The amygdala is the part of the brain that detects threats, so it’s involved in all anxiety disorders. It’s also involved with other emotions, any time we feel threatened. It’s really the heart of the limbic system which controls your emotions. Certain points on your body reduce arousal in the amygdala.
The protocol in EFT is to bring to mind the stressful event, or a trigger that causes the threat reaction in the person. The person brings to mind what it is that is frightening, or causing an inappropriate response that is a phobia where there’s a fear of something that in fact is not really a danger, or a person that they interact with that they have strong anxiety about or anger towards, but it’s irrational. You bring that to mind and that puts the amygdala into a stress response. At the same time, you tap on these points on the body, these acupressure points, that are sensitive to creating an electromagnetic signal that goes, as it turns out, through the body’s connective tissue, to the areas of the brain that control threat, and they give the message to decrease the arousal. So the brain is getting opposing messages.
It is getting a message to increase the threat because that’s what the image does, and it’s getting the message to decrease arousal because that’s what the tapping does. After a little bit of time, within minutes usually, the message to decrease the arousal dominates because nothing bad is happening. The events that caused the threat are no longer in play, so now the person is able to hold the image of the memory or of the trigger and there is no arousal. It’s just gone. You try to get them to go into it, and if there is any you tap that down.
Then there is no emotional response to what may have been a horrible scene. So the person still has a memory, but their brain is not going into a whole sequence that involves pumping cortisol through the system and adrenaline, etc. So that becomes the new normal. Now you can think of that memory or you can think of the triggers or you can think of the person that was making you anxious or making you angry with calmness. That’s what I think is really unique and important acupuncture points in terms of energy psychology, and EFT in particular.
“Emotion – Energy in motion” All negative emotions are a disruption of the body’s energy system. Physical pain and disease are intricately connected to negative emotions. Health problems create feedback, physical symptoms cause emotional distress, and unresolved emotional problems manifest themselves through physical symptoms. So the body’s health must be approached as a whole. You cannot treat the symptoms without addressing the cause and vise-versa.
Mend the negative emotions and physical symptoms that stem from the energy disruption disappear. Tapping restores the body’s energy balance and negative emotions are conquered.