Did You know That EFT Does More Than Just CALMING You?
Emotional Freedom Techniques can influence organ function, regulate the flight/flight response and components can activate “bilateral stimulation of the brain.”
Part of the techniques may include ‘The Gamut’ point on the back of the hand. This procedure usually has two different components. The first component is the tapping of the gamut point; and the second component includes the eye movements, humming, and counting which may feel a little silly but is ‘firing off’ both brain hemispheres depending on what component you are performing.
The gamut point is located on the back of either hand between the knuckles at the base of the ring finger and the little finger. It is the third point on the Triple Warmer meridian, in connection with the spleen meridian point (the EFT “under arm” meridian point).
What It Does
The Triple Warmer meridian, which runs along this path, is responsible for turning on/off the fight or flight response when we feel stressed or threatened. When this happens, energy of the spleen is first affected and then energy is pulled from other meridians. Some think that a spleen energy imbalance is what causes many physical issues.
Adding in the 9 Gamut Procedure and tapping directly on the gamut point is effective for balancing these energies. Some people find relief when they simply press or rub the gamut point when they feel their body going into a stress reaction.
The addition of rolling your eyes, humming and counting while tapping the gamut point on the back of the hand is enough to turn off the fight or flight stress response in the body activates a bilateral stimulation of the brain and is important.
Gary Craig first taught the 9 Gamut Procedure that includes these specific movements. This repeated stimulation of both sides of the brain creates a “whole brain” experience. This blending of both hemispheres of the brain has also been used in other well-known forms of trauma therapy techniques including Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR). Many find EMBR effective and now EFT has been shown to be effective within a shorter timeframe compared to the other gold standard therapies.
When we receive sensory information or experience an event during the day, it passes through an emotional filter (amygdala) in the right half of the brain. If there is nothing emotionally charged, the information then passes through another structure (hippocampus) that processes the information and allows it to pass to the left hemisphere. This experience is then stored normally in memory.
However, when incoming sensory information is emotionally charged (e.g. traumatic), it gets stuck in the central nervous system (CNS) in the right hemisphere of the brain. It does not get processed in time and space so when reminders occur, the stuck memory is triggered and feels like it is happening in the present. This accounts for flashbacks, intrusive thoughts and nightmares so familiar to those who have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
So, when a traumatic (big or small) or very negative event occurs, strong negative feelings or dissociation can interfere with the processing of the event. It is not only major traumatic events that can cause psychological disturbance as sometimes a relatively minor event from childhood, like being teased by one’s peers, leading to inadequate processing.
EFT can assist to alleviate symptoms of the effects of this by processing the aspects of the distressing memories. Information processing is thought to occur when the targeted memory is linked with other more adaptive information. Any type of bilateral stimulation of the brain allows learning to take place and then the experience is stored with appropriate emotions able to appropriately guide the person in the future. Plus, the processing can shift once held limiting beliefs that were developed based upon the experience.
By using various EFT processes like the 9 Gamut Process, the meaning of painful events is significantly transformed on an emotional level. For instance, a war veteran may have shifts from feeling horror and shock to holding the firm belief: “I survived it and I am strong.”
I did ‘talk therapy’ myself for a while to help me mentally, emotionally, energetically and physically with the symptoms that I was experiencing from chronic stress, before I discovered EFT.
Unlike talk therapy, since introducing the various Emotional Freedom Techniques, the insights that even myself & now my clients gain result from our own intellectual and emotional processes. The result is that clients feel empowered by the very experiences that once haunted them. Their wounds have not just closed, they have healed and transformed. It appears bilateral stimulation of the brain is a key to processing traumatic events and setting ourselves free! It certainly works for me!
Stress can ‘take you out of your body’ where the Min-Body connection is impacted leading to various symptoms from panic attacks to physical manifestations that are resulting from the psychosomatic link associated with the stress.