Tapping For Your Best Midlife - Part 1

in this first episode of our new Confidence Deep Dive mini-series, I’m breaking down the science behind Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) and why this simple practice is recognized by the American Psychological Association as a valid treatment for stress and trauma.

If you’re skeptical about how tapping on your face can change your life — or if you’re ready to learn a proven method to lower cortisol and interrupt negative thought patterns — this episode is for you.

What You’ll Learn:

✔ The science of EFT: How tapping interrupts neural pathways to stop fear and anger in their tracks 

✔ Why tapping is proven to dramatically reduce cortisol levels in the body 

✔ How to use the SUDS scale (0-10) to measure your emotional intensity before and after you tap 

✔ A step-by-step audio guide to locating all the key tapping points

Tapping isn't just a placebo; it sends a piezoelectric charge through your connective tissue that literally tells your brain, "You are safe," allowing you to react with calm instead of fear.

Take Action Today:

• Find Your Points: Practice locating the points we covered: Karate Chop, Eyebrow, Side of Eye, Under Eye, Under Nose, Chin, Collarbone, Under Arm, and Top of Head.

Why This Episode Matters

Midlife is often when our nervous systems are "amped up" from decades of stress. We need tools that don't just work on our thoughts, but on our biology. 

**Let me know your questions and comments! Your private email access is at bonus@cherylpfischer.com.

Transcript

Mini Series Kickoff And Focus

Cheryl Fischer 0:07

Hello, my friend! We are in a brand new mini series! Yay! Okay, so over the next few weeks on this confidence deep dive set of private bonus episodes. Thank you for subscribing, by the way, you will be walking through with me tapping. Tapping is also known as EFT, which stands for emotional freedom technique. And if you've been following anything that I put out in the world for any amount of time, you've heard me talk about tapping before. And what I think is interesting about tapping is it's so simple, and you'll see what I mean today, that sometimes what I hear from people is how can that possibly be effective? How can that possibly be a real thing? I once had a friend say to me, I'm not into that woo-woo stuff like tapping. Well, here's the thing.

What Tapping Is And Why It Works

Cheryl Fischer 1:08

I'm gonna explain to you today what tapping is and why it is recognized as a valid treatment. And then in our next few episodes coming throughout the month on the confidence deep dive, we're gonna do some actual tapping practices that you might want to save and use. And you can play them over and over again. You can absolutely do tapping on your own without me, or we can coach together and we can even personalize it more. So there's lots of ways that tapping can be part of your life. And again, I think because it's so simple, sometimes we think that can't be real. So when tapping was first being, do I want to use the word created, uh used, people are coming up with it, it was in the 70s, as far as I know. And tapping was based on the same concept uh that acupuncture uses or acupressure, and that is energy meridians in the body. And so we know acupuncture is very valid as a treatment. In fact, on Mind Your Midlife, there's an acupuncture episode coming up soon, if you're listening to this in mid-January anyway. And so the idea was let's get the energy moving in the body and kind of clear it out. And what they found over 20, now 30, 40, 50 years of tapping was that it works to basically interrupt the process of creating neural pathways that are often negative. So when we have an experience in life, something bad happens to us in some way, or it was a shock, or it was very emotional, that creates a neural pathway in the brain. And that's why we can get triggered in the future. Something seems similar to that negative experience. So, uh-oh, the same thing is gonna happen. That's when kind of fear is running things and it sees that pattern and it goes, oh no, this is gonna happen. So if we want to change that, we have to interrupt the process of creating these connections so that

Neuroscience, Cortisol, And Safety Signals

Cheryl Fischer 3:22

we can create new ones. And that's what tapping can do. So when you are tapping on acupressure points on the body, which I'm gonna explain to you, tapping sends signals to your brain to react with calm instead of fear or upset or anger. And it has been proven to dramatically reduce cortisol levels. I want you to hear that again. It has been proven to dramatically reduce cortisol levels. So we talk about cortisol, right? We're we're overrun with cortisol because we live in a stressful state. Our nervous systems are amped up so much of the time because of that stress. So the way that Dawson Church explains it, who's the author of The Genie in Your Genes, is tapping creates a piezoelectric charge that travels through the connective tissue along the path of least electrical resistance. When a traumatic memory is recalled, along with the awareness of the site in the body that holds the primary memory of the trauma, tapping introduces a message of safety to the body that is not congruent with the emotionally arousing memory. So it can really change your emotional state, and it's so easy. So we can use tapping to reduce our fear, our anger, our sadness about something. We can use tapping to inspire ourselves to go for something more. We can use tapping even to reduce pain. I tend to work with clients on the first two more than the third one, but this is an American

