In my sessions, I regularly practice “acupuncture for the mind” - Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). It’s the best technique I’ve come across for releasing limiting beliefs and stepping into your power. So I was stoked to read yet another peer-reviewed clinical study that supports its effectiveness.

This one was cool because it looked at the energy (acupoint) side of things, which many folks are understandably skeptical of. Researchers wanted to know whether the acupoint tapping was a key part of the EFT secret sauce, or whether the same benefits could be obtained just from the talking that takes place with this healing technique.

The researchers did this study on a group of people who had “frozen shoulder” – a type of pain and limited motion affecting this joint. One group received EFT, while the control group received an identical protocol, but with diaphragmatic breathing substituted for the acupoint stimulation.

Want to know what happens in EFT? Check out this video.

While both groups experienced an improvement in their psychological symptoms and pain, EFT was more effective, and only the EFT group maintained the gains for psychological symptoms over time. These results mirror five earlier studies that showed that acupoint tapping was an active ingredient in EFT treatment. (Read more about how EFT works from a scientific perspective and what it's good for.)

It doesn’t stop there - we know through clinical studies that EFT reduces stress hormones, like cortisol, and also regulates the autonomic nervous system – calming the fight or flight reaction. This is partly how it “rewires” our responses to traumatic memories and current sources of stress.

It’s even been observed that EFT changes the expression of stress-related genes, causing some that increase inflammation to switch off, while others that support the body’s immune system to switch on. That means EFT even has the power to alter the expression of your genes in ways that significantly improve your wellbeing. How cool is that!

Full-text article: http://psycnet.apa.org/…/4/1/38.pdf&uid=2016-39089-001&db=PA