Anxiety Tapping Therapy: How EFT Can Effectively Relieve Entrepreneurial Stress (and Much More) In Just 5 Minutes a Day

Last Updated on December 14, 2022

Many entrepreneurs struggle with stress and anxiety, and they’re looking for a technique they can use in the moment and as a regular practice to help them learn how to process the complicated emotions that can sometimes arise on the entrepreneurial journey. Today I want to tell you about a powerful and simple technique that’s been scientifically proven to work. You’ve maybe heard it referred to as Tapping, the Emotional Freedom Technique, or EFT — and sometimes it’s informally referred to as “anxiety tapping therapy” because of its well-known use as a tool to effectively deal with anxious thoughts and other difficult emotions.

What is EFT? 

Emotional freedom technique (tapping, or EFT) is a mind/body therapeutic method. It combines gentle self-acupressure with mindfully vocalizing your feelings and beliefs. EFT involves tapping with your fingertips on acupoints points on the hands, face and body while focusing (temporarily) on whatever issue you want to resolve. 

EFT works with the body’s subtle energy systems — a network of energy pathways, known as meridians in Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Similar to acupuncture, which uses needles to access acupoints to release stuck, stagnant energy and rebalance the system, acupressure uses gentle finger pressure. Because of this, EFT has been called a psychological version of acupuncture, as the simple process of tapping certain acupoints while focusing on an emotional trigger has the effect of freeing you from the intense charge of troubling emotions. 

The underlying principle of EFT is that all emotions and thoughts are forms of energy (just like everything else around and inside us). This energy, whether “positive” or “negative,” will manifest itself physically and can affect any or all functions of the body. 

I use the terms positive and negative lightly, because in reality, all emotions are normal, and the emotions that we sometimes frame as negative aren’t bad at all. It’s natural to feel grief when we lose something or someone precious to us. It’s natural to feel angry when we’ve been violated. The whole point is that emotions are meant to be temporary. We move in and out of them, and they shift, do their work, teach us, and move through us. It is when we get stuck in one place that we experience disruptions to our wellbeing.

Our bodies are made to naturally heal and self-regulate. Unfortunately, stress and charged emotions — often referred to as stagnant energy — can get in the way of this natural process. 

The key to ultimate physical and mental well-being is to keep the energy inside of us moving freely. 

A way to imagine our energetic systems

I heard a beautiful analogy in an EFT training I attended that compared our energy meridians to a river, and the negative emotions we are stuck on are like big rocks thrown in that river. The water around a big rock is tumultuous, and sediment builds up around it. It doesn’t matter how the rocks got there, it only matters that we remove them so that the river (our energy) can flow freely and smoothly again. EFT tapping can help you remove the rocks.  

You’ve maybe heard of or even tried EFT in the past. It’s been around since the early 1990s, but has been increasing in popularity in recent years, gaining more attention from more mainstream fields. Its recent popularity has spurred more serious clinical research, which continues to prove scientifically what EFT practitioners have known all along: it works. 

According to EFT Universe, “EFT has been researched in more than 10 countries, by more than 60 investigators, whose results have been published in more than 20 different peer-reviewed journals.” These include the Journal of Clinical Psychology, the American Psychological Association journals Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training and Review of General Psychology, and more. 

EFT is referred to by many names, both formally and informally. You might see it called emotional freedom technique, EFT, tapping therapy, anxiety tapping technique and more, but they all refer to the same process. 

One note: There is another therapeutic modality called Emotionally Focused Therapy that also uses the acronym EFT. Emotionally Focused Therapy is a very specific modality that is used to improve attachment and bonding in adult relationships. We won’t be addressing Emotionally Focused Therapy today. 

How to Relieve Stress at Work (Being an Entrepreneur is One of The Toughest Jobs Out There!) 

Being an entrepreneur is not easy. This lifestyle can lead to high levels of stress and anxiety. Tapping therapy is an excellent tool for managing and dramatically reducing stress and anxiety. 

In fact, one of the most widely used applications of EFT is as a treatment for severe anxiety. It’s used to treat veterans (and others) with PTSD, people with extreme phobias, generalized anxiety disorder, panic attacks, and more. You name the type/cause/manifestation of anxiety, and tapping therapy can help! 

In addition to its use for anxiety, tapping therapy can also be used to alleviate chronic physical pain, break addictions, reduce food cravings, get better sleep, boost energy levels, have better sex (yeah, really!) and so much more. 

