EFT tapping and Nervous system regulation
I never really understood the nervous system or the role it played in my life. I struggled with anxiety, I had hormonal imbalance, I felt fatigued all the time, I engaged in an alarming amount of self-sabotaging behaviour when it came to my goals, and career in particular. I was a procrastinating, people pleasing, perfectionist in a cycle of chronic burnout… but I never really understood, or even thought of my nervous system.
I thought.. This is just the way I am. This is my personality. I might not like some of these traits but it’s just me. Maybe you can relate?
The truth is that the nervous system is involved in every aspect of our body’s functioning and well-being. I often say that the health of the nervous system is the foundation on which we build our lives. The nervous system plays a crucial role in regulating our body’s response to the environment, including our emotions and physical reactions. When the nervous system is in balance, we feel calm, focused, and able to cope with everyday challenges. However, when the nervous system is dysregulated, we may experience chronic stress and anxiety, we have more fear based thoughts, our digestive and hormonal systems gets thrown off, our immune system is compromised, we lose access to the part of the brain responsible for our critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity.
I’m sure you’ve heard the terms nervous system regulation or dysregulation thrown around quite a bit. In simple terms, a nervous system that is regulated is one that can move in and out of these survival responses (fight, flight, fawn, freeze) with relative ease. A dysregulated nervous system is one that has gotten stuck turned on in a survival state. Notice that I didn’t say a regulated nervous system is one that is always calm, but one that can feel stress, respond accordingly, and then return to a state of regulation.
How can EFT ‘tapping’ help? Tapping has been scientifically proven to lower the stress hormone, cortisol. In fact, a study done on tapping and cortisol levels found a 43% decrease in cortisol after just an hour of tapping! (Read more about that study here.) When we stimulate, or tap on these acupressure points, we are sending a calming signal to the fear center of the brain, the amygdala. We are essentially dialing down the stress response, and helping the nervous system return to a regulated state.
This can work reactively - we recognize that we are triggered, stressed, anxious and we tap as a way to help our body relax. It can also be done proactively - tapping to clear residual emotion from memories and past trauma, to clear limiting beliefs and subconscious blocks, all of which open up more capacity in the nervous system.
Try this simple exercise to see this in action.
First do a body scan and just notice where you might be holding stress or tension in your body. How intense is this feeling or sensation in your body on a scale of 0-10, where 10 is the most intense? Start at the side of the hand and tap while taking a deep breath into the belly for a count of 4, and exhale for a count of 6. We will continue this breath for each of the points (top of the head, eyebrow, side of eye, under the eye, under nose, under mouth, collarbone, and under arm).
Stop and notice the initial feeling or sensation you rated at the beginning of this practice? Has it changed at all? Shifted in intensity or location? Give it a new rating now. This time start at the side of the hand and tune into the sensation, moving through each point while repeating how it feels, for example: this stress I’m feeling like a pit in my stomach, this pit in my stomach. Breathe directly into the sensation.
Check in with that feeling or sensation again. If it is still higher than you would like, you can continue to just tap and breathe for a few more rounds. However, it is likely you experienced some shift in the feeling and the energy in your body. Maybe you yawned, maybe your stomach started to gurgle. These are all signs of the nervous system down regulating out of a survival state, and as it does so our digestive systems come back online, we sigh or yawn to release some of that stress energy.
Let me know how it goes!
Happy tapping,
Liz
