Want an edge when it comes to memory improvement? Our latest episode features special guest Peta Stapleton, a renowned EFT researcher, clinical psychologist, and educator based in Australia. She shares her profound knowledge on the cause of memory problems and how to overcome them using EFT tapping, a technique that has been a game changer in my personal struggle with memory issues.
We delve into the fascinating realm of how memory is stored throughout the body and also investigate the science behind how lifestyle factors like diet, alcohol, and lack of sleep affect our memory. The incredible work Peta and her team are doing in using tapping techniques to reduce inflammation, improve memory, and restore rational thinking when triggered is something you won't want to miss!
The conversation takes a deeper turn as we explore the potential long-term effects of prolonged stress on the brain, including dementia. We discuss how tapping can help to manage test anxiety, break habits, and even assist in learning a second language. We also talk about the link between the vagus nerve and EFT therapy, and the impact of tapping on cancer patients.
Tune in for an insightful episode that promises to enhance your understanding of memory health and overall well-being.
You can find Peta and her work at www.petastapleton.com and below you'll find links to her courses, books and offerings:
Memory Improvement through EFT Tapping
The science of Tapping book
Tapping in the classroom and EFT HQ enter the code Kelly for 10% off.
EFT for weight management
EFT tapping for weight management certificate
www.petastapleton.com
*As an amazon associate, I earn on qualifying purchases.
Want an edge when it comes to memory improvement? Our latest episode features special guest Peta Stapleton, a renowned EFT researcher, clinical psychologist, and educator based in Australia. She shares her profound knowledge on the cause of memory problems and how to overcome them using EFT tapping, a technique that has been a game changer in my personal struggle with memory issues.
We delve into the fascinating realm of how memory is stored throughout the body and also investigate the science behind how lifestyle factors like diet, alcohol, and lack of sleep affect our memory. The incredible work Peta and her team are doing in using tapping techniques to reduce inflammation, improve memory, and restore rational thinking when triggered is something you won't want to miss!
The conversation takes a deeper turn as we explore the potential long-term effects of prolonged stress on the brain, including dementia. We discuss how tapping can help to manage test anxiety, break habits, and even assist in learning a second language. We also talk about the link between the vagus nerve and EFT therapy, and the impact of tapping on cancer patients.
Tune in for an insightful episode that promises to enhance your understanding of memory health and overall well-being.
You can find Peta and her work at www.petastapleton.com and below you'll find links to her courses, books and offerings:
Memory Improvement through EFT Tapping
The science of Tapping book
Tapping in the classroom and EFT HQ enter the code Kelly for 10% off.
EFT for weight management
EFT tapping for weight management certificate
www.petastapleton.com
*As an amazon associate, I earn on qualifying purchases.
Welcome to the Manifestation Lab. This is your host, kelly Howe. From the grounded science to the mystical and unseen, we're investigating this big experiment we call life and finding what really works when it comes to manifesting a life that sets your heart and your soul on fire. Welcome to the lab, you guys. I've seriously been struggling with my memory lately. I recognize now that a lot of this has to do with some internal pressure and stress that I'm putting on myself that has just gradually tipped me out of I would call the zone and taken me into a state where I'm having a difficult time focusing. It is getting better with the help of a book that I just picked up recently. It is called Memory Improvement Through EFT Tapping A Way to Boost Recall and Clarity. It is written by none other than Peta Stapleton.
Speaker 1:Peta is back on the podcast today. If you are not familiar with her, she is a world-renowned researcher in EFT. She is a clinical psychologist and educator in Australia and she is really, really just lovely. I'm so honored to get to talk to her again today. Her latest book is all about improving memory and, as luck would have it, I've been struggling with my memory lately. Fortunately, I picked up her book. Just a few quick reminders that hey, hey, hey, you've got some stress going on that you're not acknowledging. She has some beautiful tapping scripts to help you work through whatever you're feeling blocked with. She talks about different things that cause issues with memory, even things as far as eating too much sugar, drinking too much alcohol, toxins that we put in our body, not getting enough sleep, that kind of thing. She also talks about how to work with things like food cravings so that we don't eat as much sugar, so that we don't drink as much alcohol and so we don't reach for things like cigarettes. It's a really great, quick read. Fabulous tools in there to help calm the stress and anxiety that we feel when we can't remember something. If you have a little bit of a perfectionist streak, like myself, I get a little bit annoyed when I can't remember why I walked into a room or what I was doing. I get frustrated and I also have that background fear that I'm going to end up with something like Alzheimer's or dementia, like my grandmother. Really excited to talk to Pita again. Again, go check out my previous episode with Pita. She is really funny, so smart and just doing amazing things for the EFT world and pushing that research along. I'm excited for you to get to check in with her again this time. Lovely to be with you, to have you back again.
Speaker 1:As soon as we spoke last time, I knew that I wanted to book our next conversation and talk about your most recent book, which is all about tapping for memory improvement. As luck would have it, I have some family history of memory issues that I know the fear is always there and creeping in. I was really excited to get my hands on this book and just have a little bit of a guide as far as take myself out of the practitioner mode and have a guide as far as. Okay, these are the ways that I can work through some of that fear, some of that anxiety. Also, as luck would have it, I would say my memory over the last month has been horrible.
Speaker 1:You can talk about why that's been going on here in a little bit, but I was like, okay, universe, this is weird. I just got this book and I'm going to talk to Pita soon. Okay, the synchronicity, the weirdness of that lining up, was really strange. We'll talk more about because, reading your book, I did actually get some insight into, like aha, that's what's going on. Welcome back, and I'd love for you to just talk about. How did this book come about? Was there a personal need for it, or how did this start for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I'm really happy to talk about this. Thank you, kelly. I've long used, if you like, tapping for memory. If I walked into a room my whole 20 years of doing tapping and you forget why you walked in, I would just stand there and go oh, and so it was a commonplace thing to me. I didn't really think about it as being memory. I'm like, oh, I'm just, rather than walk back out, walk back in, I'll just stand here and tap.
