In this article I’d like to introduce you to a practical way of using EFT in stressful situations so you can experience more ease, more peace, and feeling calmer.

First, picture this:

Scenario 1:

You wake up on a Monday morning and feel zero motivation to face the day. You press the snooze button 3 times and then have to rush to get ready for work. You sit down at the desk feeling frazzled, rushed and in no mood to start the workday.
Ugh.

Scenario 2:

You receive a phone call from a family member or friend. It’s bad news. You can feel your heart beating faster, your breathing has become shallow and there are butterflies in your stomach. You start feeling a bit sick immediately and as you put down the phone, you notice thoughts in your head like “This is terrible! It’s going to get worse! How will they/we get through this? It’s awful, I don’t know what’s going to happen.“ You feel worse by the minute. All your plans for a productive day fly out the window, and you just know you’re going to worry all day long.

Oooph.

What if this was possible instead?

Scenario 1:

You wake up on a Monday morning and feel zero motivation to face the day. You remember your implementation intention and spend 5 minutes tapping. You feel more energized, your head is clearer, and you recall you planned something fun later that day. You get out of bed feeling calmer, and arrive at work with plenty of time to spare.

Aaaaaaaaaaahhh…

Scenario 2:

You receive a phone call from a family member or friend. It’s bad news. You can feel your heart beating faster, your breathing has become shallow and there are butterflies in your stomach. You remember your intention implementation, and after you put down the phone, you use EFT for a few rounds which only takes 5 minutes. You feel calmer and clearer, and notice thoughts like “This is bad, true. We’ve come through bad times before and it worked out okay. We can handle this too.” You go on with your day and even though your thoughts still wander to the bad news, you feel more in control of them, and you use EFT on and off during the day when necessary.

Which experience would you rather have?

Now, let’s talk about how a habit of using EFT (tapping) can help us experience Scenario 2.

First: What’s EFT?

If you’re not sure yet — it’s short for Emotional Freedom Techniques and it’s a simple way to get calm about things that stress us out, so we can think more clearly, make better decisions, and take appropriate action.

EFT was created in the early 1990’s by Gary Craig, a Stanford Engineer. EFT essentially calms the amygdala — the part of the brain looking out to protect us 100% of the time. When we use EFT, it helps us get out of the fight-flight-freeze response — and that means we can think calmly instead of reacting from a knee-jerk stress reaction.

For more information, here’s a list of several of my articles on EFT.

Making EFT into a habit

As with most things in life, it’s easy to know about something yet forget to use it. I’ve stopped counting how many times I’ve heard “I know it will be good for me to tap — why am I not doing it?” and then some self-judgment follows.

I know all about it because I’ve done that too. I won’t go here into the reasons we don’t do what we know is good for us. I want to focus today on helping us get into a habit of using EFT when it counts.

So why would you want to use EFT regularly?

Before I share the steps, here’s what a regular practice of EFT has done for me:

#1: No decisions

It’s become my first response to an emotional challenge. I don’t have to try to think what to do. I jump straight to tapping. Knowing it will help me immediately, cuts out the agony of trying to decide what to do to calm myself. Instead of “Shall I meditate? Shall I go for a run or walk? I don’t have time now for all that!”, I just get straight into 5 minutes of tapping.

#2: It’s quick

It often takes only 5 minutes of targeted EFT to feel calmer so I can think better and have healthier thoughts about the stressful situation.

#3: Pavlov’s dog

My nervous system has been trained after 16 years of use to know that when I start tapping, I will feel better very soon. There’s also a bit of the placebo effect kicking in. Just putting my fingers to the eyebrow points already starts the feeling-better-response. Why not use it to our advantage?

#4: Unburdening

Imagine stress as a backpack that we carry with us through life. Each day, we encounter small pebbles and rocks (minor stresses and challenges). If we let these pebbles accumulate, our backpack becomes heavier and heavier, making it harder to carry.

However, if we regularly unload the smaller rocks by using EFT, we prevent the backpack from becoming too burdensome. It’s like periodically emptying it and leaving behind those small rocks, ensuring that it remains light and manageable.

Now, when we encounter a big boulder (a major stressful event), our backpack is already relatively light. We have the strength and capacity to handle it without being overwhelmed, because we’ve taken care of the smaller stressors along the way.

#5: Empowering

It feels empowering to know I’m not helpless. I always have this tool with me to help calm me down in any situation. It’s amazing what just that knowledge does for our confidence. Usually, when we can manage our emotional response to experiences, we can get through the rest, too.

#6: I always have EFT with me

EFT is simple and easy to take everywhere I go. I can’t ‘forget it at home’ when I travel (like I did recently with the hairdryer!). We always have our hands and fingers, even in the darkness of night.

Okay, ready to crack on? (Lol — I just love this UK expression!)

What do I mean by “Make EFT a habit or regular practice”?

