[00:00:00] Could simply tapping specific points on your body help reduce stress and anxiety? Today I sit down with Dr. Peta Stapleton, a professor of psychology at Bond University, who's researched the Emotional Freedom Technique for 25 years. Research shows EFT can create measurable changes in stress hormones, heart rate, and mood.
and blood pressure. Dr. Stapleton's work includes clinical trials studying how EFT can support people going through cancer treatment, showing improvements in both psychological well being and physical measures like cortisol. You'll learn how EFT works, why acknowledging difficult emotions while tapping can actually help reduce stress, And how this technique is being used in major cancer centers.
Stay until the end to learn a simple tap and breathe technique that you can start using today. You're listening to the Born to Heal podcast, and I'm your host, Dr. Katie Deming. After two decades of practicing as an oncologist and caring for thousands of patients, [00:01:00] I've seen firsthand how our health can change.
Care System places obstacles in your path to true healing. My guests and I will bridge the worlds of Western medicine and alternative healing to help you achieve optimal health. Expect to uncover new insights, share a few laughs, and maybe even shed some tears along the way. But most of all, we'll learn how to heal from within together.
So let's dive into today's episode. Let's welcome Peeta Stapleton, a health psychologist, professor of psychology at Bond University and world leading expert and researcher in the emotional freedom technique, also known as EFT or tapping. Thank you, Peeta, for joining us. Welcome. My absolute pleasure. Thank you, Katie.
I wonder, maybe you could just start off by telling us why EFT, like what, how did this land on your radar and how did you get started with doing EFT? Yeah, absolutely. It was about [00:02:00] 25 years ago now, where probably sheer desperation, I was complaining to a colleague about the lack of effectiveness that my therapy tools that I had at my fingertips at the time, and my clinical area has always been eating disorders.
So anorexia, bulimia nervosa. So I was literally complaining to him saying, I feel really, Ineffective, what I've been trained in, none of my patients are getting better, this is, and he said to me, I've come across this kind of weird technique on the internet, dial up internet, mind you, and he said, but I think there's something in it.
Now that's all he told me. I knew nothing about what he was saying, uh, so I just dismissed him because I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. A couple of months later, he'd come along to a support group that I was running for eating disorder sufferers in the community, and a young girl had, was having a panic attack in that group.
And so he gestured, I'll just take her outside, you know, while I was teaching the topic. And Within [00:03:00] about five or six minutes, they came back and she was calm and composed, to the point, Katie, where I thought he popped a Rebellium. And I thought, oh, that's really unethical. I must have a chat afterwards. So the group ends.
She's calm for the rest of the group. I said to him, What happened there? Obviously, I was joking about the Valium. And he said, no, I did that tapping technique that I've been trying to tell you about that I've been kind of Googling. So because I'd seen an outcome in a very fast outcome, I said, okay, you need to tell me, what are you talking about?
And so that really 25 years ago was, Uh, the first experience, I then went to a workshop and within a couple of years, my academic job, and I was teaching in medicine, the school of medicine at a different university. And my boss said to me, you need to do some research in, in your job capacity. And I said, well, look, we've been playing around with this technique.
tapping on acupuncture points. Can I do that? And he said to me, Oh, nobody's going to come to any research [00:04:00] trials. That's ridiculous. He was a musculoskeletal GP. And I said, Oh, well, we're going to do it for food cravings, obesity, you know, maybe, maybe people will lose their food cravings and lose weight. He said, no one will come to that trial.
And the first trial four and a half thousand people. responded to our calls for participants. So that's where it all started 25 years ago. Wow. Well, and isn't, isn't it true? Like the weird thing that you've heard on the internet, right? It's like, sometimes it's like those things and then I love that it came back and then you saw it in real time to be like, okay, wow, there's something there.
And then that you followed that and that you're doing the research because. I think it's so important, right? People think, Oh, you know, these things are, you know, different and, and something that maybe we hadn't heard about before. When you're publishing, like you have, you've been prolific in your publications, which is amazing.
