Did you know scientists can measure stress in your saliva?
Think of a time in your life when something stressful or frightening happened, you can probably feel physical changes in your body that went along with it. The typical responses include increased heart rate, sweaty palms, shallow breathing, and tightening in the chest or stomach area.
But there are also changes that happen on a biochemical level. And when the stressful or fearful event is an extreme one, or if it recurs over time, those biochemical changes lead to serious long-term health consequences. One of the most important hormones in our body’s stress response is cortisol. This hormone actually regulates other hormones and is important to many critical aspects of optimal health.
When stressed, anxious, or frightened, our cortisol levels increase, and this creates disease in our bodies. Prolonged high levels of cortisol impact in a less than optimal way our heart, immune system, sexual function, sleep, digestion, respiration, circulation, and can even be responsible for premature aging.
Can Tapping Change My Hormones?
Researchers have cited numerous studies concluding that EFT results in a reduction of anxiety symptoms in people across a wide spectrum of circumstances. This has led to the formulation of theories about what exactly is happening in the body during a Tapping session.
It’s well documented that outward physical changes take place after a series of tapping rounds. This could be noticed by a reduction of pain, the loosening of rigid joints, or perhaps the relaxation of muscles. But there are those who believe that changes are also taking place at the level of cellular biology and genetic expression. These changes constitute the foundational work in the rapidly developing field of epigenetics.
To help prove this theory, the first step requires the gathering of physical evidence of such a change. In previous studies, MRI and EEG readings that measure a person’s brain activity have shown that acupuncture or pressure on the acupoints results in visible changes (decreases) in hyper-arousal of the nervous system. These researchers of this study wanted to take another step in this direction to see if there were corresponding dips in cortisol levels after EFT treatment.
Studying Saliva
Researchers recruited study participants (aged 18-80) from an online site advertising a free cortisol test; they were neither current patients nor did they have any clinical diagnoses.
They were then divided into three groups corresponding to the type of treatment to be received: tapping, supportive listening, and no treatment. The cortisol levels of each participant were taken initially with a saliva kit, and all were asked to fill out one of the standard psychological questionnaires that measure anxiety & stress symptoms, rating their symptoms on a scale of 1-5. The 3 groups then had individual 50-minute sessions of treatment.
The sympathetic listening group met with a licensed therapist who empathized with the person and challenged his or her negative thoughts. The tapping group had a session with a coach certified in EFT. The non-treatment group waited in the waiting room. After the individual sessions, researchers took a second saliva kit sample and administered a second questionnaire. Then the scientists analyzed these samples.
Incredible Results: EFT Lowers Cortisol Levels
After analysis, the researchers found cortisol levels from the two control groups reduced by 14%, but the EFT group reduced by 24%. For the psychological symptoms, one questionnaire showed a 42% decrease for EFT, a 13% decrease for the non-treatment group, and a 17% decrease for the sympathetic listening group. On another questionnaire, EFT showed a 51% reduction vs 14% in sympathetic listening and 17% for non-treatment.