Creating Calm - EFT

12/01/2025

27/09/2024

Early today I shared about how teens cope and what impact their different teachers have on their life.

Our Australian non-randomised controlled clinical trial investigated group EFT (tapping) within two high schools. The trial aimed to increase student self-esteem and resilience, and decrease their fear of failure and emotional difficulties in high achieving academic streams. The students all received 5 weekly sessions of 75 minutes each, during normal school hours and a booster session one year later. The facilitators were a registered clinical psychologist and a psychotherapist and both were qualified EFT practitioners.

The largest statistically significant change was from pre-test to 12-month follow-up. Fear of failure was the most significantly affected variable, and students indicated in their survey a year later (compared to when they started the trial) that this was the most impacted area in their lives (a statistical difference indicates the results are not due to chance). Potential improvements in student functioning, ease of teaching EFT, and cost-effectiveness suggest that further research is warranted but EFT may offer students significant benefits with low risks and time demands, at relatively low economic cost to schools.

Does you teen tap? 🙃

30/08/2024

Sprinkle that stuff around like confetti

07/08/2024

05/08/2024

Useful tip

Add humming to your list of coping tools! https://www.theottoolbox.com/sensory-coping-strategies-for-kids/

04/07/2024

Several independent studies of treatment for PTSD have shown body based interventions (EMDR and EFT/somatic therapies) out perform the cognitive approaches.

26/05/2024

07/05/2024

Sunday Self-Care 🪴

Dr. Kristin Neff on Nurturing Yourself with Self-Compassion 🙏🏽

“The number one thing I’ve found in my research is that people think it’s good to be a little self-compassionate, but not too much. There is a strong belief that we need self-criticism to motivate us. Meaning, ‘If I’m not hard on myself, I’ll let myself get away with everything.’”

This reflects a fundamental misunderstanding about what self-compassion is: being kind and supportive with yourself when you’re confronting personal weaknesses, challenges, and setbacks. “Self-compassion goes beyond self-acceptance, it has an active element of caring, of wanting the best for yourself. It means saying to yourself, ‘I want to heal, to be happy, to be healthy,’ and knowing that sometimes requires you to make a change.”

If you view the change you’re trying to make as an act of self-care instead of trying to motivate yourself with anger or rejection, you’ll be more likely to succeed.

19/04/2024

A few weeks ago I shared a slide graphic that showed many targets and mechanisms that lavender essential oil uses to influence human health. This demonstrates that essential oils are complex, multitarget, and multi-mechanism natural solutions.

A recent preclinical study evaluated the antidepressant and anti-anxiety effects of distilled tangerine essential oil and sought to discover the active constituents responsible for its therapeutic effects. The oil contained 18 constituents (complex). The researchers found that tangerine oil targets 29 proteins (multitarget) associated with depression and linalool, para-cymene, alpha-terpinene, terpinen-4-ol, and alpha-terpineol were the major active antidepressant constituents. By targeting these proteins, the oil adjusted molecular functions, cellular functions, and biological processes (multi-mechanism). Additionally, linalool, para-cymene and terpinen-4-ol demonstrated neuroprotective properties and reduced neuroinflammation. An intranasal spray containing the oil was effective to reduce depression in a preclinical model. All of this shows that tangerine essential oil is a promising, non-invasive solution for depression.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38567354/

11/04/2024

Research has identified a 10 day window of time that exists immediately after a traumatic event before significant neuron and synaptic changes happen - that can turn a single trauma into an event that can alter a lifetime and potentially Post traumatic stress disorder. What happens in that 10 days is important for the brain.

Indian researchers have shown that a single stressful incident can lead to increased electrical activity in a brain region known as the amygdala. This activity sets in late, occurring ten days after a single stressful episode. It is dependent on a molecule known as the N-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor (NMDA-R), an ion channel protein on nerve cells known to be crucial for memory functions. If this is blocked, then it potentially stops negative outcomes such as PTSD from developing.

Ref - Farhana Yasmin, Kapil Saxena, Bruce S. McEwen, Sumantra Chattarji. The delayed strengthening of synaptic connectivity in the amygdala depends on NMDA receptor activation during acute stress. Physiological Reports, 2016; 4 (20): e13002 DOI: 10.14814/phy2.13002

31/03/2024