Using EFT for Immediate Stress Relief By Cindy Attar
How many times have you noticed that you are upset about something, your stress level is high, and you didn’t know what to do to immediately get back to normal?  Yes, you can do your breathing, you can meditate, you can walk away.  Those things are great tools, but what if you are in a situation where you just don’t have the flexibility to do those things, like in a social circle or work environment?  What if you’re in a difficult situation and your stress is high, but you cannot escape?  How, then, can you take the emotion away from a situation immediately and not get caught up in arguing, reacting, damaging your credibility, and risk the chance of getting disciplined or even fired in the workplace?   Well, there is a solution to reduce immediate stress and to get back to balance that you can do at any time.  It is a series of tapping on socially acceptable places on your body and takes only about a minute.  If done properly, it works nearly ever time to take away the emotional “charge”.  This is a fabulous tool that will serve you for many years for the relief of immediate stress reduction. If you find you have any sort of stress, you can use a really effective technique called Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) to reduce the stress immediately.  So, let me tell you how EFT works.  EFT is a technique of tapping on collective meridian pressure points in order to release and neutralize an emotional “charge”.  EFT is a very simplified version of acupuncture or acupressure, without needing to engage in many years of study.  These instructions below are for the layperson who has limited or no experience with EFT, meridian pressure points, or acupuncture. YOU will soon be capable of immediate stress relief for yourself in most any situation! PREPARE To first get ready to use EFT, you must learn some simple rules.  You will be tapping on specific areas of your body.  To tap, you will use the index and middle finger of either hand.  When you tap, you will exert a bit more pressure than you generally would if tapping on a table to make a drumming sound.  The tapping should certainly not hurt or make the area sore, but since the intention is to disrupt the body’s energy in that area, it cannot be so slight that you barely feel it.  Somewhere in between the two extremes is great.  When you tap, you will use at least 5 taps on each point.  It does not matter which side of your body to tap on.  It also doesn’t matter which hand you use for tapping, as long as you can reach the areas needed with the tapping fingers. Next, you need to know a few body spots where you will be tapping.  They have common sense labels.  On the left is a drawing of some of the areas and what they are called in EFT lingo.  Below is the sequence flow of tapping, AFTER the karate chop set up phrase is stated, which I’ll explain in a minute.  The sequence is: Inside eyebrow - nearest the center of the face Side of eye - the bone at the side of the eye Under eye - on the bone under the eye Under nose - midway between the bottom of the nose and the top of the lip Chin - the bottom of the lower lip, in that indentation area above the chin Collarbone - located about one inch down and over towards the outside of where a man would tie his tie, on that bone. Under Arm - about 4 inches below the armpit, where a woman’s bra rides. Top of head – straight up from the ears on the top of the head. Use flat of hand to tap. Inside wrist – where pulse is taken.  (Not shown) Back of Neck – On the occipital points, those indents on each side of the base of the skull.  This is my favorite spot and I use two fingers on each hand and tap both occipital points at same time.  (Not shown) Now, you also will need to know the karate chop point.  This is the fleshy part of the side of your hand that you would use if you were going to give a karate chop. SET UP: When you notice any unwanted stress—the stronger the emotion the better—you set up an appropriate phrase for what is happening.  (“Even though…..”and follow it with “…I deeply and completely accept myself”).  For example, if your boss has just told you that your workload has just been increased (without an increase n pay) , you may say, “Even though I hate being told what to do by people in authority I deeply and completely accept myself”.  Just fill in the (underlined) phrase with exactly what you are thinking at the moment.  Be as specific as you can.  Note how strongly you feel these words.  The more highly charged the emotion, the better. Ask yourself, “On a scale of 1-10 with 1 being low and 10 being high, what number would I give this emotion?”  Mentally remember the number you have designated. This next step is to take care of any psychological reversal (unknown resistance to overcoming this issue).  This needs only be done once for each subject.  Once you get the right SPECIFIC phrase, tap continuously on the karate chop spot while saying this set up phase completely, three times.  For an example: “Even though I hate being told what to do by people in authority (or fill in what the problem is), I deeply and completely accept myself”. “Even though I hate being told what to do by people in authority, I deeply and completely accept myself”. “Even though I hate being told what to do by people in authority, I deeply and completely accept myself”. PROCEDURE: Then take the “even though” part of the phrase and shorten it to just a couple of easy words.  In this case, the words would be “hate being told what to do”, or even better, “hate authority”.  Keep saying these words as you tap on the other areas of your body in the sequence stated previously. Each session will go something like this: Figure out your set up phrase. Take two fingers of the left hand, and tap on the right karate chop while saying the set up phrase three times. “Even though I hate being told what to do by people in authority (or fill in what the problem is), I deeply and completely accept myself”. Repeated 3 times. Shorten your set up phrase to a couple of impactful words.  Take your tapping fingers and as you say the shortened phrase, tap on each location 5-7 times.  Tap on: inside of the eyebrow (hate authority) outside eye (hate authority) under eye (hate authority) under nose (hate authority) chin (hate authority) collarbone (hate authority) under arm (hate authority) top of head (hate authority) inside wrists (hate authority) back of neck (hate authority) Take a deep breath in, exhale.     CONCLUSION: How do you feel?  Take another internal survey and give your emotion a number.  Is the number considerably lower than it was to start with?  One or two rounds of doing this, and most of that highly charged emotion you felt at the set up will simply be gone.  If emotion is still there, repeat the process from number three, omitting the karate chop set up.  Repeat until the emotion is greatly weakened.  If it does not subside, be more specific with your set-up phrase and do the entire procedure over again. When you have released the emotions surrounding this stress, take inventory and see if there is any other resistance or emotion that needs to be neutralized on this subject. Figure out your highly charged set up phrase and repeat the entire procedure for all stress that you want to reduce, until there is nothing more to tap on.  THEN you are ready to take on the day!

Copyright © by Cynthia Attar All Right Reserved.

Published on: 2009-10-19 (349 reads)