It then lays the [00:05:00] groundwork to show, no, this is an effective technique. This is not, you know, some. weird thing that people are doing, it's, it's an effective technique to help reduce anxiety and stress. And I love that. I love that story. So that's beautiful. And that you've been at it now for 25 years and obviously now really made a name for yourself in the world of EFT tapping.
So I wonder if you could explain to the audience, like just basically what are the basic principles of EFT and why is it effective? Yeah, so really it just has two components. So we, we talk about it being a stress reduction technique. Obviously it can be used in very sophisticated ways in a therapy context, but really it's, it's just a way to reduce stress in the mind and body.
Two sections to it, one, the acupuncture points that we physically stimulate, we tap on them with two fingers, and the second part is just. The words that we're saying and really EFT is a very mindful [00:06:00] present moment technique in that we actually do acknowledge what our problem is. So that might be that I feel really stressed at the moment.
That might be I'm focusing on the pain that's somewhere in my joints. It might be that I'm focusing on my anger, which seems counterintuitive to a lot of people. therapy talk techniques, but it's the act of engaging that part of the brain and then doing the tapping on the known acupuncture point that research has now shown over the last few decades gives the body that reduction in the physiological stress response that obviously that has an impact on people's subjective well being and psychological health.
So the second part to your question, you know, What's the research and the evidence for this? And we have decades now, more than 400 published trials that really show not only does EFT tapping help the psychological well being, but physically in the body, there's such a [00:07:00] building bank of evidence around biochemistry changes, so DNA changes, EEG, brainwave changes, cortisol, the stress hormone changes, everything from heart rate variability to blood pressure to, you know, everything and beyond.
So, There's this biochemistry change that occurs in the body when we stimulate acupuncture points, even more so when we focus the mind on the problem that we're trying to reduce. So what is, for me, what's really interesting about that, and also, I think, something that is really interesting, going to be interesting for my audience who many of them are healing from cancer is this, you know, there's this idea that if you engage the thought that is negative, like the worry or the fear or the anger, that that is problematic because your body follows where your mind goes.
And I love that you explained that, [00:08:00] that that is part of the technique with this, of acknowledging where what's coming up. And then by doing the tapping of the acupuncture points, it, or acupressure points, it is able to shift the physiology so that you're, you're doing the opposite of what people think when they engage in those thoughts that you're going to then basically run that pattern.
You're basically breaking that pattern. So I love that you explained that for people, because I think sometimes people are afraid to say the things that are going on because They're worried that they're creating that reality for themselves. And we do, it's probably the most common question that's asked about tapping.
Why do I appear to be saying the negative? And we do obviously live in a world of social media where there's a lot of positive tapping that appears to affirmation tapping, things like that. The reason why tapping works well on what we call the negative is it's actually the truth. And. [00:09:00] All therapies, psychological therapies, say the first step in behavior change is acknowledgement.
We have to acknowledge our problem. And that is what tapping is borrowing on. It is the act of tapping at the same time as acknowledging. So I don't recommend anyone walks around the house just saying their problems out loud. We actually have to do an intervention. at the body level to give the body a different response.
And it's always that one of calm. So you're right. Yes, it seems counterintuitive, but there is a reason it appears to be the negative. It's actually the truth of how you feel. And it is the first time for many people in our research trials that they've actually said exactly how they feel, but that is part of that change process.
Yeah. Well, and there's something, like you said, it's the first step in really healing on a psychological level is being able to acknowledge how you actually feel. And I, and I think there's something, especially when people are sick and there's this pressure to be positive and to maintain a positive, to [00:10:00] actually just really acknowledge what is, and that's, you know, there's that to me.
I feel like is, is interesting as something just that a lot of people with cancer, maybe don't do that because they're afraid to do it. And so I love this techniques, give someone a tool to use to acknowledge the truth and be shifting the physiology at the same time. And I love that you said that it's like it has to happen.
