My Experience With EFT Tapping For IBS And Anxiety
I used to believe that IBS caused my anxiety. But it was actually the other way around. Over the past couple of years, I have learned that my IBS flares are often triggered or worsened by stress, which means that working on my mental health can indeed impact my physical health.
Ever since accepting that stress and anxiety are my major IBS triggers, I’ve been on a mission to improve my stress management and resilience. And since therapy is not currently accessible to me, I’ve been trying different techniques that can be done in the comfort of my own home. In the past, I’ve written about my experience with hypnotherapy. Now, I would like to share another method I recently discovered: EFT tapping.
What is EFT tapping?
EFT, short for emotional freedom technique, is based on Chinese medicine and follows the same principle as acupuncture. The technique is centered around the belief that energy travels along specific pathways within the body. Tapping on meridian points with your fingers while focusing on specific areas of emotional or physical pain is supposed to help rebalance the body and alleviate health issues.
I came across EFT tapping while researching the naturopathic approach to IBS. I had never heard of it and wasn’t initially intrigued. It was only after discussing the release of trauma and how it can help IBS with other community members that I remembered it and decided to look into it more.
In practice, EFT consists of tapping through various pressure points on your head, face and upper body while listening to and repeating affirmations. The goal is to work through memories and emotions to release stress stored within the body.
How can EFT help with IBS?
I can only speak for myself, but so far, EFT has helped me with a couple of issues.
Firstly, my anxiety seems to center around past experiences that were traumatic for me. These include bad flares after eating certain foods and making me afraid to ever go near them again, my recent experiences with stomach bugs and how impossible it felt to care for my kids, which now causes me to panic about anything remotely resembling a stomach virus, and so on. EFT tapping helps me work through this anxiety and understand why it’s there. It also teaches me to realize that I don’t need it to protect me.
Secondly, I really struggle with being pessimistic when it comes to my health. It almost feels as if enjoying a good day and not thinking about the next flare could jinx it. So, I’m using EFT to unlearn that I need my anxiety to keep me safe, as I’m capable of making good decisions without stressing over flares.
And thirdly, I’m using EFT to help me accept my body where it is now, and believe that it’s actually trying to heal. This mindset is completely new to me, but I find it so much nicer than being angry at my body for being sick.
My results with EFT
Not every tapping session I’ve tried so far has worked for me, but there are a couple of free videos on YouTube that I do over and over again. With a successful tapping session, I can almost physically feel my body releasing stress. I also tend to get incredibly tired during a session, but in a peaceful way.
Sometimes, one or two sessions are enough for me to work through minor things. For others, I keep tapping over and over again to slowly release them. Over time, I find myself repeating the affirmations of the videos in my head when I start feeling anxious and panicked, and it really helps.
The key for me is to stop fighting feelings and memories like I’ve been doing all of my life, and instead live through them and accept them. In one of the tapping videos I like, the practitioner mentions that our digestive system can get messed up when we’re unable to digest life, and this really resonates with me. Over time, I’m able to remember past experiences without getting triggered so much, and that’s a big win for me.
Have you ever tried EFT tapping? If yes, did it help with your IBS?
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