Speaker 2:I had taught my students in exam situations that if they had studied doesn't work if you don't study. But if they'd studied but then got themselves stressed in the exam because they were overwhelmed, if they just tapped a few points or even squeezed the fingernail points, that would help them calm down and that information would come back. I used to see them doing that the last decade. They would go like this in the exam hall. No one really worried about them, but they were just accessing. I'm like, okay.
Speaker 2:Then, during the worldwide pandemic and we're all in lockdown, I read a book. I just had a pile of books that I was enjoying. I read this book called Moonwalking with Einstein Fabulous book. Absolutely recommend it. Now it's a book about the US memory championships, moonwalking with Einstein. Anyone wants to grab that one. I read this book just out of interest and went oh, how interesting they're teaching all these really lovely strategies for and I won't give far away the story but there's a journalist. That book is about a journalist who is interviewing all the people in the US memory championships and learning about the techniques that they've used. He's like oh, I wonder if anyone can do this.
Speaker 2:That prompted me during this time to say I use this all the time for memory. I'm in the education setting. Obviously, it's something we've always said If your little child's learning their timetable or learning the spell, just keep them calm by tapping. So I have this, at the time, insane idea I should write my next book on memory, and I had no plan whatsoever to write a book during the pandemic.
Speaker 2:However, I had time and I had space and that book had inspired me. I do talk about that in the book at the end, where I'm talking about my acknowledgements and I say this is what happened. I had the time, I had the space, I kind of crafted. I wrote the book without a publisher contract behind that at the time, because I'm like it doesn't matter, let's just write the book. So I started to interview people, I started to come up with different ideas and that's kind of how it came about, which is probably the best way for a book to. It's a bit like Elizabeth Gilbert saying sometimes the idea taps you on the shoulder and it's you who wrote to write. So I just felt it was that at the time.
Speaker 1:That's what I was getting ready to say. It sounds like one of those ideas that found you and then it moved through you, whether you wanted it to or not. It was like this is what I'm doing and that's the best. I'm waiting for my book to feel like that.
Speaker 2:I've had other books that have not gone that way and are still. I haven't gotten there.
Speaker 1:Yet there are times when I have so much fun and it's like flow and it's just so easy. And then there's other times, like this last month, which comes back to my memory issues, and I just completely froze. I mean, it was truly like and I really came to that conclusion when I was reading your book and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm not acknowledging that, I'm putting so much pressure on myself. I launched a monthly membership this year and we did six months of it and then I got this divine inspiration. I was like I need to write this month. I put the membership on pause, everybody was fine with it and I was like I'm going to spend this month writing and really bringing all my content together and putting it in the right order. And what.
Speaker 1:It took me weeks and I'm telling you it was your book that really queued me in to recognize that I had that paralysis. It was like, all of a sudden, I had the time, I made the time, I had the space for it, and then I completely froze. So your book, just reminding me of ways that I was putting pressure on myself and the ways that I was creating an internal anxiety that I wasn't acknowledging, helped me shift out of that very quickly. So maybe you could talk about how is it that stress, anxiety, depression start to mess with our memory and really throw us off track.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and I talk about the big six in the book and certainly depression, stress, but some lifestyle factors too Too much sugar, too little sleep, blood pressure, as well as alcohol and substances mess with all sorts of memory Not only short-term memory being able to be laid down into long-term memory. Think about students in an exam situation or public speaking where you just go blank and that is that frontal lobe just going hi. I'm leaving now Because it needs to send blood flow to the extremities so that you could fight or flight, you could run or you could actually freeze, and that obviously is a genuinely recognized stress response now. So truly it's biological. The brain is just kind of going OK, well, yep, let's help you out. You need to run away from this because there's something that's not quite aligned.
Speaker 2:But maybe for some it's freeze and certainly now we see form that people pleasing part of the stress response as well. So lots of biological kind of things that are being triggered there and that has an impact on the structure of memory. So not only do we talk about the hippocampus sitting next door to the amygdala memory centre, kids are researching now talking about memory stored throughout the whole body. That memory is in every cell of the body. So it's not just this little structure in the brain definitely gets affected by the stress center Miegdelha. But really memory kind of lighting up and I love this fabulous functional MRI studies done on music and even meditation where they'll put someone in and play an old song that maybe was from their childhood that they really had a positive connection with the brain doesn't light up. It does light up but it doesn't just light up. The whole body lights up when people remember something really powerful for them and you just sort of go that tells us memory's everywhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is, it is and it goes both ways with. I had to do a significant amount of tapping on a series of songs from that reminded me of a really negative relationship, and it does. I mean, music is one of those things for me. That sound bowl, you know, healing sound baths is what I'm trying to say, but there's just certain songs. I have a whole playlist that I know I get such an instant visceral, like head to toe, you know, my aura, like everything, just feels different. But, like I said, I did have to do some tapping on some songs that remind me of negative memories. So it does go both ways. It does. But yes, in every cell, in every cell, you feel it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Right there, right there.
Speaker 1:And for people that maybe haven't listened to our last conversation, the frontal lobe is really where we do kind of our rational thinking right, and so when that goes offline and the blood drains away from that frontal lobe when we get stressed, it goes to more primal areas of our brain. Is that correct? Where we are more in a like reactive state, where we're not really thinking rationally and we are reacting more like an animal?
Speaker 2:That's right. So it's almost like prefrontal cortex up here. That decision-making center is like your most evolved kind of development. It's almost like it moves backwards, back down through the evolutionary chain of back to our brain stem and limbic system, which is really that emotion, which is why grown adults can have a tantrum because truly that's gone offline and they've gone right back to where they kind of are being triggered and that might then look like dysregulated behavior but also kind of projection of different anger and things like that. So yeah, it's almost like we move back through the evolutionary we regress very quickly when that correct button is pushed.