You know, you have to be tapping on those points while you're saying this to have the desired effect. So that's beautiful. And I'm wondering maybe this. leads into, I know you have a trial that you did with people who have cancer. And I'm wondering if you can talk about EFT and healing and how this can benefit people who are experiencing cancer.
Absolutely. So for many years, we've done research in lots of different pockets. And sometimes people do say, well, why can it work for so many different things? And the answer is because [00:11:00] lots of these different health conditions or psychological issues. have stress at their core. So if stress can be addressed or worry distress, then the body can obviously have the ability to sort of release some of that and then be able to use those resources for healing and things like that.
So we had a local national integrative health service that was very focused on a cancer patients. that had approached us, and this was at the end of 2019, not knowing that the world was about to face a pandemic. So they said, could you support our cancer patients going through their traditional medical treatment for a four week period, so we always do two hours a week, so an eight hour treatment program, and obviously support them with EFT either about coping with the side effects of traditional medical treatment because other BFT studies had been already published on tamoxifen and [00:12:00] lots of different medications because it's very, very helpful to reduce nausea as a feeling.
That pressure point that's under the eye in Chinese acupuncture is associated with nausea. So we did know some of these things had helped. So for four weeks, our patients started to come here at the start of 2020 and We were helping them support the diagnosis, what that meant when they got that kind of, you know, medical information, the process of life leading into the diagnosis.
Was it stressful? We were able to tap on those kind of events, what it might've meant for their families, their own feelings, all those. So we gave them a lot of space and a lot of options. So we're happily doing our, our tapping and we were testing cortisol. levels and heart rate variability and blood pressure every single session before and after.
So we were obviously able to sort of collect those samples and we were noticing that every session their cortisol levels, stress hormone were [00:13:00] reducing, heart rate variability was normalizing, so we're looking at vagal tone efficiency, blood pressure, all those things. Plus they were getting the psychological outcomes.
So we're happily going through our groups and then of course, you know, the pandemic hits by about March 2020. So we did finish our clinical trial online. Uh, we weren't able to continue with the biochemistry samples, but we were able to sort of keep supporting our patients through that and we compared them to a usual care treatment group.
So we did end up having 30 in our treatment group and about the same in our usual care. Just to be able to show that. These patients absolutely were achieving some processing or closure or hope or whatever it might be, because we were measuring all those things psychologically in, in their cancer treatment journey.
So we obviously then as a world went into the pandemic and lots of different things, but we've since had [00:14:00] conversations with, and you may know this name, the Olivia Newton John. hospital foundation. So Olivia Newton John being our Aussie singer, we have a very big oncology hospital here in Melbourne, Australia.
And they've recently partnered with us to roll out EFT trials next year for their, not only for their carers, but patients. and staff. So we've just been spending this year working out what to do there. So we're going to continue our journey in this oncology space, which is exciting. They tell me that hematologists are very open to EFT because they see the impact of EFT on blood, which was really interesting for me to learn, but we're excited about that journey into 2025.
Yeah. Wait, tell me about that. What is the influence of EFT on blood? Yeah, so I, I presented on EFT to their grand rounds earlier this year, and apparently the structure of, you know, the blood and [00:15:00] cells and the impact of blood. white blood cells, I guess, in that whole process does appear. I haven't looked at research, but they say they see the impact on it when they're just doing their normal testing.
So it's anecdotally from them, but they like lots of these complementary medicines actually have an impact on that kind of cellular, which doesn't surprise us because we do have research on all of the other levels of biochemistry, including, you know, immune system function and DNA changes and things like that.
They tell me, and they're seeing the notice that they're noticing those changes when they look at red blood cells. Oh, that's amazing. Well, I wonder too with your trial, if you would consider that because that's, that can be a limiting factor in people who are having chemotherapy, their blood counts and their ability to respond to the treatment.
And I love that they send that to you, that they were like, you know, yes, we're interested in that. And then we've seen that anecdotally. I think that's, that's really beautiful. And I love that you're doing [00:16:00] a big trial with people who are having conventional therapy and it makes sense, right? Because I mean, this is for me, I'm helping people holistically.
