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Living Well with Multiple Sclerosis
Stress reduction for MS: can tapping calm the nervous system? | S8E20
00:22:47
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- [00:00]
A
Sometimes something that is bothering you in present day is linked to something that has happened in the past, but you're not cognitively aware of it. There isn't that, like, linear connection. But as you're tapping, maybe you'll have a memory that seems random, but it's not because it's connected to that. And so once you can recognize that and hold space for that, there can be a really big shift, which then is really helping you get to the root of why you're feeling the way that you're feeling.
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Welcome to Living well with Ms. This show comes to you from Overcoming ms, the world's leading multiple sclerosis healthy lifestyle charity, which helps people live a full and healthy life. Through the Overcoming Ms. Program, we interview a range of experts and people with multiple sclerosis. Please remember, all opinions expressed are their own. Receive monthly tips and ideas about Living well with Ms. By signing up for our newsletter@overcomingms.org Newsletter and now, let's meet our guest.
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C
Welcome to the latest edition of the Living World with Ms. Podcast. Joining me on this edition is Lauren Fonville. Lauren is a dedicated emotional freedom technique, or EFT trainer, specializing in helping individuals overcome emotional challenges such as stress, anxiety, trauma and negative thought patterns. With a passion for empowering others, Lauren teaches her clients how to use the transformative power of EFT to bring balance, clarity and healing into their lives. Accredited and certified through EFT International and has extensive training and expertise in guiding individuals through the EFT process, a powerful technique that combines tapping on acupressure points with focused mental attention to promote emotional and physical healing. So welcome Lauren.
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A
Thank you for having me.
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C
Happy to be to start off with, could you introduce yourself, your work and how you became interested in mindfulness and stress reduction?
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A
Yeah. So I am Lauren Fonville. I live in Delaware and I have been into EFT since 2018 when I discovered it on my on my own healing journey. So EFT is this practice of applying light pressure by tapping on certain acupressure points and simultaneously acknowledging the emotions that you're feeling. And this is a practice that can help with a lot of different things. But what brought me to it personally was my anxiety and I was having some panic attacks and I was looking for a way to holistically manage that. And it started with me going to a yoga class and following my intuition and signing up to become a yoga teacher and go through yoga teacher training. And that just led me to meeting a whole lot of people in the healing space and eventually I was introduced to EFT and it really made a profound impact on my life and my anxiety and my ability to really acknowledge how I was feeling. And I just got hooked with it. I really fell in love with it. And so that led me to taking more classes and ultimately becoming a EFT trainer.
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C
So firstly, could you explain a bit about what EFT is? And I've heard of tapping, but is it the same as tapping? And.
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A
Yes. So EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Technique. And you'll also hear it referred to as tapping. Sometime you'll. Sometimes you'll hear people refer to it as psychological acupressure, because what we're doing is apply pressure to certain points of the body. So just like how if you were to go to an acupuncturist and an acupuncturist would take tiny little needles and put them in at certain points of your body, we are applying acupressure to some of those same points. And then there's this added component of speaking out loud and acknowledging how you're feeling. And if you're, if you're completely new to this, it can definitely sound a little weird, a little out there, this idea of physically tapping on certain points of your body while you're talking about how, how you're feeling. And that this practice is supposed to help reduce your anxiety, reduce physical pain, help you get to the root of limiting beliefs. I mean, it can help you with so many things. And I know that that can be like. That sounds really weird. That's how I felt when I was first introduced to it. But there is a lot of science behind it and what is actually happening inside the brain and why it helps you to feel calmer and why it is used as, as a nervous system regulation tool. But that's really what it does. I mean, it's all in the name, right? Emotional Freedom Technique. It is a tool that helps you find freedom from your emotions. And a lot of us can spend a lot of time, kind of what I call stuffing, stuffing down the emotions, the uncomfortable emotions like anger, frustration, sadness, stress. We don't enjoy feeling them, so we push that down and we distract ourselves with something else so we don't have to feel that. But I think we all know that in time, all that stuff that you've pushing down is gonna build up to a point where it's going to come out in some way. And sometimes that comes out emotionally, you know, as like some sort of emotional breakdown, meltdown. And sometimes it comes out physically as, as physical pain in the body. And so tapping is a way to help you acknowledge those emotions so that you don't have to stuff them down and pretend like they're not there and instead allow yourself to feel them so that they can move through you, so that they don't cause this pain, whether it be physical or emotional, in the body.
