What is EFT

One of the most popular of the Energy Psychology Techniques, EFT which states for Emotional Freedom Technique involves tapping on acupressure points while focusing on a particular emotion, physical sensation or event. It is a safe, fast, drug free and non-invasive technique.

EFT works on a variety of issues from anxiety to healing childhood traumas, to clearing limiting beliefs, to weight loss, body image and food cravings, to fears and phobias.

EFT is proving to be a go therapy to for many Psychotherapists, Psychologists, Doctors and Health Practitioners, in fact we are very lucky to have Dr Peta Stapleton right here on the Gold Coast (Assistance Professor at Bond University) to be one of only a small handful of EFT Trainers in Australia heading up many of the Clinical Trials that are being run for EFT particularly on Weight Control, Food Cravings and her latest study on EFT for school age children for management of academic stress.Dr Stapleton’s research can be found here.

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How/Why does it work?

When you’re experiencing a negative emotional state, let’s say your angry, upset or fearful, your brain activates the alert signal and prepares the body to enter what’s called the fight/flight response.

The body goes into natural defence all systems are turned on to support either fighting or fleeing from the danger. Your adrenaline starts to pump into the body, your muscles tense, and your blood pressure, heart rate, and blood sugar all rise to give you extra energy to meet the challenge.

In ancient days of course these dangers where real threats to survival, such as tigers walking into the camp about to kill you!! However, these days most of our fight/flight responses are triggered internally. This means that the stress response is triggered by a negative memory or thought that has its roots in past trauma or conditioned learning from childhood, even an imagined threat can create the stress response in the body, whether the trigger is the tiger (external) or thought/negative memory/previous danger (internal) the body behaves in the same way.

Think about it this way, if you are at home waiting for a loved one to arrive and they are late and you can’t get them by phone, after some time you might start to imagine the worst, you may worry they have broken down, been hurt or worse lying in a ditch somewhere…now your mind in that situation can create a whole array of scenarios and the physical body will follow, you might find that your palms are sweaty, your heart races, your body is pumping all that adrenaline into the body as if there is a tiger about to pounce, all while your loved one was just held up at work and their phone battery died. The body doesn’t understand the difference between real and imagined, so whether there is an actual tiger or just a perceived imagined tiger, the result in the body can be the same…it triggers as full fight/flight response.

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What EFT does amazingly well is to teach the mind/body to act-and react-differently. The stress response begins in your brain in the almond-shaped amygdala, one of the components of the limbic system, or midbrain. The midbrain is located between the frontal lobes (the cortex) and the hindbrain (also called the reptilian brain-the earliest, most primitive part of the brain).

The limbic system is the source of emotions and long-term memory, and it’s where negative experiences are encoded. The amygdala has been called the body’s smoke detector. “Uh-oh, here comes trouble,” says the amygdala. “Something is threatening our safety.” It signals the brain to mobilize the body in the fight-or-flight response. Tapping on the meridian endpoints helps to deactivate the amygdala’s alarm and sends a calming response to the body, and the amygdala recognizes that it’s safe. What occurs then is that when a particular stimulus or situation arises which may have cause anxiety or full fight/flight response what you now have is a calm response in the brain therefore the body isn’t experienced this hyperarousal state.

How can EFT help me?

  • Anxiety
  • Post Traumatic Stress
  • Fears
  • Phobias
  • Events
  • Weight Loss
  • Body Image
  • Food Cravings
  • Memories
  • Relationships

EFT is also very easy tool to learn the basics, like psychological first aid, when used correctly it gives you a tool that you can use anywhere, anytime you find yourself in a situation that causes anxiety/stress.

Useful Links

How to rewire the brain with EFT – https://youtu.be/ZfZBHWSbrsg
Science of EFT – http://www.thetappingsolution.com/science-and-research/
Australian Research – http://petastapleton.com

Sessions:

EFT Sessions are 60mins – $145.00

If you have any questions at all please feel free to contact me on 0414303719 or via the Contact Us page.
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