I practice radiation oncology for 20 years and then now I'm helping people in a more holistic way. And some of my clients are doing traditional therapies and some are just like, healing completely naturally. But the first thing that I always do is work with them on calming their nervous system. Because if you don't do that, the healing can't happen.
You know, it's like the nervous system is just hijacked and they're in this state of stress response and the cortisol and all of that. And their heart rate variability is, you know, they're incoherent. And so it just makes. sense that this would be beneficial. And I love that you're doing the studies for people to show it, you know, cause I think that's one of the hard things for treatments within cancer in the holistic space is there isn't a lot of research, you know, and funding too can be [00:17:00] challenging.
So I love that you're getting the funding and, and able to do this. It's, it's really, I think, powerful. And that's how you move the needle for the future of healing is by Publishing the studies so people can see, and I saw actually recently you were collaborating with Joe Dispenza and I saw a paper that was published in June about doing mindfulness with children in the schools.
I'm wondering, can you tell us a little bit about that work? Yes. Yeah. So probably parallel to my EFT research life. is the meditation space. And I've worked with Joe since 2017. So we published some, some of his big adult meditation sort of retreats. They'd collected a lot of EEG data and yeah, we did, we did notice that within a couple of days, novice meditators were able to achieve the same kind of gamma brainwave states, you know, those blissful states.
as seasoned meditators in a very short space of time. And I'm talking 200 [00:18:00] standard deviations above the kind of average. And you're like, this is insane. So we revisited some of this two years ago now where he had always had a desire to kind of really come in at much younger age groups. And yeah, what if we equipped our, our young primary school children with these skills so that they had the ability to self regulate.
So we had a willing, a primary school, uh, locally in Brisbane here. So they, we had 900 primary school students and for 10 weeks every day, they did a Dr. Joe meditation. So these were purpose built, very short. If anyone's used to Dr. Joe, they weren't 40 minutes. They were like, three and five minutes, depending on age, to every day for 10 weeks.
And it was the end of the school year. So always a tricky time of year because it's summertime here, it's hot, Christmas is coming, students just don't want to be there. They had [00:19:00] the least amount of behavioral issues that year in the school term compared to the previous three years. We had a significant improvement in self rated strengths and self esteem and happiness and for the older students we were able to measure their ability for mindfulness and we had a significant increase in that.
So it was a fabulous trial. On the back of that, we again, last year repeated the trial, but with two and a half thousand primary school students, uh, because of course every school hears about it. So that one is about to come out early next year as a publication. Uh, and again, we were able to show. the exact same outcomes, and we had a subgroup that did EFT tapping.
So little six year olds that did tapping instead of meditation, and we actually got the same outcomes with tapping every day compared to meditation. So yeah, we're continuing that research as well. That trial is currently being replicated in [00:20:00] Mexico, exactly the same way we did it, but with some slight changes.
Culturally to the question is to say, can we get the same outcomes in, in different cultures? That's amazing. Well, and I love that catching the children and equipping them with the skills and also, you know, shortening it, making it doable. And obviously the teachers must have been thrilled to have this.
And also it just makes it easier to, for them to do their jobs. If these children are able to regulate themselves and amazing that you. are seeing the similar effects with EFT as if a mindfulness meditation so that there are multiple tools that they can use, which I think is, is really powerful. So one question that I have for you is say that my listeners want to, Do you have something that you could teach or show, you know, just if like someone's just a simple way to even experience this.
And then I think after that, maybe where can people go to learn about this in a, you know, [00:21:00] concise and kind of simple way, just because one of the things for people who are dealing with an illness like cancers are overwhelmed, there's so many things. So I try to make everything as practical as possible that they can implement.
Absolutely. Uh, and any points that we talk about today, AccuPoints, absolutely available free on my website, just peterstapleton. com, you can get handouts. The one thing that I think anyone can start with, and this is as young as four and five years of age, is a simple technique with tapping called tap and breathe.