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C
So you mentioned about the science and overcoming Ms. Is an, is an evidence based approach. I've heard there is now sort of definitely evidence behind using acupuncture, which it wasn't so long ago that that was taken to be quite alternative. So what's the science behind eft?
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A
Yeah, when you're applying pressure to some of these points, what is happening is it's sending a message to the amygdala in the brain. So I like to do this visual of this. So if we pretend that my fist is my brain and this front part of my fist, where my knuckles are, is the prefrontal cortex. So like the forehead part of the brain, this is where we make our good sound decisions. So information comes up the brainstem to the prefrontal cortex where we make those good sound decisions. Now when you are someone who is dealing with chronic anxiety or chronic pain, what happens is information's coming up the brainstem, but we're going to pretend my thumb, that's inside my fist here is the amygdala. The amygdala is the part of the brain that controls fight, flight or freeze. So this is an alarm system. And this alarm system starts going off. Now this part of the brain is there to protect you in those situations where you need to fight back, you need to defend yourself, that sort of thing. But in this day and age, chronic stress has become so prevalent that this alarm system starts going off all the time. Now when this alarm system's going off, information's trying to get up to the prefrontal cortex, but you can't access that part of the brain when this alarm is going off because it's sending cortisol into the body. Cortisol is the stress hormone. So when you're tapping on the points, what's happening is a message is being sent to the amygdala and saying, hey, amygdala, this is not a life or death situation. You, you don't need to be in fight or flight, you don't need to be creating all of that cortisol. And so slowly that alarm starts to go off so the prefrontal cortex can come back online so you can begin to make those sound decisions. Because when that, when that's offline and you're trying to make those decisions. It's like those situations where you may even say, I'm so stressed out I can't even think straight, right? And you literally can't think straight because you can't access that part of the brain. So tapping on the points helps to reduce that cortisol and so that now you can think straight, feel calmer, feel more grounded in the body. And so the studies that have been done, which were conducted by Dr. PETA Stapleton who is based over in Australia, she had a group of people doing tapping and they did swabs inside the cheek for the cortisol levels before tapping and then after tapping. And it showed that tapping could reduce the amount of cortisol by up to 43%. So that's a really large number. And if I always say if you're new to this and you're dealing with a lot of stress and anxiety or you're dealing with a lot of physical pain in the body, give it a try. Because it might be the thing that moves the needle. Even if you think it's weird or out there or woo woo, you know, if other things haven't worked for you, it can't hurt to give it a try and see how it feels.
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C
So if someone does want to start trying tapping, how would you suggest they go about? Like where do you start?
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You know, there's tons of practitioners that do tapping videos on YouTube. So you could pretty much go on YouTube and put in eft or eft tapping and sadness and back pain and frustration, whatever your issue is. And you will likely find a video that, that pops up. I have a YouTube channel where I, where I sent, put out videos a lot. But I will say, and that's, I think that's a nice way for people to kind of be introduced to it. But the words that you use matter. And so if you are, if you are trying this out and you're following along with a practitioner in a video and the words that the practitioner is saying really don't resonate with how you're feeling, it's important that you pause that video and you really try to tune into what words would be best for you. So sometimes it's more helpful to have a one on one session so someone can, you know, personally guide you through your specific issue. But if you're just, you know, curious, yeah, go, go check it out on YouTube.
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C
And does it take long to, to see any results from this?
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A
It, it depends on the issue. If, if you've been having a particular issue for A long time. It might take a little bit longer for you to kind of get to the root, root of it and, and feel some difference. But there, there are different factors that contribute to, to that and how long it takes. But generally you, you will feel calmer.
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C
Pretty much almost an instant thing.
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A
Yeah.
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C
Yeah. Wow.
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Do you want to live well with MS? Join the Overcoming Ms. Community in the LiveWell Hub. It's your place to get support, find connections and feel motivated to make positive lifestyle choices. Download the Live well Hub in your app store today or visit hub.overcomingms.org to join. We hope to see you there.
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C
And so you mentioned the sort of short term fight or flight response which. Yeah, that comes up a lot. And we don't have to run away from lions nowadays very often. So it's overused by our bodies. So are there longer sort of physiological and emotional benefits as well?
