Tapping lowers your stress and rewires your brain, so you can gain insight into your emotions, release them, and calm cravings!
Given that emotions underly emotional eating, a tool at your fingertips to help you gain insight into your emotions, and release them, is vital in Finally Releasing Emotional Eating.
At it's simplest, tapping is using your fingers to gently and repeatedly stimulate acupressure points, while evoking emotional states. Some people describe it as acupuncture for the emotions, without needles.
Tapping can break the link between a negative emotion and your normal response to that. It can also strengthen your ability to feel positive emotions, to make ‘joy’ your new normal!
Tapping has a growing scientific basis behind it, which you can read about here. Importantly for emotional eating, tapping has been shown to significantly drop the cortisol in your body, an important stress hormone. High levels of cortisol are associated with weight gain, so dropping your cortisol levels can be a game-changer in releasing excess weight. Not only that, many people say they emotionally eat due to stress. So having a way to lower your stress is a brilliant way to shift your relationship to food.
Perhaps even more importantly, in a study by Dr. Peta Stapleton where participants had their brain activation measured when looking at foods they might crave, tapping has been shown to drop the levels of cravings visibly. Tapping on acupressure points, while activating triggering memories or emotions, works to re-wire your brain. Willpower becomes a thing of the past when you actually think and feel differently!
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Below is a brief video demonstration of the basic tapping procedure, using the example of feeling stressed. I have an ever-growing playlist of different tapping sessions here.
If you want to make a start, try this free online course with my Top 3 Tips to Stop Emotional Eating.
For more information, carry on reading below.
Tapping Basics
The basic idea behind tapping is very simple:
Think of a setup statement and a reminder phrase
Say your setup statement three times while tapping the Karate Chop point.
Say your reminder phrase while tapping through the Basic Recipe points. Do at least two rounds of the basic recipe points, ie. from head to under arm, then around again.
The Basic Recipe
The basic recipe is the most traditional form of EFT, certainly not the only one. Still it’s a good place to start!
First thing to do is decide what you want to work on. This could be as simple as 'I want to stop emotionally eating'. It could also be working on a specific situation you have found emotionally challenging, that could trigger you into emotional eating. That might be an event or person that has upset you in some way. The basic recipe can also be used for pain, or for anxiety or even trauma.
Second, tune into yourself and write down a number between zero and ten to represent the intensity of the issue. Ten is generally considered the strongest response, with zero being no remaining issue. It's good to make a note of this at the start, so that you can see and feel the difference that the tapping is making.
Now, you’re ready to move onto the actually tapping.
The Setup Phrase
In traditional EFT, the setup phrase is used to define your ‘problem’ and to counter it with loving acceptance. In this way, you work around resistance, by acknowledging it and accepting it, while being open to change. This can also be seen as a form of exposure therapy: you touch on the problem, then access a more positive resource state. You can't be calm and stressed at the same time, so you break the link between your stress trigger, and your response.
The setup phrase in traditional EFT is:
‘Even though I (name your problem), I deeply and completely love and accept myself.’
If you don’t feel comfortable with that wording, choose something that feels right to you. It could just be ‘I accept myself’, ‘I’m okay’, or even ‘I’m here’. If you want to get a bit fancier, you could use: 'I'm open to the possibility that this can change'.
The Reminder Phrase
In the basic form of EFT, you say the setup phrase three times while tapping on the Karate Chop Point. You then tap two rounds on each of the rest of the points from the top of the head down, while saying or visualising (or both) something that reminds you of the setup phrase.
For instance, if your issue is emotional eating, you might say: ‘this emotional eating’ at one point, ‘this unhealthy eating’ at the next point, ‘all these emotions’ at the third, and so on. There is no right or wrong thing to say here. Just use words that remind you what you are working on.
If it is a situation you want to release the emotional drag of, you might say: 'this situation' at one point, 'so upsetting' at the next, 'I can let go of these emotions' at the following point, and so on.
Assess your change
After the setup and two rounds of tapping, tune in to yourself again. How intense are your emotions now when you think about the issue you have been tapping on? You can always tap another round or two, or else try one of the additional techniques to boost change – take a look at the 9 Gamut Process on the Tapping FAQs below.
