How ‘tapping’ is helping people shed kilos

Doctors say this easy technique helps lose kilos, overcome phobias and beat stress — and you don’t even have to exercise.

Stephanie Bedo 24, 20189:37am

Photo by Bruno Nascimento on UnsplashSource:BodyAndSoul

Got a chocolate addiction you want to get rid of? The answer could be as simple as “tapping”.

In fact, people who learn the tapping treatment get put off their food addictions so much they never touch chocolate again and lose plenty of kilos as a result.

One person who took part in a Bond University study on the psychological therapy lost 35kg in a year after eight weeks of tapping.

Tapping, which is officially known as Emotional Freedom Techniques, involves physically tapping on various pressure points while focusing on the problem at hand.


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Dr Peta Stapleton, who has studied and practised the technique for 18 years, said it had cured people of their food addictions.

“Six months later we go, ‘How’s the Kit Kats?’ and they say, ‘What Kit Kats?’,” she said.

“They were eating eight a day and we give them one to taste and they can’t even eat it, they don’t want to buy them anymore.

“That’s why it’s so brilliant in weight loss because that’s what happens with yoyo dieting, you’re good for a while then you back.”

The technique was invented about 40 years ago but has only started to become more mainstream in recent years, thanks to the help of celebrities who use it.

Rugby league star has done it to prepare for big games, and actress Whoopi Goldberg used it to get past her flying phobia.

For years, it’s been pigeonholed as a niche self-help technique, but research studies like those at Bond are starting to change that.

Dr Stapleton, Associate Professor of Psychology, is Australia’s leading tapping researcher.

Her team has put patients in an MRI and scanned their brains before and after tapping to see it no longer lit up when shown pictures of foods they craved before the therapy.

“Their brains were quiet,” she said. “And they lost weight even if they never tapped again because they don’t want the food again.”

Dr Stapleton said they had also used it to help people with videos games or while they drank a glass of wine at home.

“We’ve now pretty much wrapped so much evidence around it, people can confidently go, ‘It’s not just this weird woo woo thing’ we’ve got so much evidence for its effectiveness,” she said.

“We call it psychological acupuncture, so rather than a fine acupuncture needle, they tap on a pressure point, which stimulates a reduction in the stress hormone and tells that part of the brain you need to calm down.

“Stress is in everything, stress is in food cravings, it’s in any other addiction, it’s in pain, it’s in PTSD, which is why the tapping technique works for so many things, it’s not that it’s a magic pill, it’s just that stress is in everything, so the minute you calm the body down, everything shifts.”

“I would just love it to become an adjunct to the whole weight loss field.”

People can learn the technique online here.

While we're on the topic, here's how to re-train your brain to lose weight. Plus, this is how to transform your body in 8 weeks.


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