Can EFT Tapping Ease Your Stress? with Melissa Young, MD

Podcast Transcript

John Horton:

Hello and welcome to another Health Essentials Podcast. I'm John Horton, your host.

Some people may consider today's topic a little odd, and that's understandable. After all, it's hard to imagine that a tap, tap, tap with a finger somewhere on your body can melt away stress and ease pain, but there is science behind emotional freedom technique, or EFT tapping. Intrigued? Well, so are we, which is why we asked functional medicine specialist Melissa Young to come back and join us today. Dr. Young is one of the many experts at Cleveland Clinic who pop into the podcast to help us rethink our approach to personal health. Come with us as we tap into this newer wellness concept to see what it can do.

Welcome back to the podcast, Dr. Young. If today is anything like your other visits, I know we are going to feel very relaxed by the time we're done talking.

Dr. Melissa Young:

Well, I'm going to do my best to help us get more relaxed, and it's so good to see you again.

John Horton:

Well, what I always love about our chats is that you introduce us to these alternative ways to kind of care for our body, mind and soul. Do you find that people are becoming increasingly open to trying these sorts of holistic approaches?

Dr. Melissa Young:

I actually think it's more than just being open. I mean that for sure, but we're just seeing more and more people who are looking for alternatives, and some people are finding they're sensitive to medications, they get a lot of side effects, so they're looking for something different. But more and more people are looking to find their root causes of their health issues, wanting to find ways to help their body heal. So yes, absolutely, more and more patients come to us looking for what are the options, what are some of the things that they could do.

John Horton:

When you talk about different approaches, I mean - EFT tapping - it feels like about as different as you're going to get. Tell us a little bit about this technique and kind of what it can do.

Dr. Melissa Young:

Absolutely, and I agree - at first glance, it seems a little different.

John Horton:

A little.

Dr. Melissa Young:

It does. Emotional freedom technique, or tapping, I like to think about it as a blend of modern psychology and tapping on these acupressure meridian points to sort of lower stress, to help people with things like anxiety, mood issues, even pain. It's really this nice blend of connecting the mind and the body and helping calm people down and calm stress down.

John Horton:

For those who are kind of questioning this whole thing, I mean, there are studies that show the effectiveness of EFT tapping, right?

Dr. Melissa Young:

There are. There's actually a lot of studies. Perhaps not all are designed as well as we would like, and I hope for the future to see more of those, but yes, there's actually quite a number of studies in showing help with anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, pain. I think the most evidence we see is for lowering anxiety, but there was a study I looked at that showed in the participant group there was a decrease in pain, increase in happiness and quality of life scores. There was another study that showed up to a 43 percent decrease in cortisol levels - and just to remind people or if they don't know, cortisol is one of our primary stress hormones - so that's pretty impressive.

John Horton:

It's hard to argue with those sorts of results. As we dig into this a little bit, let's take a step back and kind of focus on the body's meridian points, which I know you brought up. What are those, and I guess, more importantly, where are they, since it seems like the key to EFT tapping is hitting the right spots?

Dr. Melissa Young:

Sure. I can only give you a very simple explanation of these meridian points and they are strings of acupuncture points on the body where energy flows. For a deeper understanding, we would definitely need to speak with a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, but many people are very familiar with acupuncture and putting needles in different places in the body, sometimes not even where the problem itself is, but that it helps blockages and energy. In tapping, we are utilizing nine of those points and I thought maybe we would talk briefly about those and then at the end, we could do actually one round of tapping, which might be fun.

John Horton:

We definitely would. Every time you're on, we always do one of those. That is exactly what we'll do later. Go on, though. Give us the map here.

Dr. Melissa Young:

Definitely. But for these, the nine points, the first one is called the karate chop point, and it's tapping with four fingers on the side of the hand below the pinky. I know there's always great questions of, does it matter what side you're tapping on? It does not. If you're right- or left-handed or one feels better than the other, just choose that.