I find it useful to get on the same page before we start.

The Cambridge Dictionary says, “a habit is something you do often and regularly, sometimes without knowing you’re doing it.”

With a new practice, we often must use our conscious will and attention to start. In this case, we want EFT to become one of the things we do often and regularly — and maybe later it will become something we do without knowing. (I find my hand often jumps automatically to one of the tapping points without realising it.)

A psychology website says, “habits are context-behaviour associations in memory that develop as we repeatedly experience rewards for a given action in a given context.”

This, of course, explains why it’s easy to form habits we don’t necessarily want, due to those associations and rewards. And it implies that for new habits to form, we need 1) a context-specific action, and 2) a reward.

And from a website article that summarizes James Clear’s book ‘Atomic Habits’:

“A habit is a solution-response to a problem perceived in our environment. In time, it becomes a mental shortcut learned from repeated experience. Eventually, it is repeated so often that it becomes automatic, thus, freeing up your mental capacity to focus on other tasks.”

Let’s make it simpler with a few examples:

• We can use EFT every day at the same time (for instance, at 7 am when my alarm rings)
• We can use EFT every time we feel stressed (not the same time every day, but when there’s a ‘cue’ or trigger)

How to make EFT a habit

So now we know it’s really good for us to tap regularly — How do we do that?

We know that ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’, and I’ve experienced countless examples! I want to read instead of browsing my phone, I want to go for a walk instead of browsing my phone, I want to clean the kitchen instead of mindlessly scrolling (oops, did I give away one habit I want to change?) I bet you can name a few too!

There are many useful and proven ways to start creating new habits, and here’s one of the most effective for me:

Implementation Intentions

You know how we sometimes have a goal, but we don’t follow through?

An implementation intention is like having a plan in your mind to help you accomplish something specific. It’s a way to make sure you follow through on what you want to do.

Imagine you have a goal, like studying for a test. You know it’s important, but sometimes you get distracted or forget to study. That’s where an implementation intention comes in. Instead of just saying, “I need to study,” you create a specific plan for when and where you will study.

For example, you might say, “I will study for 30 minutes every day right after dinner at my desk in my room.” By setting this specific time and place, you have a clear plan in your mind. It’s like programming your brain to know exactly when and where you’ll study.

This plan helps you because when it’s time to study, you won’t have to think too much about what to do. Your mind already knows the routine because of your implementation intention. It becomes a habit, and you’re more likely to follow through and actually study.

So, an implementation intention is a simple but powerful tool that helps you achieve your goals by creating a clear plan in your mind. It’s like giving yourself a roadmap to success and making it easier to stay focused and motivated.

There’s plenty of research that proves it’s efficacy. Google it!

The formula

There’s an easy formula we can follow to create effective Implementation Intentions. It’s like this:

IF … THEN…

or you can replace IF with WHEN:

WHEN… THEN

Applying this to using EFT regularly, here are some examples:

• If I notice anxiety in my stomach, then I will tap 2 rounds of EFT in my bedroom
• If I feel unmotivated on a Monday morning, then I will tap for 5 minutes right there in bed
• If I get news that upset me, then I will do 3 rounds of EFT in the restroom
• If I can’t make a decision about what to do, then I will tap 3 rounds at my desk

Can you see how they’re all situation-specific? It mentions a specific situation of stress, and then specifically how I’ll use EFT, and where.

There’s so much more to say on this topic of Implementation Intentions. For now, let’s pause talking about it and Give it a go!

Recommendations:

• Keep your EFT Implementation Intention simple.
• Don’t overdo it! (don’t expect yourself to tap 10 times a day if you’re only starting out).
• Make it easy to succeed.
• And have fun!

Support

If you’re having trouble formulating an Implementation Intention for using EFT, reply and I’ll support you.

Tapping has been instrumental in changing my first response from “I don’t know what to do”, to “I’ll tap, and then ideas will come up for me.” It keeps the stress-backpack relatively empty with regular use, so I can handle the boulders.

As I was writing this article, I asked other regular tappers to write down benefits they’ve experienced. There’s been many great ideas so far and I’ll include more of them when I post this on my website.

Here are two so far:

“I hear my problems out loud (not just in my mind) when I self-tap and as a result, I come to the solution quicker; I am better at decision-making due to EFT; and I can release the energy of others that I have picked up throughout the day faster than if I don’t tap.” Laurie

“I tap at a certain time each day. E.g. I tune into a Quality for the day when the water hits me in the shower. Then I tap that word. At night I review the day and notice if there are any “blips”. I tap that down enough for a good sleep and if it needs more work, put it in an (imaginary) place holder to come back to.” Claire

My wish for you

I would love you to feel the benefits of regular EFT use, too. When you’re okay, my world is better too. When I’m okay, the ripples spread to you in turn. And in this way we can help each other to create a calmer and more peaceful world.