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A
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Because as human beings we have all of these experiences in our lives. Right. And these experiences have emotions attached to them and sometimes something that is bothering you in present day is linked to something that has happened in the past, but you're not cognitively aware of it. There isn't that like linear connection. But as you're tapping, maybe you have a memory that seems random, but it's not because it's connected to that. And so once you can recognize that and hold space for that, there can be a really big shift which then is really helping you get to the root of why you're feeling the way that you're feeling. Right. If you're someone who, let's just say is really stressed out because you think it's mostly because of this project that you're working on at work. But as you start tapping, yes, that's what that, that's prevalent right now. But you're also having other thoughts come up of other times perhaps in your life where you felt physically the same way as you do right now. And it's surprising to you, you don't necessarily weren't really expecting that. And so tapping can kind of bring things that are in the subconscious mind up to the conscious mind for us to hold space for and process it and move through it and release it for good.
- [12:08]
C
And is it something that lasts? And do you do this daily, weekly or a one off practice?
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A
So this is a practice that can be used both proactively on a day to day basis as part of your daily self care, but then it can also be used reactively in those moments where you're really feeling triggered or stressed out. Or overwhelmed, and it can help you in the moment to calm yourself down. I would say the more that you practice tapping on a regular basis, the easier it's going to be for you to implement it in those times where feeling really stressed out and overwhelmed. So a little bit of both is there.
- [12:42]
C
I mean, a lot of these things you said try it out. And I think that's, that's some advice that we've had from medical community as well. Are there any potentially negative side effects of tapping that you should benefit, you should be aware of where you try it?
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A
I'd say no. Unless you are someone who has knowingly experienced big T trauma, I wouldn't try tapping on that issue alone. I would, I would highly recommend working with a skilled practitioner to guide you through that practice because you don't want to get into a situation where you're, you know, triggering yourself and, you know, you're kind of spitting yourself up. So but other than, other than that, there's, there's really no, no harm in, in tapping, no negative side effects.
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C
And so I think this comes into one of the overcoming Ms. Pillars, which is, is stress reduction. Would you sort of think this is, that this is something that's useful? I mean, we, we often do mindfulness practices, but you also a yoga teacher, sound healer, meditation teacher. So how does this all fit together? So in terms of that mindfulness pillar?
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A
Yeah, so I think that combining modalities is a beautiful thing. And I think that particularly with both sound healing and with yoga and meditation, I like to incorporate tapping at the beginning of those practices. So for, with meditation, for example, I'll have clients come to me that say, I can't meditate, I have too many thoughts, there's just too much going on. I can't do it, I can't do it. And so I would suggest doing some tapping and just speaking out loud and acknowledging all of the thoughts that you've got swirling in your head. And by doing so, I find that it kind of doesn't get rid of those, those thoughts, but it almost like sweeps them to the side so that when you try to meditate you can sink in a little bit more easily. And I think it's just overall a really nice grounding, somatic practice to help you feel connected with the body, which is only going to help you with those additional modalities.
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C
Even more specifically on ms, are you aware if there's specific Ms. Symptoms that could be helped by EFT and tapping or other forms of mindfulness?
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A
Tapping in general can help with physical Pain in the body. So if you're dealing with physical pain in the body, there is, I would say 99% of the time there's always gonna be emotional contributors to the physical pain, right? So if you are someone that is experiencing some sort of phys. Physical, Physical sensation in the body that's, that's uncomfortable, tapping on the, describing that and tapping and tapping on that and also recognizing some of the emotional contributors. If I have, if I'm dealing with pain in my, in my shoulder, then you start thinking about, oh, I'm not gonna be able to play, play sports or do what I wanna do, right? It's, it's limiting and it's, it's a, it's stopping me from doing what I wanna do. And that makes you feel what, angry, frustrated, sad. And so acknowledging those emotions, it helps to bring all of that to the surface. And then simply in acknowledging those emotions that are coming up, that in itself can help to reduce the physical sensation in the body. So I think in general that could help. And then, you know, anxiety and stress maybe about just. I would say for people that are dealing with physical conditions in general, there can be a lot of anxiety around. Is this how it's always going to be? Is this what I have to deal with for the rest of my life? Those types of thoughts? And again, not pretending like they're not there, because that's a lot of the time. What sometimes we do is just like we don't even want to acknowledge that and, but bringing that to the light and holding space for that and the feelings associated with it can help you feel, just feel more grounded and softer and lighter and physically better.
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C
And I would say actually people with Ms. Would say that if they get stressed out, their symptoms get worse instantly. More than I've ever learned about whether I'm stressed or not. Now I know I'm stressed because my Ms. Symptoms will tell me I'm stressed. So you mentioned a bit about the science earlier, but do you have results of any research studies that have been done into EFT?