Then, we go and we tap in the front of the eyebrow between the sort of bridge of the nose and our eyebrow and two fingers. We can do one side or the other, or actually both. I'm partial - and we don't have any data on this yet - but I'm partial to actually tapping on both sides so that both sides of the brain are actually getting input. We know about the left and the right side of the brain, so the eyebrow, and then we go down to the side of the eye right on the bone and we tap there. We come under, tap on the bone, under the eye. Again, one side, the other or both.

Then, below the nose, above the upper lip, and then we come to below the lower lip, above the chin, and then we're going to do our collarbone, so about two inches between those bones and notches here. You can do, again, both sides one side or take your hand where it sort of spans both.

Then, we go about three inches under the armpit and we tap - again, two to four fingers.

Then, the last point is going to be on the crown of the head and we tap there. Those are the nine points. There's more of a sequence, which we'll talk about, to the tapping, but those are the points.

John Horton:

Well, you definitely gave us the map that we need, so let's get into a little bit more of that EFT process. As I understand, it's kind of divided into five steps. Can you kind of walk us through that?

Dr. Melissa Young:

Absolutely. Our first step is identifying the emotion or problem that's perhaps bothering you in that particular moment. That could be anger, feeling stressed, anxiety, depression, even pain can be part of this sadness. I like to say I love kind of tuning in, putting maybe a hand on your chest, closing your eyes, focusing inward and what is the emotion or issue you want to deal with. Then, step two is rating the intensity of that emotion or pain, if that's one of the issues. Then, there's called the setup. Here we adopt a phrase that includes acknowledgement of the issue, but also acknowledgement of self-acceptance. It would go something like this, "Even though I feel anxiety in my body, I fully and deeply accept myself."

John Horton:

It's key here with the issue that you pick that it should be about you. It can't be directed at somebody else who you feel like is causing you a problem. It needs to be self-reflective.

Dr. Melissa Young:

Actually, I think that's a very critical point. It's about what's going on with you, what you're feeling, and combining that acknowledgement that there is an issue because I think, sometimes, in today's society, we want to push that away and so acknowledgement that I am feeling this, but that it's OK and I accept myself despite that. So absolutely.

John Horton:

Now we've set ourselves up with those first three steps and kind set the stage and this is when we get into our tapping now, right?

Dr. Melissa Young:

Absolutely. That's when we start the tapping process, repeating that phrase that you've come up with, and actually, we can expand upon that when we do it for our demonstration through each of the tapping points. The typical amount of rounds that you might do is about five to seven, but if that feeling hasn't sort of resolved by five to seven rounds or you still feel like you have a little more work to do, you can certainly do more rounds than that. That's important to know. Then, we finish with assessing the final intensity after we've gone through this process.

John Horton:

Well, that definitely lays it out. Do you want to walk us through one?

Dr. Melissa Young:

I'd be happy to. Before we do that, I always have my caveat of the more you practice these things -; and we've talked about meditation and breathwork in the past - but the more consistent you are with your practice on a regular basis, it helps your body, your nervous system, be able to shift out of fight or flight, which is sympathetic mode, into the parasympathetic, calm, rest and digest, and sometimes, even smaller amounts of time over a day can be helpful. Also, if at any time these feelings that you're experiencing are really overwhelming, take a step back and always seek the care of a medical professional if it's too much at one time for someone.

John Horton:

OK, let's jump into it.

Dr. Melissa Young:

All right, excellent. First, we're going to focus on what is bothering us today. Stress is so universal. I'm going to start with stress as that focus. We are going to focus now on intensity, and so everyone who's listening to this, if you want, you can close your eyes, focus in on what is that intensity. I would say today, mine is about a three or a four. Other times, it has been higher, but we'll start with three or four, and then, we're going to start here with just tapping right here on our side of our hand, right below the pinkies, and we're going to do that gently but firmly. Then, one can say silently to themselves or out loud if they're doing this themselves, "Even though I have all this stress in my body, I accept myself totally."

We keep tapping, keep tapping. "Even though I have all this stress in my body, it's hard to let go, I am open to letting it go." Keep tapping. "Even though I have all this stress in my life, all this stress in my body right now, I am choosing to let it go."

