A simple finger tapping technique can reduce anxiety within minutes, research has shown.
This method involves tapping eight specific points on their bodies with the tips of their index and middle fingers for 10 minutes.
These ‘acupuncture points’ are located at the ends of so-called ‘meridians’, pathways in the body where Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners believe energy flows.
The tapping method was combined with mental reframing exercises, resulting in a strategy known as EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques).
A simple finger tapping technique can reduce anxiety in minutes, a study has shown (stock image)
Researchers did not report individual results for the study volunteers, but on average, the 22 students with specific phobias who participated in the study reported less fear of the objects of their phobias after treatment.
In fact, on this scale they fell below the cut-off level that qualified them to participate at all.
They also reported, on average, less fear of the feared situation and less difficulty approaching the object of their fear.
They improved significantly more on all three of these measures after doing EFT than after doing a deep breathing exercise. No one reported negative side effects.
It has been shown to be more effective at reducing anxiety than deep breathing the studythat was published in the magazine To discover.
EFT is a non-pharmaceutical approach that includes elements of acupressure, exposure therapy and cognitive restructuring.
Participants with specific phobias such as cockroaches, snakes, syringes and fear of heights were asked to focus on the object of their fear while breathing deeply with their diaphragm or doing the acupressure exercises of EFT.
Researchers then assessed their anxiety levels with a standard questionnaire that asked them about their physical and mental symptoms of anxiety when they thought about their specific fear.
They also assessed participants’ overall distress and anxiety surrounding their phobias, as well as their ability to approach their phobia without excessive anxiety.
The volunteers were divided into two groups: one tried the EFT exercises first and the other tried deep breathing first.
This study design, known as a ‘crossover’, tested both treatments on both groups, so the group that did EFT first then tried deep breathing, and vice versa.
Each group completed five two-minute rounds of each treatment, so EFT only took 10 minutes total.
In the study, first-time EFT users showed a significant reduction in phobia-related anxiety and were able to more easily approach the object of their fear, including heights, cockroaches, snakes, syringes, darkness and cockroaches.
The group that started with deep breathing showed a reduction in subjective anxiety (up to 5.7 points on the 12-point scale), but not as much as the EFT group (2.9 points on the same scale).
When the EFT group took deep breaths, their already reduced anxiety remained low. And when the deep breathing group tried EFT, their anxiety decreased and matched that of the other group.
A similar effect occurred for the physical and mental effects of anxiety: the deep-breathing group’s average score on the 45-point anxiety scale dropped to 27.9, but that of the EFT group plummeted to 15.9. When the deep breathers tried EFT, their average score dropped to 15.3.
‘Specific phobias are an extreme fear of objects or situations that pose little or no danger but still make you very anxious,” according to the Mayo Clinic.
When a person experiences anxiety, their sympathetic nervous system is activated, a state known as “fight or flight” mode.
The idea behind EFT is that it activates the parasympathetic nervous system, the part of our nervous system that restores a state of calm and relaxation.
To perform the short version of EFT used in the study, participants used the tips of their index and middle fingers to tap eight specific points on their body.
“These points correspond to the endpoints of traditional acupuncture meridians,” the study authors write. The first point they tapped was on the side of their hand next to the little finger.
“As they did this, they repeated an affirmative statement three times. For example: ‘Even though I am afraid of heights, I accept myself deeply and completely.’
Then, as they went through the remaining seven points, tapping each point seven times, they repeated a memory phrase, something like “this fear of heights.”
According to the study, these seven tapping targets include the following points: “the beginning of either eyebrow, the outer corner of the eye, approximately one inch below each eye, under the nose in the center of the upper lip, between the lower lip and chin, just below the end of the collarbone next to the breastbone, and about four inches down from the center of both armpits.”
To increase realism, the test took place in the presence of the object of the volunteers’ fears.
For example, participants with a fear of heights performed the exercise near high sports stands, and participants with a fear of snakes completed the exercise near a snake research room.
This technique may sound too simple to work, but more recent evidence supports its effectiveness, and not just for phobias but for other forms of anxiety as well. Nurses caring for COVID-19 patients participated in a EFT research in 2020, which showed significant positive effects on healthcare workers’ stress and anxiety.
And a 2016 review 14 different studies, including a total of more than 600 participants, found that the technique is associated with significant reductions in anxiety scores.
Interestingly, although the acupressure component of the treatment has its roots in traditional Chinese medicine, modern neuroscience techniques suggest that some benefits come from changing the way different parts of the brain communicate with each other.
a 2022 study of 24 adults with chronic pain found that EFT reduced the severity of their pain, reduced their anxiety and improved their quality of life, among other things. And examining their brains with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) showed why this may be the case: ‘fMRI analysis showed that post-EFT treatment increased connectivity between the medial prefrontal cortex (a pain-modulating area) and bilateral gray matter areas significantly reduced in the posterior part. and thalamus, both areas associated with modulating and catastrophizing pain.”
In other words, EFT appears to have a broad impact on the brain, reducing not only a person’s anxiety but also the experience of something as debilitating as chronic pain.
Severe anxiety that significantly interferes with your daily life is something to talk about with a healthcare provider, but in the meantime, it might be worth trying EFT for minor anxiety attacks before a public speaking engagement or before sitting in the kitchen with a cockroach faces. .