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A
So Dr. Peter Stapleton is the big researcher in that area. There was one study that was done on veterans who were diagnosed with PTSD and brought them together and did tapping with them individually for six weeks? I believe the sessions were once a week, six weeks. Each session was about an hour and at the end of that six weeks, 90% of the veterans in that group had a reduction in their PTSD symptoms. Which is, which is pretty phenomenal. But yeah, there's so many different studies like that. That are available out there and even around, like, how the brain processes stress and anxiety. And they do the. There was one with. I don't know if it was CAT scan or mri, something where they're scanning the brain and they can actually show what. How when the body is stressed, the areas of the brain that. That light up, and they do it before. Before tapping and then after tapping and how that shifts the. The way that the. The scan picks up the anxiety and stress. So, yeah, there's lots of cool information out there if you. If you like to geek out on
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C
the science and if you had, like, personal examples of client breakthroughs.
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A
Yeah, absolutely. So I worked with. I worked with a client that had fibromyalgia, and she was dealing with a lot of physical. Physical pain in the knees. And at this particular point, she was. Was really on her couch for several days, really feeling frustrated and sad. And we started tapping on how it felt, the tightness in. In her knees, the pain. And as. As we're moving through this, one of the questions that I asked her was, do you think that there's any sort of benefit for you being in this pain? And that can be a really sticky question for people. Right. And instead of her just saying, no, of course not, she really thought about it, and she thought, well, because I'm dealing with all this pain, my kids have been coming over to check on me a lot more often, and I'm seeing them more, so that's a benefit. But that the answer to that question kind of opened a doorway for us to explore. Okay, well, is there. Do you have any sort of concern that if you're feeling healthy, that you're not. That you're not gonna see your kids as much? Right. And so as we started tapping on that and her to those questions, she just had this big aha Moment. And she's like, I don't know. She's tapping and she's like, I don't know what. What's happening? My knees aren't hurting. I can't believe this. What's happening? Cause she was completely new to tapping. And so she had a big shift in. In the pain level. And it was simply by acknowledging some of this other emotional stuff that. That she had going on that was, like, kind of running in the background. And so that also kind of connects with your. Your question of how long does it take to. To see results? And it really depends on the person. It depends on the sit. Also depends on their readiness. And when I say, like, readiness for. For healing, like, her ability to Kind of pause and not just say, no, there's no reason. There's no benefit of me being in this pain. Like, instead, and really pausing and thinking about that and reflecting on that, like, someone's willingness to do that also is going to impact how, how quickly you see results. And so that was one that really stands out in my mind. But there, there's. Yeah, there's. I have several. I mean, there's a client that had a fear of going in the elevator and it was really impacting her life. And after working together and having memories from her childhood pop up that she hadn't thought about in probably 30 years and realizing that that was where her, you know, fear of being kind of cornered and trapped came from, she was able to get on, get on elevators again. So, yeah, some pretty amazing things can happen with this work.
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C
So thank you very much for introducing us to this. I think it's something. Yeah, definitely, as you say, it's worth trying and see what the results are. But is there anything else you'd like to add before we finish?
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A
Yeah, I would just say that even if you are the tiny bit curious about this, even if you're sitting there listening to this thinking, yeah, that sounds a little. That sounds a little weird. If it is just like, huh, I don't know, maybe, or. Or if you're someone who maybe have heard about this and this is a second or third time you're hearing about that. I always like to think that, you know, we get these little, these little nudges or little taps from the universe to explore things. So whether that tap is to explore, literally tap, to explore tapping, or, or if it's to explore some other healing modality. I would just always encourage people to trust your intuition and follow your gut and try things out and see if. If whatever it is is going to be the thing that moves the needle for you and helps you to feel better. Because I believe that we all deserve to feel good in our BO and don't stop chasing it.
- [21:33]
C
You deserve it with that. So, as always, check out links in the show notes because the links to Lauren's website and yeah, you can find out more resources from there. But thank you very much for joining us. Lauren Farmville.
- [21:45]
A
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
- [21:47]
C
Thank you.
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B
Thank you for listening to this episode of Living well with Ms. Please check out this episode's show notes at the overcomingms.org podcast. You'll find useful links and bonus information there. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. And please rate and review the show to help others find us. This show is made possible by the Overcoming Ms. Community. Our theme music is by Claire and Mav Dean. Our host is Jeff Alex. Our videos are edited by Lorna Greenwood and I'm the producer, Regina Beach. Have questions or ideas to share? Email us@podcastvercomingms.org we'd love to hear from you. The Living well with Ms. Podcast is for private, non commercial use and exists to educate and inspire our community of listeners. We do not offer medical advice. For medical advice, please contact your doctor or other licensed healthcare professional.