Now, we're going to move to our eyebrows. Move our tapping here to the edge of the eyebrows, whatever side you're comfortable with. Right in the corner between bridge of your nose and your eyebrow, one side or the other or both, and continuing to think about the stress in your life, the stress in your body. This is a time we want to bring up those feelings. We want to feel them because we're working on that mind-body connection. So gentle tapping. "Even though I have all this stress in my body, I am choosing to let it go," and then bringing over, we're moving or tapping to the side of the eye now on the bone. Perfect. Tapping gently but firmly. "Even though I have this stress in my body, I am open to releasing it now."

Still really thinking about that feeling, bringing it up in your body, bringing it up in your mind as you're tapping. Perfect. Now we're going to come to the tapping point under the nose. Under the nose. "Even though I have all this stress in my body, I am open to releasing it now." Good. Gentle, but firm tapping, and coming down here to under the lip, above the chin, continuing to bring up those emotions, though you may find that they're starting to decrease now. "Even though I have all this stress in my life, I have all this stress in my body, I am releasing and open to releasing this stress."

Then, we're going to come down to the upper chest below the clavicles, and we're going to tap down here. It can be one side, it can be both. Perfect. Bringing your attention to that emotion, that feeling in the body, and that "Even though I have all this stress in my life, I am open at this time to letting it go." Good. Now we're going to move to three fingers under our arms. Tapping, tapping. "Even though I am holding onto all this stress, I choose to let it go now." Then, we're going to come to the top of our head, three to four fingers at the crown, the very top of our head. Perfect, perfect tapping. "Even though I have all this stress in my life, I am releasing it now." Tap.

That is one sequence and we would do that five to seven times. We can change those phrases, but it always should include that combination of acknowledging whatever the emotion is and that I love and accept myself. I am releasing it now. I am open to releasing it now. Over time, it lessens and lessens. Now, we want to check in and everyone can check in at home where they are, and actually my stress level is down to a two.

John Horton:

I take it when you're doing that, too, it would be a good idea with your breathing to slow that down. Much like we've talked about before when you visited us and we work through breathing techniques, but to use those sorts of tactics also and just get a sense of relaxation across your whole body.

Dr. Melissa Young:

Yes. We can start with that when we're checking into the body and start to slow our breathing, use it certainly throughout the whole process. Everything that we do to connect the mind and the body and especially our breath, like you mentioned, is the interface of the mind and the body. It helps slow the stress response, lower the stress response.

John Horton:

Dr. Young, you make this seem so simple. I have to ask, though, if someone wants to start using EFT tapping regularly, is there anything that they should do in advance?

Dr. Melissa Young:

I don't think you necessarily have to do too much in advance. I think you need to, you can have it written down or printed out, the sequence of how to do the process. There's so many good resources now on the internet. You can view this on YouTube and more and more, actually, therapists are incorporating this into their counseling practice. But I think that all you need is the process and a little practice. As long as those emotions aren't out of control and super difficult for someone to deal with when you'd want to do that with a professional, I don't think there's too much that you really need to prepare. You can jump right in.

John Horton:

That's great to hear. I have to say, we always end these sessions and I am so relaxed.

Dr. Melissa Young:

I am, too.

John Horton:

By the time we're done, I'm ready to fall asleep. Before I nod off or anything, are there any final tips or thoughts you might have on EFT tapping?

Dr. Melissa Young:

There's so many wonderful practices and modalities now for people to be on their own to learn how to calm their anxiety, calm the stress in their body. I think this is one that is worth exploring. We've talked in the past about breathwork and meditation. Part of it is finding, what do you resonate with, what works best for you? But that's an exploration, and so trying lots of different techniques is actually fun in finding what works for you.

John Horton:

Well, Dr. Young, we always appreciate how you help us explore these and I look forward to our next journey together.

Dr. Melissa Young:

I always do as well. Thank you so much, John.

John Horton:

EFT tapping is a unique approach to managing stress and pain. If you open your mind to its possibilities, self-help may be right at your fingertips. Until next time, be well.

Speaker 3:

Thank you for listening to Health Essentials, brought to you by Cleveland Clinic and Cleveland Clinic Children's. To make sure you never miss an episode, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or visit clevelandclinic.org/hepodcast. This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended to replace the advice of your own physician.