Speaker 1:It's like and yes, I do feel like a two-year-old. I tell people that all the time you can start to notice. The more you do investigative processes like this, you start to notice when something feels older. I mean older in the sense that it's like way, way, way back because you feel younger. It's like suddenly I feel the same sort of anxious discomfort, insecurity that I felt when I was 14.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I know that that is not normally how I react, so I'm gonna look at this and try to figure out what's going on here. So, yeah, we can. When someone pokes that button, just right, it's like boom, right back in it, that's right, right back in it. I actually love in the book how you did bring in those big six things. When I went into the book I thought it was gonna be a lot more just about thoughts and tapping. I love that you brought in the sugar right. And going back also to the month where I was like bluh, like bumping into the walls and I can't get my thoughts organized, that was another thing where I was like dang Kelly, like clean up your diet, It'll help you memory, put your life together. Yeah, right, but maybe you could talk about that a little bit Like how is it that sugar and alcohol and these toxins that we put in our body, how is that actually affecting our memory and just our thoughts and our mood in general? Absolutely.
Speaker 2:So if any of them are obviously used in a coping strategy, they just well, they feel good and they taste good and things like that. There's a dark side, obviously, and we know that through all of the health literature that's out there which really is about that level of inflammation that can be a side effect of too high a sugar Think about alcohol being high in sugar anyway but certainly alcohol can affect other brain structures, so we do have forms of dementia that are alcohol induced and things like that. Of course that impacts memory, but sugar itself increases inflammation in the body, which is the brain as well. So of course that's gonna have an impact long term, not just obviously one day you have one chocolate biscuit. It's not that kind of. It's like lifestyle sort of years and years of accumulation of poor diet, where that inflammation again throughout the whole body and that is absolutely gonna have an impact on whether you remember someone's name.
Speaker 2:So that's a chapter I write about.
Speaker 2:That's the most common thing that people talk about is someone's just told me their name three times, so walk away and I'm like I've no idea what their name is. So a phone number, little things like what did I go to the supermarket for Things like that, because that short term into medium and long term memory is not just impacted by family history, like you touched on at the beginning, but just everyday things. How did you sleep the night before which I love the sleep kind of area and the impact something like tapping can have on sleep. You don't sleep well or you've just got used to four hours a night only. You absolutely have an impact on your memory long term. So people don't realize you have a lot of power over your memory. This is separate to things like early onset dementia, which we can test for genetically, but absolutely blood pressure could be linked to some of those lifestyle factors, weight things like that as well. You have so much power over having a good memory and tapping can just be the tool to help you kind of get there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that you brought in helping people with cravings and things like that and how to help them reduce those cravings with things like alcohol and cigarettes as well. I thought that was a beautiful way how you tied in all of that into the book for memory, and I think that there are so many people running around probably not realizing how much power they truly have, and I see this a lot and I know that this may not be your specific area, so if you're not comfortable talking about it, just let me know. I see this a lot with people with diagnosis, with things like ADD and ADHD, not having any awareness that same kind of inflammation can lead to and exacerbate that kind of neurodivergent, those issues, and I know that it's really, really complex, but have you done any studies or are there people out there working on things like ADD, adhd, with tapping, that kind of thing?
Speaker 2:So there are at a clinical practice level, so people in private practice working in that area, and certainly worldwide there's hundreds of them where that is their specialty. They might be a therapist, psychologist specializing, and absolutely the anecdotal feedback there is that it's a regulation, activity or tool that a child can self-apply and they get a benefit. So certainly here locally we have taught our special schools, so they're often schools where children are neurodiverse but also mute, so they may not have any language skills whatsoever. All of the staff in lots of those settings learn these tools such as tapping. We've taught our local one because they still work in the absence of language.
Speaker 2:So as long as you're in that heightened emotional state and you tap on a known acupuncture point, you'll get that regulation. So you don't necessarily need a word. And so that's where it does sort of shine with things like the autism spectrum disorders, adhd, you can just tap, walk around the house, move which really suits ADHD and still get the outcome which is okay. I can calm down a moment here or I can focus on something that I'm doing that type of thing. As far as at a research level, some trials have not sort of come out or emerged yet in that area only because I say this with good humor. Can you imagine having 120 children with ADHD that you run a clinical trial for altogether? Because we require those kind of numbers to get evidence. So it often gets done at that client case level where there's enough of them. But absolutely I can show you that from the field practitioners are using it and reporting fabulous outcomes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's amazing. I mean I've never been diagnosed but the older I get and the more I learn about ADD symptoms, I'm like I think I've been struggling with that my whole life and really had no idea what was going on. But I also I see some sort of overlap because I'm very intuitive. Also I see some sort of overlap with creatives and intuitives and even people like psychics and mediums, where they're tuned in somewhere else. I think it shows up as difficulty focusing on right here, right now stuff. Tapping has been truly life changing for me in that department. Two minutes of tapping and I feel way more focused.
Speaker 1:I think this is also a place and I wanted to ask you about this when I think things like tapping scripts are extremely helpful. I know that there's a limitation to tapping scripts. There are certain camps that feel like they're not useful at all. I just completely disagree with that. I sort of fell into that because of my education with all of my courses with tapping Through the years. I realize I just don't believe that. I know they're limiting, but I think for people that need help focusing, if they can read something and they're not trying to pull the words out of wherever, I think it's just so incredibly helpful.
Speaker 2:I'm with you and absolutely, if you pick that book up or any of the other things that I might write, I offer those, I'm giving those scripts because I agree and I recognize that the most common question if someone said what's the most common question I get, asked about tapping it's what words do I say that's the most common question I get.
Speaker 2:So people do get stuck and maybe don't get past that first hurdle because they don't know enough yet about it and they're like I don't know what to say when I tap. So to have a guide that at least gets you started, and even you know, the biggest thing that we suggest then is, if it's not quite right for you but it gets you started, and then please change the words, then that's the perfect recipe. So, absolutely, I agree, sometimes we need help to get started and then we're like OK, something else came up for me then and it pulls the thread a little bit for us so that we can unravel yeah, so, and anyone kind of you know listening to them, I'd be curious the book itself gives you. Say this when you're tapping on this issue for memory, say this so that you hear oh, ok, that's what I said.
Speaker 1:I think that's very, very helpful. I really do. And I remember where I was going with that was going back to the children, just picking a point and tapping, because people do get so caught up in that I don't know what to say, and that's such a beautiful reminder that really just any amount of tapping is useful, any amount of it. And so you know, if you can't remember the whole process and it is simple, but it is still a process to remember and it takes a while to get used to. And you know, along with the scripts, I know that I had a lot of issues with speaking and my throat and that throat chakra there just being completely closed down. And so in the beginning, you know, trying to find my own words, I didn't have them. I mean, I just flat didn't have them. I could tune into my body and I could describe what was going on there, but asking me emotionally what was going on and how to describe that, or even thinking about a memory, I would lose the words.
