with a open palm like this or you can do it with the fingertips,

You can do two hands or you can do one,

No wrong way of tapping.

Coming to the eyebrows and as we're going through these points notice if there's points that you just like the way that it feels there doesn't have to be any rhyme or reason to it.

Then we're going to come to the sides of the eyes so this is a common one right maybe you're feeling stressed out or overwhelmed during the day and you just come and rub the temples and our bodies are so innately wise sometimes we do things that we don't even realize are helping us right it's reducing that cortisol.

Now we're going to come under the eyes,

Under the nose,

Onto the chin crease,

The collarbone so right below the collarbone on that fleshy part you can use two hands like this or you can bring one hand to the center and tap with one hand and I'll get both of those points.

Under the arm so about the side the side of the body about three inches from the armpit and then the back of the hand between the pinky and the ring finger so that is called a round of tapping simply because we're tapping around the body.

Now once you know where those points are then we start to add words into this process and we are simply acknowledging how we are feeling and what's the point of that right well as human beings we don't do that enough a lot of the time when there's an uncomfortable feeling or emotion what do we do we tend to shove it down ignore it stuff it and distract ourselves with something else and while that is a practice that can help you in the short term right we we know that by ignoring it and maybe throwing yourself on the couch and eating potato chips you're not feeling the discomfort in that moment but in time I think we're all pretty well aware that all of that stuff that you've been stuffing down just keeps coming until it gets to that point where it's going to explode and my message is to you is that you do not have to get to that point where it explodes you can you can and you should acknowledge the feelings as they as they arrive because the definition of emotion is energy in motion it's this idea that our energy wants to move it wants to be acknowledged it doesn't want to be shoved down and ignored so if for example you're someone who is dealing with anxiety and stress we would say that out loud as we're tapping on these points and that would look like this and you can tap along with me and just repeat after me and tap on the points so even though I'm feeling anxious I deeply and completely accept myself and if you're in a place where you feel comfortable I would highly recommend saying these words out loud so even though I'm feeling really anxious today I deeply and completely accept myself sometimes it's hard for people to say I deeply and completely accept myself so we could change the words to be something like even though I'm feeling really anxious today right here right now I'm acknowledging it then we would move to the top of the head all this anxiety eyebrows I'm feeling really anxious side of the eyes all this anxiety under the eyes I feel this anxiety in my body under the nose I'm feeling really anxious onto the chin all this anxiety collarbone I feel this anxiety in my body under the arm all this anxiety in the body and then the back of the hand I'm feeling really anxious and then we pause there and take a nice deep breath and let it go and so one of the questions I get from people is well we're tapping in are we tapping in the bad thing why are we why are we saying the same thing over and over again and I want to stress this we are not tapping in the bad thing what we are doing is acknowledging how we are actually feeling because like I said we don't typically tend to do that and so when we hold space for how we're actually feeling that energy can begin to move and it can begin to come become a little bit lighter so I always like to give this example of let's say that you're somebody who's dealing with a lot of sadness a lot of grief perhaps you have lost a loved one right so you're feeling this deep sadness now you could go to the opposite end of the spectrum and say a positive affirmation of I'm so happy life is great right but there's a real disconnect there you could say that but that's not how you actually feel right you because you're feeling really sad and so instead with tapping we focus our attention on how we are actually feeling with the intention of moving that needle towards the better thought or feeling you know in an organic authentic way so maybe as you're tapping on this deep grief that you're experiencing you have the thought that I'm really sad but I'm lucky that I have a good support system or maybe it's I'm really sad but I trust that I'm going to get through this because I've been really sad before and I've gotten through it and that tiny shift that tiny shift in the thought can make a difference in how you're feeling are you going to go from deep grief to to pure joy and happiness in one session absolutely not but you're going to begin to naturally move that needle knowing that eventually you will get there and so tapping allows us to hold space for how we are feeling and that that my friends is a beautiful thing and so this is just a really brief intro to what tapping is and why it works there there are a lot there's a lot I can say about the importance of the words that we're using being as specific as possible with the words and I will be sharing more about that in future videos but I hope that you are intrigued by tapping and you continue to give it a try and perhaps it's the thing that helps you to feel better because you deserve to feel good and don't forget that I'm sending all the love and good vibes your way take care of yourself