How EFT Can Make You a Better Entrepreneur

We’ve been focusing a lot on EFT as an anxiety tapping therapy, as a way to reduce pain, to eliminate negative things from your life. In other words: how EFT helps you get rid of the “bad” stuff.

I also want to focus for a minute on how EFT goes beyond eliminating the bad, to creating more good: how EFT can help you grow as an entrepreneur and a person. 

One thing that we’re passionate about inside of the Incubator is teaching women how crucial it is to know and trust ourselves. The answers we seek often lie within us; we just have to trust ourselves enough to let them shine.

Emotional freedom techniques can be a powerful tool for tapping (no pun intended) into our intuition. As you peel back the layers of your emotions, you will learn more and more about your true self, which will lead not only to less stress and anxiety, but also a deeper and more trusting connection to your inner guide. 

It’s a beautiful cycle: the more you practice EFT, the less anxiety you have, and the more you learn to recognize and fully trust your intuition, the less anxiety you have… and on and on as you continue to grow and evolve. 

EFT tapping can also help you generate better ideas, think more clearly, and make better decisions. When we are under stress, the prefrontal cortex (the part of our brains responsible for things like decision-making, problem-solving, intelligence, and emotion regulation) goes “offline,” and our body begins flooding with adrenaline and cortisol. EFT tapping is proven to lower cortisol, calm our brains, and bring us back to a more resourceful state of mind. 

Tapping Therapy How-To: A Recipe For Healing 

Perhaps the best thing about EFT is that you can do it yourself, anywhere, with no equipment needed, in just a few minutes, and it’s totally free. 

Tapping therapy often involves a “script” that’s individual to you, which you create based on a basic template of a tapping session, often called a “recipe.” Here’s an example:

Step 1 – Identify one issue to focus on.  It could be a negative emotion, or recurring thought or physical ailment you want to work on – whatever is bothering you. It’s important to narrow down and focus on only one specific issue at a time for the best results. 

Take a deep breath and sit with whatever is coming up. What’s bothering you? The more specific you are, the better success you’ll have with EFT tapping. (For the sake of simplicity, we’ll use “anxiety” as our issue, although you’ll typically want to get more specific with your practice.) 

Now rate the intensity of your issue on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the worst. 

Step 2 – Perform the EFT Setup. With the pointer and middle finger of your dominant hand tap on the side of your other hand (called Side of Hand, or SOH point in EFT. It used to be referred to as “karate chop”, because it’s the spot on the side of your hand below your pinky finger where you would hit if you were doing a “karate chop”.) 

Tap this spot while you repeat your setup phrase three times. Your setup phrase follows this template, replacing the phrase “I have this anxiety” with whatever issue you’re trying to solve: “Even though I have this anxiety, I deeply and completely love and accept myself”. 

Step 3 – Tap Through the Sequence. Choose a reminder phrase, in our example we’ll use “this anxiety”. Starting at the Top of Head (TOH) point, gently tap 7-10 times while you repeat your reminder phrase (outloud). 

Next, work your way through each point with the same process. 

• Eyebrow Point (EB) tap 7-10 times, “This anxiety…”
• Side of Eye (SE): tap 7-10 times, “This anxiety…”
• Under Eye (EU): tap 7-10 times, “This anxiety…”
• Under Nose (UN): tap 7-10 times, “This anxiety…”
• Chin Point (CH): tap 7-10 times, “This anxiety…”
• Collarbone Point (CP): tap 7-10 times, “This anxiety…”
• Under Arm (UA): tap 7-10 times, “This anxiety…”

Step 4. Check-In and Measure. Pause here to notice the effects of your tapping. Reassess the intensity level. On a scale of 1-10 has the intensity level changed from Step 1? 

Step 5. Refocus and Repeat. If your intensity level is greater than zero, refocus on your issue and repeat the tapping process. 

For the second round of EFT tapping, you can change the wording to reflect the new intensity. For example: “Even though I still have some of this anxiety, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.” Repeat this setup phrase again three times, then work through the full sequence from step 3 again using the reminder phrase “this remaining anxiety.”

You can repeat steps 1-5 as many times as you need to to reach zero intensity, or as many times as you have time for in the moment, and you can come back to the same issue as many times as you need to. 

For those of you who are visual learners, there are thousands of videos on YouTube demonstrating emotional freedom techniques for specific needs. Some of our favorites are from The Tapping Solution on YouTube.  The Tapping Solution also has an excellent app with tutorials and guides to EFT tapping and an EFT tapping chart to help you identify the correct acupoints. 