Speaker 1:And I did have a psychologist that used to live right around the corner from me. He was doing some experiments and he does research, meditation research. Actually, you guys would be a great connection. You guys are like two peas in a pod. But he was having me, he was hooked up, I was hooked up to what is it? The QEEG? And he was having me think of some memories.
Speaker 1:And sure enough that that broke goes, that that area of the brain where the language goes offline, sure enough would shut down like that for me and I was like I knew it. I knew it because I just lose that language. I don't so much anymore, but for years it took me a long time to get those words back. So I love your script, so thank you for that. I'm so excited. So do you think that the prolonged anxiety, prolonged depression, just, let's say, prolonged dysregulation, prolonged stress and this again may not be your area, but does that lead to these longer term dementia, alzheimer's? Is there any sort of correlation with that that you know of? And again, I know, if this isn't your area, it's okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so probably more in the lifestyle choice area about behaviors we do, more so than depression. Depression absolutely affects memory in the moment of having depression and if that is a long term kind of thing, of course you're going to see that over time. So absolutely affects, because often other behaviors are affected, like sleep and diet and things like that. We know more about things like diet, alcohol, dysregulated sleep, so people that don't sleep enough, that that all has an impact because the brain has a limp drainage system which only really came about in discovery 10 years ago, where the brain has to discharge through a limp drainage system all its toxins that encounter during the day, and toxins can be what we eat, what we drink, that type of thing. And if you don't get enough sleep, you don't get enough REM sleep, you don't get that process. So that then has a like buildup of toxins in the brain which will affect memory and we know that. It's quite funny that people will talk about I didn't sleep well last night and I feel like you know I'm a bit hungover or I've had a big night drinking, which I haven't I just didn't sleep and it's like, yeah, you literally haven't had the detox that night in because you need enough REM cycles and so different medications might affect that as well. So we know that, yes, that may have a pathway into dementia type diseases that aren't genetically driven, that you couldn't be tested for that truly, and some medications are now being shown 30 years on.
Speaker 2:The brain needs a lot of fat. So this is another diet myth that you know. Perhaps our parents, grandparents grew up in that oh, don't eat fats on you know foods, whereas we now know healthy fats are good, but some of them have found it hard to let go of that old kind of you know story. Fats in the brain, when they're stripped away, actually are a pathway to multiple sclerosis, other inflammation diseases and dementia. So you actually need to eat good fats to protect the brain. So there's kind of like a whole bunch of pathways in that are separate from and they're truly lifestyle driven.
Speaker 2:Coming back to, we have a lot of control over that, even if there's family history and I write in that last chapter in the book if you've had a family history, you have had parents or grandparents, great grandparents, that you know perhaps suffered from a dementia type disorder. You'd have to ask one what type was it? Did it have a lifestyle element. Was it genetic? Did it have a fear and worry about that yourself? That is something you can come in yourself so you can actually use tapping to actually not spend your next 20 years worrying about actually you know having that happen to you.
Speaker 1:That's definitely what I noticed that I'm doing, whereas where you were talking about earlier, you walk into a room, you forget something. I did that 20 years ago. I just didn't care, I didn't think about it, I was just like, oh, that's silly. But now, suddenly, being 43, I'm like, oh my God, is this how this starts? Is this what this feels like when it starts? So I'm just noticing it and I can have a sense of humor about it. But definitely I know I need to do a deep dive on working on the current worry, stress and then looking at the specific memories that I have, because I do have memories of watching my grandmother lose her mind, not remember people, and that's hard, that's hard to watch. So I need to do that.
Speaker 1:And so, as I mentioned, I love the tapping scripts. I love how many different pieces you bring in. You can pick up that book and tap on cravings and break habits and test. Anxiety is another great thing that I love that you threw into that book. I was absolutely that kid that would sit down and my brain would go blank. Just again. Frontal lobe just gone. As you said, bye-bye.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. And even to, as a parent reading a book like this for your children to help them. There's a chapter in there called you know how to supercharge your learning, and not just with your little ones, that keep them calm while they're learning and not getting stressed with mum testing them on the timestable or the spelling words or whatever, but certainly performance anxiety for a speech or sports or whatever, but for adults. So Dr Dawson Church, who of course is quite well known in the EFT world EFT universe, actually shared a story and it's in the book about how he used tapping to learn a second language as an adult.
Speaker 2:Because most of us are told oh, it's much easier to learn a second language when you're a child because the brain, like I don't know, for some reason, must work better when you're a child. And so he had this belief. So he tapped on the belief and then he tapped while he was listening to his you know audio tapes with the second language, because he was going to that country and just started to find he was more easily remembering. I'm like people don't realize how you can actually use tapping here, and it could be for something fun, like learning a musical instrument or a second language or a third language or whatever it might be. Just keep yourself calm and it'll go in easily.
Speaker 1:Yes, it'll be easier, You'll absorb the information. And that goes back to the pandemic, right, because so many of us had all this time and we were like I want to learn something, but most of us were too stressed. Yeah, yeah, you know, and I did so much tapping but it was just such a like always their baseline sort of thing out there that it was a weird. Yeah, I didn't, yeah, it was wild. It was wild. I did learn a little bit of the ukulele, but where I find myself getting frustrated and I need to tap on this is when I learn something and then I come back to it and it's gone and then I'm like yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So and I would say highly tapable. You know, just tap on that frustration, get that down, and then obviously my brain easily remembers what I learned last session.
Speaker 1:I most especially appreciated the positive tapping remarks in this book, specifically because I think there's so much of a narrative around the negativity, around forgetting. In my family it's so deeply programmed into me that those sort of more positive you know thoughts, perspectives around memory just don't come easily to me. So I really appreciated that.
