article-have you tried tapping

have you tried tapping

There's another option for managing your feelings of stress. It's a little different to the options elsewhere in our help pages as it involves learning a combined mental & physical technique commonly known as 'tapping'. This technique helps you to dial down

your feelings of stress when they begin

to take a hold

This article is similar to one elsewhere in our wellness help pages about tackling anxiety. You might want to check out this other article if you think you're also suffering from anxiety, but it's not a biggy if you

don't have time

Read on to find hints & tips about how to improve your stress through the magic of 'tapping'

have you tried tapping?

In other articles in our help pages, we talked about banishing feelings of anxiety. Here we're talking stress which is different to anxiety

Feelings of stress should pass as things in your

life begin to improve - unlike anxiety which has a tendency to stick around. The goal is to find ways to manage

your stress & its

symptoms until they pass

Tapping

offers something different.

In & of itself tapping

won't tackle the root of a person's stress, but it will dampen the effects - read on to learn more

so what is tapping?

'Tapping' is technically known as the 'Emotional Freedom Technique' or 'EFT' for short. It was developed in the 1990's & a quick internet search will throw up lots of hits for you to check out

In short 'tapping' is a mental & physical technique for dialling-down feelings of stress. There are three steps - don't worry more detail with examples for each step later on

The first step in the 'tapping' technique involves identifying either the symptom/s of your stress or the trigger/s or both. For some this will be pretty straightforward, for others it'll be a little harder to work out. But don't worry, more details plus examples later

The second step in the 'tapping' technique involves physically tapping specific spots on your body whilst repeating a phrase that you'll adapt to your own circumstances - lots more details in a minute

The third step in the 'tapping' technique involves rating the intensity of your stress after you've finished a round of 'tapping'. Has it gone up, is it the same, or has it been dialled-down. More detail later, but in short, the idea is to find a specific spot on your body combined with a phrase that works-best for you. We're all different, this technique will need to be adapted to work in your specific circumstances

You may be asking how does 'tapping' actually work? Well, this is still a matter of some debate. If you'd like to learn more, check out the link below for further info

Interested in learning more about the origins of 'tapping', click here

More detail + examples for each step

Step one

Step one of the 'tapping' technique involves identifying either the symptom/s of your stress or the trigger/s or both. The best time to try to work this out is when a bout of stress has started. Grab yourself a pen & paper, sit down, and really focus on what you're feeling, your symptoms and what happened in the run-up to your stress. This might be hard if you're feeling overwhelmed by feelings of stress, this is totally understandable. Just do your best, and keep trying if you're not successful at first

You're being asked to work this out (your symptom/s & trigger/s) as this information will become important for step two & especially step three. Why? Because in step three, you'll be asked to rate the intensity of your stress after you've 'tapped'. If your stress hasn't reduced, you'll be asked to tweak what you're doing to try to get a better result. Having as much info about your symptom/s & trigger/s at your fingertips will help you to be as effective as possible as you move into step two & three. If this feels confusing at the moment, don't worry, there's more detail plus examples in a minute

Here are some examples

By symptoms we mean things you notice in your body when your stress begins to take hold - for example:

Headache
Irritability
Tight, sore muscles
Feeling tense & 'wired'
Feeling distracted
Having a racing mind especially at night time
Being unable to wind down after a busy & stressful day
Forgetful & disorganised

What do we mean by symptoms

What do we mean by triggers

By triggers we mean the thing that caused your bout of stress to start - there may be a number or just a few. Also, a trigger may be something very specific or something big, quite vague & hard to describe - for example:

Logging onto your emails on a Monday' morning
Getting your kids to school on time
Sitting in traffic in your car
Logging into a dating app to check messages
Checking your finances

Once you've spent a bit of time thinking about your symptom/s & trigger/s, make a note of them. If you're struggling to come up with answers to these questions, please don't worry. The more you think about it, the easier it should become. If you continue to struggle, you might want to speak to someone you trust to ask for their help. Many of us have a blindspot when it comes to thinking about

ourself, our feelings & our stress - please don't worry, this is very common

Step two

Step two of the 'tapping' technique involves

tapping one of a number of specific spots on your body whilst repeating a phrase. More about this phrase in a second, but in short, you'll use the info from step one (about your symptom/s & trigger/s) to tweak this phrase to best-fit your own circumstances

Let's first talk about the tapping points - then we'll talk about the phrase which has been mentioned

Below are the different 'tapping' points on a person's body. When you start a round of 'tapping', you'll use your fingers to quite firmly 'tap' one of these 'tapping' points on your body - you'll do this about five times. Start by 'tapping' the point located on the top of your head with your fingers. When you've finished 'tapping' this point, move on to another 'tapping' point. Try to work out which 'tapping' point works best for you. The idea is to find the 'tapping' point which dials-down your stress the most. This is the 'tapping' point you will use most, if not all of the time when you 'tap'. But as mentioned, you can adapt the 'tapping' technique however you want so it best-works for you

Okay, so we've talked about the different 'tapping' points, how you actually 'tap', now let's talk about the phrase you'll repeat whilst you're 'tapping'

The phrase you'll repeat follows this structure:

"Even though I have/feel/fear

[bit of the phrase you'll adapt]

I deeply & completely accept

myself"

As you can see it's a pretty simple phrase & nice-and-easy to remember. Whilst you 'tap' a 'tapping point' you'll slowly repeat this phrase.

