As I watched clients sigh and relax after EFT tapping sessions, I wondered what might be happening invisibly, inside their bodies, to their stress hormones. To answer this research question, I designed a study to examine their cortisol levels. With colleagues from the California Pacific Medical Center and the University of Arizona, I conducted the first study that examined psychological conditions such as anxiety and depression as well as cortisol levels before and after EFT (Church, Yount, & Brooks, 2012).
The results were striking.
Psychological symptoms such as anxiety and depression declined in the talk therapy and rest groups, but they dropped more than twice as much in the EFT group. Cortisol dropped by 24 percent, showing that EFT was having an effect inside the body.
While an hour of EFT had reduced cortisol by 24 percent in the previous study, five days of tapping was associated with an even bigger stress-reduction effect. Participant pain dropped by 57 percent, while happiness increased by 31 percent. When we reassessed psychological symptoms six months later, most of the improvements had held.
Tapping and meditation dial down stress. Stress isn’t like a light switch, either on or off. It’s like a dimmer switch, getting brighter or darker. When we relax, this nudges our cortisol levels and beta brain waves lower.
EFT tapping studies showed that anxiety, depression, and phobias could be healed a decade before they showed how these conditions were being healed (cortisol reduction, brain coherence, gene expression). Medicine knew that aspirin cured pain a century before it understood how. That penicillin killed bacteria was discovered more than 30 years before science understood how it worked.
Putting It into Practice Beyond EFT
In my own life, I find it easy to get sucked into the conventional view that “facts are facts” and that the outside world just is the way it is.
To correct this tendency, I practice framing my experiences, good or bad, in ways that support my goals. When I’m acting with awareness, I use my mind to create and maintain a “reality field” that is congruent with what I want.
Think deliberately. Use this remarkable gift of consciousness to direct your thoughts rather than being pushed around by reality. Even adverse circumstances can propel us to greatness if we’ve mastered our minds, deliberately filling them with love and purpose rather than doubt and fear.
A coherent mind has the power of a laser, able to cut through steel. Consciousness, holding an elevated reality, organizes our neural pathways. It brings our brain waves into coherence, along with our hearts and every other system in our bodies. It rewires our neural networks. In this state, we’re able to operate at levels that transcend the known laws of physics.
We then join naturally together with other people, aligning with the large social energy fields of positive resonance.
Cultivating coherent local mind starts with aligning our consciousness with the fields of love and creativity. That’s why meditating first thing in the morning, while your brain is in an alpha state, before beta kicks in, is so effective. Trying to quiet the mind after the floodgates of thought have already opened is hard. Extending the alpha state you’ve been in when your eyes were closed during sleep is much easier.
Optimists have half the mortality rate of pessimists, and lowering your stress can add 10 years to your life.
Activities to practice this week:
* 10 minutes of EcoMeditation – EFT tapping to clear obstacles to relaxation. You can practice the instructions for free at EcoMeditation.com.
* Foster positive emotional contagion by deliberately connecting with other people.
* In your journal, note any petty annoyances that trigger you.
* Practice smiling at other people to foster positive emotional connection.
By thinking clearly about your problems, you focus on your goals, your imagination is unlocked and your creativity soars. That’s the power of a coherent mind.
Learn more by taking charge of your individual power to create and to transform our whole world – Mind into Matter: Astonishing Science of How Your Brain Creates Material Reality.