Speaker 2:And I think you know, one of the nicest phrases we can use in tapping just to allow ourselves possibility is to start that sentence with what if you know? What if I had a fantastic memory? What if I easily retained information? What if? So you can just tap on what if and what if, and yes, things might come up. You can tap on those. But it allows possibility and I think we forget sometimes when we do learn the traditional EFT process, which is all about reducing negative feelings, states and things like that.
Speaker 2:You can also tap in possibility and we obviously recommend if anything comes up, make sure you address that. But it allows that feeling and that expansion to actually make it that this is allowed to come into your life. And that's one area in the sleep area that I do have in the book but also in a sleep program, where we say, yes, my racing mind, let's tap on that, calm that down, but then start tapping with. You know, I allow sleep to come in easily, I allow deep, restorative sleep, and tapping with those words often is what gets people then to go back to sleep. If sleep is an issue, it's about tapping and allowing that.
Speaker 1:It's like it just gently opens the door to it. That's right, just enough, so it doesn't feel like we're forcing it. Yeah, what if that curiosity just seems like it's sort of like, oh OK.
Speaker 2:Maybe just a little bit, and that's right. It's not going to send off too many reactions, right, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, whereas if we, if we go too far, too fast, sometimes I think that inner rebel comes in like, well, that's too easy. But in a child, of course, I would fall asleep easy if I could. You know, true, true, yeah, yeah, it's interesting because I was realizing, as you were talking about Dawson learning a second language, I have noticed in myself. You know there's programs out there, I know that there are lots of them, but I know Jim Quick is the one that comes to mind with his, his learning. I don't know what he did, I haven't taken his course, but I for years I've thought I should take that course.
Speaker 1:But I honestly think that I have so many belief systems to unwind that part of the reason I haven't stepped into doing something like that is because I don't think it's possible, right, I mean for me, like I know it's possible for other people. And again, this is all stuff that I'm just like in real time recognizing and and looking at and going. Ok, now it's going to get fun because now that I recognize that I have these beliefs, I can start to work on them and shift them. But I think that the perfectionist in me also would be like, well, if I can't do it really well, really fast, then I'm not going to do it.
Speaker 2:Well, that's unwind over here, peter, and why not? And why not be open to the possibility? You can do it fast, because beliefs, truly beliefs, are just a script or a story that somewhere we adopted and we went, ok, well, I'll make that true, often in the early years, and that's like well, is it? No, I could change that or I could let go of that belief now.
Speaker 2:And you're right, the more we're in this field, the more we recognize that we have conversations for like no two self right that one down and go home and kind of clear it or whatever. It's just stories. We either adopted them from a family, we took them on from some other experience, and we're like and it's when you recognize, oh, I've got a story there about that belief and I confirm it in the world when I go out there and whatever, that you truly can have the power to sort of go, well, maybe I don't want that one anymore, maybe I'll change that one. And sometimes it can become fun. You're like, oh, I'm just going to target this one for fun, you know, and just see what happens.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it does. I think that's how I'm looking at the memory stuff. I mean, obviously, the fear that I really need to deal with that, but I do. I think this is going to be a fun thing to experiment with and play with. And you said something really really important that I just want to like just really make sure people heard, and that was that when we have those beliefs and we go out in the world, we confirm them through that lens, right Like we make it so we see it as so, whether it's true or not. So we have to work on those beliefs, or that possibility just isn't there. We just were like completely closed off to it, right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And confirmation bias, you know, is a real thing. So it's what keeps us sane, so that we don't get that belief challenged. We literally, as I talk about, you know, the children in the cars often play that yellow spotto where they yell out spotto when they see a yellow car and I swear some of my daughters at some point could see a car four streets away because they get this point system and it's like they're looking for it and I'm like that's confirmation bias. You literally go and look for the evidence for yourself. So you go oh see, I am not good enough for, yes, seeing everyone leaves me or whatever the belief is. And it's like well, it's still open to change when and if the timing is right for someone, because they're sick of that confirmation and like therapy and they're like can you help me change this? And it's like yes, Ready to change this?
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, my, the last month we did in the membership before I paused it was all about celebration and manifesting celebration from other people, like feeling celebration and that energy, that just that feeling that gets so skipped over, right, where it's like, ok, I've got the school, I did this thing, we do it, and then we don't even sit and go. Wow, that was amazing. But it was funny that that month apparently needed to be my own medicine, right, my own thing. And as the month went on, I felt better and better and I was getting emails from people like thanking me for things, and it was like I was feeling celebratory about myself and I was receiving it, but definitely I was tuned into it, so I was recognizing, whereas it's possible that I was.
Speaker 2:I get that kind of thing all the time, but it just just blows right by, and you're absolutely right, because people will often question the whole law of attraction, particularly in the scientific world. They'll be like and all I say is well, you already do it with the negative. You already do the confirmation bias with the negative to confirm negative kind of belief, limiting beliefs, law of attraction and manifestation techniques or celebrating that kind of thing. Is you looking for the good? That's all it is. And so if you don't like this one, why don't you give this one a go? And it's like the exact same process.
Speaker 2:So it's funny you were talking about feeling good, like Martin Seligman's work in positive psychology, and he has perma as an acronym P-E-R-M-A.
Speaker 2:He says that's what equals happiness, and they all stand for something, but the A in perma stands for achievement and accomplishment and he says to be happy, you must celebrate your own achievement and accomplishment, not just all the other aspects.
Speaker 2:And he's like happiness is made up of five things. Whereas people go, I just want to be happy, and that's most clients in therapy. There's like well, you actually have to learn to celebrate you and others, which sometimes can be judged if you like, and it can be, and certainly in my country we have a cultural mentality of supporting the underdog, whether that's in a sporting situation or and cutting down tall poppies and so a tall puppy that stands out and rather than celebrating that's not seen at the cultural level, and I am talking globally in the country, which can make it difficult for people to sort of go. I want to feel really good that I just had that win and I think the more we have programs like yours and conversations with peers and send that congratulations email, fire and wine, the more we're embracing the whole ability to be happy and I come back and I bang on about that.
Speaker 1:So there's so much. There's so much conditioning around not being too big for our bridges and just keep it damped down, keep it down, keep it down, keep it down. And I find it so interesting because I very much believe in you know. I think there's so much we don't understand about the universe and how we're calling things into our existence and witnessing whatever hallucination we're having in the outside world. I don't know.