The key is to tweak the phrase to your own circumstances to make it work-best for you.

So, how do you do that?

Well, to make the phrase work best for you, you'll need to adapt it using the info gathered during step one (your symptom/s, your trigger/s or both)

Okay, let's try this. Choose one of your symptoms or triggers and add it into the phrase. For example:

"Even though I fear [talking to new people]

I deeply & completely accept myself"

The idea is to keep adapting the phrase until you find one which works best for you.

Each time you start a new round of

'tapping' you will want to swap-in a new symptom or trigger. The phrase which best dials-down your stress is the one to go with. You'll probably be surprised how some versions of the phrase simply won't work, but others will really resonate. Trial & error is what it's all about here

take a look at some examples

Even though I have 'tight shoulder muscles', I deeply & completely accept myself

Even though I feel 'distracted', I deeply & completely accept myself

Even though I feel 'irritable', I deeply & completely accept myself

Even though I have a 'tension headache', I deeply & completely accept myself

Phrase adapted to use a person's

symptoms

Phrase adapted to

use a person's

triggers

Even though I feel 'tense looking at my work emails', I deeply & completely accept myself

Even though I feel 'stressed at the thought of getting the kids to school', I deeply & completely accept myself

Even though I feel 'irritable & distracted sitting in traffic during the daily commute', I deeply & completely accept myself

If you're still feeling unsure about how to do the physical 'tapping' or how to use the phrase, please don't worry, there's lots & lots of videos you can check-out - just do a quick internet search using "EFT tapping" as your search term

Step three

The third part of the 'tapping' technique is trying to keep track of which 'tapping' point & which phrase works best for you. We've already talked about this a little already. Ideally when you complete a round of 'tapping', you will try to rate the intensity of your stress & jot this down. You have a few options: the first is to rate the intensity of your stress before & after a round of 'tapping' on a scale of 1 to 10. You might find this a bit hard, especially if you've

just started 'tapping'. The second option if you're struggling to rate your stress precisely on a scale of 1 to 10, is to simply jot-down whether your feelings of stress went-up, stayed the same or were dialled-down

by the round of 'tapping'

The other thing you will want to think

about is whether different phrases &

different 'tapping' points work better in different scenarios. What do I mean by this? Well for some, a bout of a stress

might be triggered by just one thing

& might lead to just one symptom. But for some, things will be more complicated. For many their stress will be triggered by a few things or perhaps a number. And their stress will lead to a number of symptoms. If this sounds like you, you will probably want to experiment with different combinations of phrases & 'tapping' points in different scenarios. You may find one combination works in all scenarios, but perhaps not. Trial & error is your friend as you explore what works best for you

A worked example of how to adapt 'tapping' to your circumstances

Step one

Triggers of stress: when I log onto my computer on a Monday' morning and check my emails. I feel a sudden surge of stress as there's usually so many emails in my inbox. I feel overwhelmed as there's just not enough hours in the day to get to them all straight away.
Symptoms of stress: My shoulders feel tight and as the day progresses I develop a tension headache. By the end of the day, my mind is racing and I usually struggle to fall asleep.

Step two

Tapping point: 'tapped' top-of-head 'tapping point' five times whilst repeating phrase
Phrase: "Even though I feel 'stressed on a Monday' morning', I deeply & completely accept myself"

Step three

Stress intensity before tapping: 8/10

Stress intensity after tapping: 7/10

2nd round of 'tapping'

Step two

Tapping point: 'tapped' top-of-head 'tapping point' five times whilst repeating phrase
Phrase: "Even though I feel 'stressed about my overflowing work inbox', I deeply & completely accept myself"

Step three

Stress intensity before tapping: 8/10
Stress intensity after tapping: 5/10

3rd round of 'tapping'

Step two

Tapping point: 'tapped' top-of-head 'tapping point' five times whilst repeating phrase
Phrase: "Even though I feel 'stressed when I look at my overflowing work inbox as I won't be able to answer all the emails before the end of the day', I deeply & completely accept myself"

Step three

Stress intensity before tapping: 8/10
Stress intensity after tapping: 4/10

4th round of 'tapping'

Step two

Tapping point: tapped 'karate-chop' 'tapping point' five times whilst repeating phrase
Phrase: "Even though I feel 'stressed when I look at my overflowing work inbox as I won't be able to answer all the emails before the end of the day', I deeply & completely accept myself"

Step three

Stress intensity before tapping: 8/10
Stress intensity after tapping: 3/10

5th round of 'tapping'

Step two

Tapping point: tapped 'karate-chop' 'tapping point' five times whilst repeating phrase
Phrase: "Even though 'looking at my work inbox on a Monday' morning leads to tight shoulder muscles and a tension headache by the end of the day', I deeply & completely accept myself"

Step three

Stress intensity before tapping: 8/10
Stress intensity after tapping: 2/10

As you'll see with this worked example, by changing the 'tapping point' plus tweaking the phrase, it was possible to gradually reduce the feelings of stress to the lowest possible intensity. This took a bit of trial-and-error, but we got the best possible result in the end. As you'll also see, using a combination of 'triggers' & 'symptoms' in the phrase got the best result

But, please remember

Everyone is different. It's hard to generalise about these things as there are 101 different reasons about why you might be feeling the way you do.

If you feel that you are not able to manage your feelings of stress on your own, please don't suffer in silence. Help is available. Please seek the help of a suitably qualified medical practitioner.