Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), aka tapping, is a healing modality designed to calm the central nervous system, thereby helping to ease anxiety and other uncomfortable emotions. EFT helps you unleash stuck emotions and ‘tap’ into your subconscious mind, by way of specific tapping or pressing on pressure points.
The technique was initially developed in the 1980s by students of acupuncture who realized you could stimulate acupressure points without needles. Initially, it was used to target physical pain, but within a decade it evolved to target emotional issues as well. “In 1995, Gary Craig released Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), which combined tapping meridian points in sequence while borrowing concepts from Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) [a form of psychotherapy where a person explores the connection between their language with their habits and behaviors] to address many different aspects of issues at hand,” Lekhraj says. Put more plainly, EFT involves speaking affirmations and other “negativity-clearing statements” while tapping on specific meridian points on the body with the fingertips.