Speaker 1:But what I tell people is like I do believe in the law of attraction and you know there are aspects of people that teach it that I don't necessarily agree with, but overall I do agree with something like that. But I also say but listen to this, if you feel better, you're shifting your hormones to be into well-being. So you're going to your frontal lobe is going to come back online, you're going to think clear, you're going to be able to make better decisions, you're going to be able to see, you know, see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I'm like so if you feel better and physically your body is up regulating well-being, like give it a try.
Speaker 2:Just if you don't like it, you can go back the other way, but you know.
Speaker 1:so it's like I feel like we can embrace the same practices and look at kind of both explanations and it's like, whatever it is one or the other or both still feels better and we're physically healthier. So yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think I just want to really reiterate that point for both ends. Whether you're not feeling good or you are feeling good, every feeling state, a motion, has a neural hormone. So your whole body is physically, like you just said, being flooded with a hormone. That's either not so good for you, which is going to affect every cell in the body, including disease and the brain, or you have the opposite, where you choose a different feeling, or you have strategies to get you there and you have good hormones and they actually enhance immunity, they suppress cancer forming cellular activity and, of course, EFT tapping has got studies that show those gene changes, but lots of other techniques. As long as you get yourself into that feeling state and I'm going to say here without a substance. So as long as you get yourself here, you are. Are you sure, Peter?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you know we have psychedelic assisted therapy regulated in Australia, so we'll just see what happens there for trauma. But yeah, it's not just a feel good state, it's not just a state of mind, it's physical, it's truly a physical state. And you're right, you'll have better health.
Speaker 1:Better health. I think there's a lot of people walking around trying the positive psychology that have trained themselves to think positively but aren't connecting with the feeling.
Speaker 2:It's not about thought, it's about the feeling Right, right.
Speaker 2:So, often, yes, thought comes first, but they're really fast. Feeling overrides thought and can correct it. So even if you and you know lots of meditation practices or tracks you can listen to, you might just get you to feel in and try and ramp up, but it is feeling that changes the hormone structure, not the thought. Because, you're right, you could chant a positive affirmation, looking in the mirror for a million years, but if you don't have a feeling state that matches, nothing changes. And it's the same with positive tapping if there's stuff lurking underneath, but if you are just tapping on, I'm having a great day but you're feeling really down and depressed down and depressed winds. So, yeah, it is about the feeling state.
Speaker 1:I think that's where I have beefs with some of the manifesting teaching that's out. There is that that part is really skipped over for a lot of it, where it's just think, think, think, write your goals, think, think, think, see it, visualize it, but there's not any connection to the feeling, and so I feel like missing something really, really, really big and important in that. But you did a keynote, or shift gears just a little bit. You did a keynote recently on the Prima vascular system. Can you tell us what that is and why it is so exciting for the EMP community?
Speaker 2:Oh it made my life so much easier. So in the last sort of 10 years I'll backtrack, so 1960s, Korean researchers came out and said we've identified what we think is the meridian system in the body as a physical system. But they were doing it on, obviously, animals and they said, took photos in surgery. We think we've found what is the meridian system.
Speaker 1:And when did you see that was?
Speaker 2:1960.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, okay, so.
Speaker 2:Professor Kim, his name was, anyway. So they did publish that, did some conferences. Obviously, what happens when cutting edge research comes out is other researchers around the world will try and replicate that which happened and no one could replicate it. So no one could find the same system in animal models. So it kind of got buried and they said we think that I don't know, you made it up or whatever. So, paul, professor Kim didn't get much credit.
Speaker 2:Fast forward to early 2000s. Again, korean researchers different university I believe came across that and went. I think this is worth going back to revisit. We find new organs in the body all the time, like even in the last decade they've actually found a new organ that's at the back of the stomach in humans and we're like we didn't know that for hundreds of years. We have to take the organ. Yes, you can go Google that one. So we know that things are possible that we didn't know.
Speaker 2:So these very open-minded Korean researchers said we think there might be something in this. We're gonna go and have another look. Lo and behold, we have better imaging techniques. 40 years on. They replicate it and they find that there is indeed this vascular system in the body that corresponds 80 to 90% with those acupuncture charts where you see the meridian systems. If you would look. So they're like this was real. Professor Kim knew what he was talking about. So they then spend other researchers come on board and kind of go yep, we've been able to replicate as well. And then by 2020, so only a couple of years ago, papers started to come out where, again through imaging, they were able to inject tracer dye that obviously illuminates under scans, where they could see that meridian, now called the primovascular system, as a physical system in the body smaller than a capillary, and they could see like a condensation at acupoints. So along the system they'd see these density points and go. That corresponds again about 80% with the acupuncture points. So, not only the meridian point, but the and in my keynote, which is freely available on my YouTube channel for people to watch, I have surgery slides where I show you this and it's like there it is and there's the acupuncture point and there it travels along and there's the acupuncture point which allowed us obviously, in tapping, to also then look at.
Speaker 2:Okay, so when we're tapping on these acupuncture points, which we now know are truly physical, it's not just energy in the body, it's physical, it is. It's able to travel a pathway through the whole body but also, obviously, back to the brain structures. You know prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, so it is running because that all runs. You think about that point on the top of the head. We tap on. All the meridians run up to this single point, which is another point that I always say don't tap in a circle, you'll hit it. You won't hit it, you gotta tap in the middle, compete in the middle. You just see different videos out there. So we know that collagen is a semiconductor of this electrical activity, that we're going like this and collagen is actually part of how it's transmitting along that pathway.
Speaker 2:So, just, we've known for the last couple of years, but I was able to kind of pull it all together and make it make sense and give a keynote which I rerecorded, which is now just available to share out there, to say let's stop talking about energy, that's great, but let's talk about that this is a physical body. And it's so much easier for me to then have a conversation with a medical person or a scientific person and go oh, here you go, and they're like oh, okay, that's pretty cool. And you're like okay, let's move on. So yeah, stick a needle in tap on it. That's why acupuncture's got over a thousand clinical trials.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, that is so cool. And do we understand at all the mechanism of what is happening in these primovascular channels?
