Emotional stress has a tremendous impact on physical health. Whilst diet and exercise are essential for health and wellbeing, emotional health is more so. The mind and the body, as in YOUR mind and YOUR body are inextricably linked. Furthermore YOUR body is the servant to YOUR mind. When the mind is at peace, the body is able to function and heal. When your mind is not at peace – illness occurs. Your emotional health therefore is of the utmost importance.
Consider anxiety; anxiety is a normal human emotion that we all experience from time to time. For example, feeling anxious, nervous, tense, or uncertain and perhaps fearful, at the thought of sitting an exam, going into hospital, attending an interview or starting a new job or when faced with a problem at work, or when making an important decision, is quite normal. This in turn often creates worry around feeling uncomfortable, looking foolish or indeed, how successful you will be. These worries can affect your sleep, appetite and ability to focus or concentrate. However, if everything goes well, the anxiety will go away.
Anxiety is a normal human emotion, but as soon as panic and anxiety symptoms worsen into anxiety attacks and panic attacks, it may be then be an anxiety disorder. Anxiety disorders cause such pain and suffering that they interfere with a person’s ability to lead a normal life.
There are quite a few well-known types of anxiety disorders, including: panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, social anxiety disorder, specific phobias, and generalised anxiety disorder.
Symptoms vary depending on the type of anxiety disorder; wide-ranging symptoms include:
Feelings of panic, fear and uneasiness
Numbness or tingling in the hands or feet
Uncontrollable, obsessive thoughts
Repeated thoughts or flashbacks of traumatic experiences
Nightmares or problems sleeping
Shortness of breath
Palpitations
Dizziness
Ritualistic behaviours, such as repeated hand washing
Cold or sweaty hands and/or feet
Unable to be still and calm
Dry mouth
Nausea
Muscle tension
How can EFT help?
EFT is based on the principles of acupuncture without the needles. It involves gentle tapping with the fingertips on particular natural comfort points on the body in a similar way to that when we are stressed or concentrating hard, in that we have a tendency to hold our heads or rub our temples. What we are in fact doing is accessing comforting points on our body that soothe our energies. Emotional Freedom Technique enables us to actually tune-in to our stress, anxiety, emotion, pain etc whilst we tap with our fingertips on these specific points. This then clears any blockages of energy, soothes our nervous system and enables us to think more clearly.
EFT does not involve the use of drugs nor does it come with any known side-effects, and, unlike conventional talking therapies you do not need to talk about your problems for months. EFT is a very gentle yet effective treatment.
There’s no doubt about it – anxiety, panic attacks and anxiety disorders are distressing. You probably don’t feel able to talk to people about it as you might feel embarrassed, ashamed or feel like you “should be able to cope”. You may well have been told to “pull yourself together” or “get a grip of yourself” in the past. Well suffer no more, help is at hand; the Emotional Freedom Technique really can help you.
Please note: Distance is not a problem, I work with people worldwide using Skype.