Tapping could help you stress less

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Berthoud Weekly Surveyor September 30, 2021 Page 13 Tapping could help you stress less

By Amber McIver-Traywick

The Surveyor

If you’re looking for more ways to help alleviate stress and anxiety tapping, a painless, inexpensive, and easy to do technique might be another helpful tool for you to consider.

With the compounding stressors of living through a pandemic, social and economic upheaval and many other external and internal factors people are feeling stress and anxiety more acutely than they have in the past.

The American Psychological Association recently conducted a survey of U.S. adults and found that 78% of respondents said the pandemic has caused significant stress in their life. When considering the physical and emotional toll of increased stress, nearly half of adults (49%) report their behavior has been negatively affected. Most commonly, they report increased tension in their bodies (21%), “snapping” or getting angry very quickly (20%), unexpected mood swings (20%), or screaming or yelling at a loved one (17%).

Even though much of what is going on in the world is far outside of our control, we can work on how we respond to the things that cause us stress or to react in a way we know isn’t helpful.

Tapping or Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is a very simple way to bring some relief and help refocus the mind when things feel overwhelming.

EFT has its roots in the 1970s when doctors began experimenting with acupressure points. These points on the body have been utilized for centuries around the world to help the physical body. The doctors discovered that for many patients stimulating those points on the body could also help with stress, fear and phobias. One of them, Dr. Roger Callahan patented the process and called it Thought Field Therapy. Not long after a man named ary raig simplified the technique and began calling it EFT. Acupuncture teaches that the body’s energy travels along specific pathways. ertain points on these pathways are stimulated to improve the flow of energy. The stimulation is done by inserting very thin needles (acupuncture) or by applying pressure (acupressure). Some scientists believe that it works because it stimulates the central nervous system and causes the body to release endorphins and other beneficial chemicals. FT tapping stimulates acupoints by touch rather than by the use of needles, making it similar to acupressure. According to thetappingsolution.com, EFT is using your fingers and hands to gentle tap specific points on the body for several seconds then moving on in a series of points around the body. You can learn certain tapping sequences and gain more advanced understanding from a practitioner or discover on your own. To understand better here is an example: You are stuck in heavy traffic at a standstill and are feeling angry and anxious as you are in a rush to get somewhere important. • You would begin by stating what is on your mind and rating your distress on a scale of 0 to 10. Speak a set-up statement, which identifies the issue and includes a statement of self-acceptance. In this scenario it might be something like “Even though I feel really frustrated and tense because ’m stuck in traffic, choose to feel surprisingly calm anyway egin the tapping sequence, using your fingers to tap on the specified sites. • As you tap, use a reminder phrase to stay focused on your problem area. This could be reiterating that you feel surprisingly calm anyway. • At the end of the sequence, rate your distress. • Continue the process until your distress rating is very low.

Tapping procedures can differ slightly, but most use these locations: the heel of the hand, three locations around the eye, the area below the nose, the chin, the collarbone, the underarm, and the top of the head. From seven to nine taps are delivered on each spot.

Practitioners say that sometimes one round is all you need to shift your mind and thoughts to a better place and other times it takes a few rounds.

With stress linked to anxiety, weight gain, sleep problems, reduced immunity, chronic pain, cardiovascular issues and a very long list of other negative outcomes finding healthy ways to deal with stress like tapping could provide much needed relief.

As with most alternative therapies there are plenty of skeptics but whether there is a physiological reason or if it’s simply a placebo effect might not really matter if it helps someone improve their mental and physical wellbeing.

$37 in the 80513 zip code , $47 elsewhere.