Emotional Wellness
Tapping: Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)
EFT, often called tapping, is a self-soothing practice that pairs gentle fingertip tapping on the body's acupressure points with honest, kind words about what you're feeling. Many people use it to settle a busy mind, soften stress, and meet difficult emotions without being swallowed by them. This practice walks you through a simple round of tapping you can return to anytime — no equipment, no experience, just you and your own two hands.
- Best time
- Anytime your feelings feel louder than the room — morning nerves, the middle of a hard day, or before sleep.
- Estimated duration
- About 5–10 minutes
- Pathway
- mind
What you'll need
- A quiet place to sit for a few minutes
- Your hands — fingertips do all the work
- Optional: your journal nearby, to note what comes up afterward
- Optional: the tap-along videos below for guided practice
The practice
- Step 1. Find a comfortable seat and take three slow breaths. Notice what you are feeling right now and, without judging it, name it quietly to yourself: "I feel ___ about ___."
- Step 2. Rate how strongly you feel it from 0 (calm) to 10 (intense). This is only a snapshot — a way to notice the shift afterward, not a grade.
- Step 3. Tap with two fingertips on the side of your hand (the karate-chop point) while slowly saying, three times: "Even though I feel this, I deeply and completely accept myself."
- Step 4. Move gently through the tapping points — top of the head, inner eyebrow, side of the eye, under the eye, under the nose, chin, collarbone, and under the arm — tapping each 5–7 times while repeating a short reminder phrase, such as "this feeling" or "this heaviness."
- Step 5. Pause. Take a full breath in through the nose and out through the mouth. Notice your body. Re-check your 0–10 number and repeat another round if you'd like, adjusting your words to whatever is present now.
- Step 6. Close with one honest, kind statement to yourself — something like "I am doing the best I can with what I have today" — and let your hands rest in your lap.
- Step 7. If you'd like company while you tap, the tap-along videos below from EFT practitioner Brad Yates are a gentle place to start. Follow along in your own words; his are only a guide.
Tap-along videos
Guided videos from EFT practitioner Brad Yates. They open right here on the page; his words are a guide — use your own wherever they fit better.
Atira's reflection
There is no wrong way to feel. Tapping does not ask you to fix yourself or pretend away what hurts. It simply gives your body somewhere to put what you are carrying — point by point, breath by breath, word by word. Begin where you are, and let that be enough for today.
Atira's original content — placeholder text pending her final wording.
Safety considerations
- Tapping is a self-care and reflection practice, not a medical or mental-health treatment. It is not a replacement for therapy, counseling, or care from a qualified professional.
- Tapping can bring strong feelings to the surface. Some people find it helpful to have a therapist or trusted person to process with, especially when working with grief or past trauma.
- If you feel overwhelmed at any point, stop tapping, place both feet on the floor, look around the room and name five things you can see, and breathe slowly until you feel settled.
- If you are in crisis, having thoughts of harming yourself, or feel unsafe, please reach out right away — call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, US) or contact local emergency services. You deserve support in the moment you need it.