Speaker 2:So we understand that it's able to get to the brain. So we understand that's now a physical pathway. It's not sort of magically, I don't know making you. There's a physical pathway that's getting to the brain and it's giving that signal to the amygdala to either calm down or open up the hippocampus to remember things, or whatever. What we're looking at in tapping, though, is we are looking at the role of the vagus nerve. So we're doing a couple of research trials at the moment where we're looking at the reason why we seem to regulate, because we've got loads of studies in tapping that show blood pressure improves DNA changes, cortisol obviously reduces EEG normalisation, all that stuff. So we're like oh, the whole body is having an impact here, and we're like are we regulating the vagus nerve? So if someone was still kind of really in that sympathetic autonomic nervous system and obviously tapping is getting them down into parasympathetic is the vagus nerve the conduit that we're actually regulating?
Speaker 2:Our chronic pain trial we were able to measure vagus nerve activity. We only had 11 patients because it was during the pandemic and they had to come into my office, so we kind of were, and we also did MRIs on them and we did show, with Dr Stephen Porger's team, polyvinyl Theory a little machine that clips on your ear and when you do certain body movements it shows your vagus nerve activity. So we actually did show that. We haven't published it because we need a bigger trial, but we're like we're impacting the vagus nerve and that's probably why the rest of the body has all these biochemical, biochemistry sort of improvements and obviously the immediate goes quiet because that promo vascular system reaches it.
Speaker 2:But we seem to be having a bigger impact here on the whole body and it is why we've got chronic illness and chronic disease papers coming out where people are using tapping as part of their recovery process and recovering and maybe that's why we're having that impact. So that's how I think that's our next phase in EFT research, which we've already started, where we're really trying to say, I think, the more we can regulate vagus nerve activity and the whole autonomic nervous system, that that explains why people get better from things or don't have that disorder, ptsd, anymore. They have depression again, even though they had it for 25 years. Lutes, weight, whatever it is, yeah, so that's where we're at.
Speaker 1:It's amazing, it's so exciting. I also know that you, right before I mean like days before, I think, maybe a week before we spoke last time you had just submitted a bunch of studies I'm not sure exactly what it was, but a whole load of stuff to the American Psychological Association for review. So has anything happened with that?
Speaker 2:Not really. That was March this year Okay, 2023, just to put a timestamp on it and we have recently, literally last Thursday, so we're now August 2023. Our paper that was reviewed. So the meta analysis because we're only having EFT evaluated proposed from an stress disorder. That paper has been published and is in an open access journal, frontiers in Psychology. That is the paper that was submitted to the APA, so everyone can actually read it and say oh wow, actually EFT absolutely has a positive impact, large effects size for PTSD. So that was the study that was updated. It's now published.
Speaker 2:The actual report that was written is still sitting with the APA. We do understand that and I will say this publicly. They are questioning their, their criteria. So in seven years that the new criteria has been out, only three therapies have been subjected to the criteria for its evidence base. Two of them were cognitive behavioral therapy and the third one was EFT. So in seven years, no other therapies have been subjected, which means the 88 therapies currently sitting on their evidence base site may not meet their new criteria. So the APA are doing a external review at the moment and we're sort of stuck in the middle, if you like. So they're doing an external review, because I think they're acknowledging and even David Toland, who wrote the current criteria, the Toland criteria that we went against. He has been interviewed in recent months where he said I think CBT is falling short and isn't a full solution for everybody. So could we just have a moment where we just go like this yeah, I was getting ready to do a happy dance.
Speaker 1:So that interview I was like I was trying to like keep it together, but I'm like, oh, no, I'm like happy to share that because that's in, that's publicly available in an interview online.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so he's like he doesn't say anything about obviously tapping or somatic therapies or anything like that, but it's just like I think there's a question mark over where do we go from here with this evidence base kind of you know, kind of group of therapies and truly do we need to move beyond? And what will that look like? And we do know that because we've been told by the APA. That's why we're stuck at the moment and we're sort of sitting in limbo with our review report, because they are doing a massive kind of relook at their criteria, because they truly have not had more than three therapies go through in seven years, which means many of the therapies already existing on their side met the old criteria but may not meet the new criteria. So obviously you can't force everybody because their committee are volunteers, they all have jobs, they all volunteer, so they can't go through and evaluate 88 therapies.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, so it's an interesting time, I think, for psychology and therapy because there is a shift. I believe there is a shift happening. It is the fourth wave and I think, yes, I don't know how long it will take before somatic therapies are listed or are acknowledged, at least at that level, but certainly at a ground swole level. Everyone's doing them because everyone's like. Well, that talk therapy didn't work for my client with this issue. I have to find something else. That manualised version didn't work, I have to find something else. So, if anything, the field at large is actually pivoting, regardless of what someone tells us they are.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like the people with the boots on the ground are like something has to change because these people aren't getting better.
Speaker 2:And I'm going to go find the thing that's right and it's our code of conduct and ethics where, like almost the Hippocratic Oath in Madison, it's like don't keep doing something that doesn't work or that clients are paying money for, or that 25 sessions later they still are in square one.
Speaker 2:And I think most therapists are driven by that. They're like okay, well, what else have we got? We're seeing more and more registered healthcare professionals come and learn, tapping worldwide and even joining online, because they're trying to find something else. So they might be like oh, let's see what EFT is doing, let's see what EMDR is doing, let's see what somatic processing is doing. The fact that for the first time ever here in Australia we now teach EFT at master's level for our students to use in the clinic and I've just finished the first lot of teaching. They were flying high, these students, because they're like finally, we've been waiting for something we can use with our clients in the clinic, beyond just having a chat or beyond trying to get them to change the thought process, or beyond trying to recognize those limiting beliefs and change them.