What to do When EFT Tapping Therapy Isn’t Working For You 

There is really no downside to trying EFT. The worst that can happen is that nothing changes. However, if you don’t feel any positive results from EFT, I encourage you to do a little troubleshooting before you completely give up on it. 

Are you being specific enough?

In our “anxiety tapping therapy” example above we used the word “anxiety” for simplicity’s sake, but  in your own practice you are usually going to want to get more specific than that. 

A good question to ask yourself is “How true does this feel?” If you allow yourself to sit with what comes up, you’ll learn to recognize when you’ve hit on what’s really bothering you. You’ll often even feel the energy of a negative emotion in your body. (This is yet another way to really work the muscle of your own intuition!)

Let’s use the example problem of “I’m no good with money.”  This is probably too generic. You need to ask yourself WHY you believe you’re not good with money. Is there some past (or present) experience or memory that makes you believe you aren’t good with money? 

Come up with some potential triggers and try a few of them out in a tapping sequence. Some more specific examples: 

• Even though I have massive amounts of debt….
• Even though my dad always told me I would never make enough money… 
• Even though I have no retirement savings… 
• Even though I’m “just” a work-from-home mom… 

You might not be addressing the core issues. 

This is similar to the work you did to get specific enough, but maybe you’re being super specific and still not setting results because you’ve haven’t yet gotten to the core of what’s troubling you. 

If you still aren’t getting the results you desire from EFT tapping, keep working, keep digging, keep tapping, keep peeling back the layers of the negative emotions until you hit on the one that brings you full relief. 

A helpful question to ask yourself here is “What is something that I feel like I will never get over?” 

Some part of you doesn’t want to change. 

So, what if you’re certain you’ve uncovered your core issue and you’re being very specific and EFT tapping your little heart out and you STILL don’t feel better? 

It could be that some part of you is still clinging to the problem, to the negative energy. This happens for several reasons, and it’s not a failure. It’s human! It’s not uncommon for us to be getting something from hanging on to old stories.

For example, in the money example above — it could be that sticking with the I’m no good with money story feels safer than trying a whole new story. There might be unspoken pressure from family to stay small, to “not get too big for your britches.” So making lots of money and being good with it might feel like a betrayal of a silent family contract. If you keep holding on to the old story, then, if something doesn’t work out, you can say, Well, see, I’m just no good with money. There’s a kind of familiarity there. It’s a big risk to decide that you’re going to open to making more money!

So if you feel that attachment to an emotion, story, or situation that’s affecting you negatively, the solution is the same: keep digging, keep tapping. 

Figure out WHY part of you believes holding onto this problem somehow serves you and tap on that until it’s relieved. 

Some questions you can ask yourself: 

• If a part of me doesn’t want to remove this obstacle, what would that part of me have to gain from holding onto it? 
• What am I trying not to express or admit or acknowledge in some way? 
• Who do I get to be by holding onto this problem? Am I afraid of who you’ll become — or be forced to become — without it? 

Some of these setup phrases might be helpful for you here: 

• Even though it isn’t safe for me to get over this problem… 
• Even though some part of me is protecting me by holding onto this problem… 
• Even though some part of me wants to stay in my comfort zone by not releasing this problem… 
• Even though I have to let him/her/them off the hook if I stop holding onto this problem… 

You might just need to sleep on it. 

Although EFT tapping is a simple and non-invasive technique, it has powerful effects, and moving that much energy through our bodies can take time. 

Generally most positive effects are felt right away, but often changes continue to happen hours or even days after each tapping session. You might find that after a good night’s sleep you feel even greater relief. Be gentle with yourself, and patient with your EFT practice. You’re worth it. 

You need the help of a professional. 

If you’ve ever done any sort of therapy or counseling, you can probably think back to a moment or two when a professional pointed something out and you smacked yourself on the head like, Why in the world didn’t I see that?! 

It’s difficult to recognize our own problems sometimes. We are so wrapped up in our own stuff, that we just can’t see everything clearly and impartially. If you’ve tried EFT on your own and you still feel stuck, a professional EFT practitioner might be able to help you pinpoint exactly what you need to work on, and guide you through it. 

If you’re new to EFT, you also might want to work with a trained EFT practitioner to get you started off the right way. Even though EFT tapping is something you can totally do on your own, as with most things,  you’ll likely see quicker and greater success working with an expert.

I’m super excited to let you know that I’m currently in training to become a certified EFT facilitator, and I cannot WAIT to bring this powerful technique into our mindset training inside the Success with Soul Incubator!

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Frequently Asked Questions About Tapping Therapy