So. Often if we feel a little bit, we say we're getting outside our, our little window of tolerance and we can see that clearly in a child, they might start to have a tantrum or they might start to kind of, you know, be a bit wobbly or big emotions, but adults get outside their window as well. Tap and breathe as a technique teaches us how to just calm the body back down.
So it's like breathing techniques, but we just add tapping. So even if [00:22:00] I just quickly walk through the points, all we're doing is we're not saying any words, we're just staying quiet and silent. But as we tap on each pressure point, first one being the start of the eye, we just take a comfortable breath.
The second point, side of the eye, we just take a comfortable breath and you can linger as long as you like there. Under the eye would be the next point. Just a comfortable breath. So there's eight pressure points that are just on the face and the top half of the body. And all we're doing is lightly tapping there with two fingers and just taking a comfortable breath.
Tap and breathe. just regulates the body back down. So if anyone was to have a feeling that they just wanted to reduce, that could be a distressed feeling, an angry feeling, whatever it might be. Tap and breathe is a really, really nice place to start and you don't need any further guidance than that. So the tapping points that we're talking about in our research, obviously just on my website as a free handout, [00:23:00] and there's a couple of videos there that obviously you can watch me do it as well.
But if everybody just. I think, you know, the world would be a much calmer place as far as using it therapeutically to obviously maybe process or cope with some other bigger things in life. We absolutely recommend reaching out to somebody who's skilled and there's worldwide networks of people, you know, great variety of professions.
that can guide those processes. They're always done best with someone that knows what they're doing. Yeah. But yeah. So I do think that, you know, we're trying to share the message of tap and breathe really is like tapping first aid. Yeah. You can do it in the car. You could, you know, duck off to the bathroom and close the door, that kind of thing.
And no one needs to know. And it may only take one or two minutes and, and you'll, you'll actually feel a lot calmer. That's amazing. And so if they go to your website, you have those points and then they can learn that technique. So that's great. [00:24:00] And then for people who are wanting to really process and use that as a technique, is there a place where they can find reputable, like people are trained in EFT?
Is there, what would you recommend? Where would you recommend them go? Or just Do a Google search or. Yeah, absolutely. And look, we really do advocate all of the bodies around the world for really good quality training and a certification, that kind of thing. If anyone wants to reach out just to us, just through my website, our obviously admin team can connect anybody anywhere in the world.
So. We have networks worldwide that, you know, you're guaranteed to find somebody in your local area that we can vouch for their skills. Just send us an email through peterstapleton. com and we can connect you anywhere. We've been doing this a long time, so we, we know everywhere. Rather than having somebody kind of try to Google and work that out, we're happy to assist that process.
So just send an email, we'll get back to you. Okay. That's beautiful. [00:25:00] Well, so if people want to find you, tell us where your website is, where can people find you so that they can learn more about EFT? Yeah. Thank you. If everyone just heads to peterstapleton. com, that will just give you who I am, all the bits about EFT, including things like find a practitioner, training in EFT, personal use EFT, that kind of thing.
Socials. Yeah. Same name, Peter Stapleton, everyone can follow, mostly what we share about is EFT and at the moment we are sharing lots about how to cope with the festive and holiday season because that can be quite a stressful time of year and tapping is the secret weapon as far as we're concerned to stay calm in the face of everything that might be happening either, you know, in seasons or at a world level and we will always answer emails if anyone wants to reach out and ask anything.
Okay. That's beautiful. I love it. Well, thank you so much for taking time to meet with me and share your wisdom with my audience. I hope you have a wonderful day. Thank you so much. Amazing. Thank you so much, [00:26:00] Katie.
Thank you for joining me on Born to Heal. It's been a privilege to share this time with you, and I hope that today's episode has offered you valuable insights on your journey toward optimal health. Please consider subscribing, sharing this podcast with your friends, and and leaving us a review. To learn more about how you can work with me, please visit katydemming.
com. You can find additional resources in the episode show notes linked below, and remember to join us next week as we continue to explore more holistic approaches to healing. Until then, this is Dr. Katie Demming reminding you that just like me, you were born to heal.