SUDS Scale And Measuring Intensity

Cheryl Fischer 5:22

Psychological Association APA recognized form of treatment. So it is a real thing. And I wanted to kind of say that to begin with. Now, if you are working with a practitioner on tapping, the first thing you will likely do is you will assign a number to how you're feeling about what you're going to tap about. And that number is generally most of the time one through ten on what's called the suds scale. And that means subjective units of distress. So zero, I guess I should say zero to ten. Zero means no intensity. I don't have any emotion about this at all. 10 means extreme intensity. I have extreme anger or extreme fear or extreme upset or extreme something. And when we tap on that, then after we go through the tapping practice, we we ask ourselves the same thing again. What number would I give how I'm feeling about this issue? And most of the time that number starts to come down. So that's why we say we're able to clear some of the emotion. And to have something that we can do this easily that can actually reduce cortisol levels in your body is at the very least worth a try. And is one of my favorite things to help to reduce the jarring emotion related to some things, or to help us believe in an affirmation or a goal that we're working on. So this is an audio. I

Step-By-Step Tapping Points Guide

Cheryl Fischer 7:06

am going to do my best to explain to you the tapping points now in today's episode. And then, like I said, in the next episode in this mini-series that'll come up next week, then I'll walk through an actual tapping practice with you, okay? Because it's going to take a little bit of extra explanation to do this without a video. I definitely recognize that. Alright, so the first tapping point is going to be what we call the karate chop point on the side of your hand. And it doesn't matter which hand, either side doesn't matter. Very forgiving in that way. So this is the outside of the palm of your hand, like where you're looking at your pinky finger, go down the side of your hand from there. And I would tap on that outside of my hand with a couple fingers from the other hand, just so I'm making sure I'm getting the point I need to get. And when we tap, what we're doing is gentle tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap. Not harsh, definitely so you can feel it though. That's the karate chop point. Then typically what we do is we go through some points on our head, face, and chest. So the first one, or the next one, will be the inside of your eyebrow. So this is the end of your eyebrow that's closest to your nose. Again, either side or both, if you have two hands free, you're tapping right on the inside of that eyebrow. Then the next point will be what we call outside of the eye. So if you go just pointing at your eye, just go to the bone outside to the to the right or left, to the outside of that eye, and you're tapping there. And then the next one is underneath the eye. So this is again right kind of near the bone. You're not poking yourself in the eye, but it's like two fingers, middle of your eye, underneath your eye, kind of where the edge of that bone is under your eye, tapping gently. Then under the nose, and so this is really halfway between your nose and your upper lip. So on the skin there, under your nose. And then we're tapping under our mouth. And again, this is more or less halfway between your chin and your lower lip. So I'm tapping there with two fingers, and then we go to the collarbone. And so you know in the center of your collarbone, there's kind of a U shape. So I'm generally tapping on one side of that U shape, and I use again maybe three fingers here, so I make sure I'm getting the point I want to get. And then under the arm. Now, if you're a woman and you're listening to this, you're going to be kind of about where the side of your bra sits under your arm. So a little bit down from your armpit, a few inches down from your armpit, maybe between your armpit and where the side of your bra is. You're tapping there under your arm. Obviously, one arm at a time, it doesn't matter which side. And then the last one is going to be crown of your head. So this is a little, if you know where the crown of your head is, it's a little bit back from the middle

What’s Next And Listener Requests

Cheryl Fischer 10:14

on the top of your head. And again, just use extra fingers just to, you know, ensure that you're hitting the spot you really want to hit. Now, typically we go through the points in that order and then we come back to that karate chop point on the side of your hand. So next time we're going to go through a practice tapping exercise, and we're going to do a few this month. And uh if you would like to, please go ahead and email me at the email that only you, my bonus subscribers, have access to bonus@cherylpfischer.com. It's in the show notes. And tell me what would what subject would you love to have a tapping practice on this month? And I will be happy to create that as one of the mini episodes and share it. Is it about a job? Is it about a relationship? Is it about trying a new goal? Going for something bigger, believing in yourself? What is it that you would like tapping about? And we will put that in this month. So I'll see you next time.