Speaker 1:I'm truly tearing up. I'm like it's so different and exciting. It's totally different. From the way things have been done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:So you know, I'm well supported here I also have control issues and I'm like no one else is allowed to teach that except me, me, me, me. I've learned having a lady anyway, but it truly was. It was such a joy and the whole subject was. I taught Peter Levin's somatic processing, but that Rothschild's kind of approaches, janina Fisher's work, you know, in dysregulated, you know attachment, but all physically somatic skills and they were on the ground with their bits of string and boundaries and they were doing the flash technique for me and Dianne. They were tapping and they truly walked away after you know a four day intensive split over six weeks and they were like wide-eyed just because they applied it to themselves as well. So that's how you learn in those trainings and I'm like this is what I've been waiting for for the last 12 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, this is amazing. Congratulations. So that was just your first master's level.
Speaker 2:That was our first year that have been through yeah, yeah, oh, amazing.
Speaker 1:So I want to back up just a little bit. You mentioned the fourth wave, so that is Peter's, referring to the fourth wave of is it modalities or psychology?
Speaker 2:Yeah, just therapies in general, I think, therapies Whether you're in a counseling space or a practitioner of something else. And the third wave really was the cognitive, behavioural and the mindfulness and acceptance commitment. But really we saw EMDR recognised first in the fourth wave. So the iron movements they used, tapping as well, eft we see as that fourth. So it's things that come back to. Like Bessel-Bander-Colk said about Broker's area in the brain 25 years ago. He's like you can't do talk therapy if someone's in such a traumatised state the brain's offline. And he's like, yeah, and mine goes offline pretty easily.
Speaker 2:Everybody's does. So it was really how can we come back and really take an embodied approach here, because we truly believe and have enough evidence that memory is in the body. You can be triggered 25 years later by a sad song that reminds you and you're back there and it's like how's that possible? Because it's still there, it's visceral, and so I think somewhere like the last decade at least, people have been pivoting and kind of going all right, well, you know, maybe I don't want to do EFT, but I want to do something else. Or I want to learn something that vessels work, nails in trauma-informed yoga as a therapy approach, and it's like, yeah, why not? Cool, yeah, so yeah, amazing.
Speaker 1:Find something that works and try it. But if you're not having luck with traditional therapies, don't stop. There's so much out there. There's so so, so much out there. The other thing I wanted to back up to trying to remember, because you kind of like flitted by it really quickly I was like whoa, that was a big thing, peter.
Speaker 1:It was the fourth wave. We came back to that. I don't know it's done, it'll come back. There's my memory and it's like case in point. But the other thing a while back that you mentioned was that you have been involved with studies on cancer patients and that there's an epigenetic thing happening right. Did you mention that? Could you go deeper into that? Because you said that really quickly and I was like whoa, wait a minute.
Speaker 2:So there's been three studies done on EFT for gene expression. So the first study was done on just four patients where they were just sort of testing out what happens if you tap for just one hour on stressful things and 72 genes changed in their expression so they either started expressing or not expressing. They were absolutely to do with immunity, cancer suppression, so some of the genes there were suppressing the cancer tumor ability. So that was the first study. Then this was one hour, that was one hour of tapping. Then Dawson Church led a study where two papers came out on DNA expression of war veterans that had PTSD. So they'd returned from war settings. They had a 10 week tapping program so an hour a week, traditional 10 hours and they looked at gene expression. So that's through, obviously, blood samples and they found six genes that are known to be responsible for the post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms hypervigilance, nightmares, things like that downregulated and those six genes. Also downregulating meant that when they did their diagnosis after 10 sessions those veterans didn't make criteria for PTSD anymore, but it kind of correlated with the biological outcomes there.
Speaker 2:So yes, early 2020, we started with a local very integrative health cancer service. At the same time patients were receiving chemotherapy, radiation or traditional treatment. They came and attended four weeks worth of tapping two hours a week, so an eight hour tapping program During their traditional cancer treatment. We were measuring cortisol before and after every session saliva. We were measuring blood pressure and heart rate variability. So we started that in January 2020, which, of course, we know what happened in March 2020. The whole world went into lockdown so our patients were coming in person. We finished the trial online but we lost our biological measurements because they physically weren't here. But we were tapping on things such as diagnosis, the timer diagnosis, the stress, what that meant in the family nausea there's many studies published on tapping for nausea during chemotherapy because it can help reduce it. We tapped on what was happening in their lives 12 to 18 months prior to diagnosis, because big stressful events are seen to be triggers for cellular activity to change, so anything that they remembered. We tapped on interactions. They got a lot of tapping, so we did have about 30 patients go through that and we measured them against 30 patients that didn't get tapping, but just a treatment as usual, and I did write about that. So it is on.
Speaker 2:All the outcomes are in a blog post. I might send it to you so you can include it below. Oh yeah, it does. On an alternative medicine website. We had always intended to run that again as a bigger clinical trial and we've had a couple of attempts at funding because we want to keep that measurement stuff going, like the cortisol those kind of things, just so we can be picking those up. But to date we obviously haven't had the funding to be able to run that. But the service itself loved it and, if anything, the two facilitators that ran the trial for me are in private practice as psychologist EFT practitioners and this service just sends all their patients, so all the patients actually still continue to get EFT at a private level because they just love what the patients were saying and the outcome. So yes, we do want to revisit that space.
Speaker 1:Hey guys, Thanks for sticking around until the end. Truth be told, I did a very poor job keeping track of time during this podcast, as tends to happen with really great conversations and really great guests. So I did a really terrible, quick, rapid job of wrapping this conversation up with Pita, because I realized I was over on time and she had a student waiting for her. So I wanted to make sure we got you guys the information you need so that you can locate her products, her books, everything you need to if you need to get in touch with her. So first I want to talk about her website. You can find her at wwwpitasstapletoncom.
Speaker 1:I have dropped a link in the show notes for anything you may need to find as far as her latest books, her Tapping for Weight Management course. Link to her TED Talk, which is really really great. It's only 60 minutes long, it is so good. Definitely check that out and a link to her EFT HQ, which, for anybody who's wanting to deepen, broaden, really just hone in on their EFT knowledge and skills. The EFT HQ is a really great I think. It's a month-to-month course that she put together. It is chock full of resources for people like you and I that want to learn more about tapping, especially if you want to use it professionally, I would definitely recommend checking out the EFT HQ. So again, guys, this is all in the show notes. Definitely check it out, and I want to thank you for sticking around All right until next time.