← Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick
Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick
She Lowered Cortisol 43% in Minutes — The Tapping Method Your Nervous System Is Begging For | Jessica Ortner - E-183
00:44:20
EFT tapping expert Jessica Ortner reveals how to lower cortisol, calm your nervous system, and stop overthinking — in minutes a day. Science, tools, and real talk.
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Dr. JC
Have you ever noticed that your body can react to stress before your mind even understands what's happening? Your heart races, your stomach tightens, your jaw locks, your brain starts catastrophizing everything. Even when you know that everything is okay, your nervous system still acts like you're under attack. What if anxiety isn't actually a mindset problem? What if it's a body state problem?
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Grainger Announcer
Hmm?
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Dr. JC
Have you noticed that the world that we live in has been doing most of the thinking for you? That your beliefs, perceptions, reactions, fears and doubts have been shaped by unsolicited outside noise? How easy it's been for you to slip into that default sleep walking mode and label it as life and reality. Yeah, that ends here. Welcome to the make sense with Dr. JC podcast. This is your opportunity to start thinking for yourself, reclaim control, and step back into that role as the shock caller and dominant force of your own reality. It's when you change the way that you look at things that the things that you look at begin to change. So let's wake up, let's rise up, and let's make sense of why and how shift happens. Makes sense. So I want to welcome to the make sense with Dr. JC podcast, the amazing Jessica Ortner. Welcome Jessica.
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Jessica Ortner
Thank you. Finally. I'm so happy to be here.
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Dr. JC
You've been a busy, busy woman and I want to congratulate you and your brother for this amazing accomplishment of hitting New York Times bestseller. So congratulations on that.
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Jessica Ortner
Thank you so much that must be
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Dr. JC
a very, very exciting thing because it sounds like it wasn't something that you like really drove at. And this is kind of like a testament to how powerful the work is.
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Jessica Ortner
It definitely came as a surprise. My first book came out 10 years ago and I was lucky enough to hit it and so did my brother 10 years ago. But we co wrote this, co wrote this with my two older brothers. So now all three of us could say that we're New York Times bestsellers. Which is just so fun for my parents to go around telling everybody.
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Dr. JC
I wonder how many people can say that. Yeah, three siblings, New York Times bestsellers at the same time. Is that, is that actually a first?
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Jessica Ortner
I think so. I don't know of any others. So it really came as a surprise. So we're having fun with it and now we can, we can joke with the middle brother like, okay, finally, you finally joined the club. You're the last one. But yeah, it came as a surprise. It was great.
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Dr. JC
I'm kind of wishing right now that I was an orner, I was a brother. Yeah. So I ask everybody this first question, so what is it like to be Jessica Ortner these days?
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Jessica Ortner
Oh, that's a really great question. I feel really blessed because my biggest dream was to be a mom and I have a five year old and a seven year old. And so for me, like, family is just a big part of my life and my work. And it's been really wonderful because I started this journey learning tapping when I was only. It was 19 when I learned about it. So to see how it helped me with every phase has been incredible. But this phase that I'm in right now is a moment where I get to share this with my kids and to, you know, just sometimes we get so busy in the doing that we forget to be in the being. And I feel like I'm in the chapter where I'm really trying to soak in this, like, even though it's not always easy, but just soak in like all the other stuff. Nothing matters as much as the people that you love. And so I'm in the chapter of just loving hard on the people that I love.
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Dr. JC
Well, you're on the right show. I very much align with that. That's super cool. And following some of your social media, I noticed that tapping is like, I think some people think that it's all about just getting rid of like drama and negative things. But I just noticed that it's something that, you know, is very proactive and fun. So I would assume It's a. It's a fun thing to do with your children as well.
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Jessica Ortner
It really is. And it's a really great way to break yourself and your kids out of a negative state. Sometimes kids have these big emotions and it's really hard to articulate. It's hard for them to articulate what's wrong. And so to be able to have a tool where you can just like tap and be moody and then you'll feel better and also tap and say positive things, you know, in a little bit, I can explain how tapping works so it'll make more sense as to why you can be negative and positive when focusing on the tapping. But really the basis of it is that we're calming our nervous system. And it's one of those tools that once you have, you have for the rest of your life. So I love that I have taught this to my kids. I love teaching, teaching. I love new people imagining new people on this show who are like, is she going to tap dance? I've never heard of this. I'm excited for those people because once you know this tool, this is like your rescue remedy whenever you're going through a really tough time.
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Dr. JC
Let's start there. You know, for somebody that's hearing eft or tapping for the very first time, what exactly is happening there? What. What is it and what's happening?
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Jessica Ortner
Yeah, it's a great question. In order to understand how tapping works, we have to understand our nervous system. And the nervous is a word that's being thrown out a lot. It's all over social media. People say, like, my nervous system was reacting or felt tense. Well, what are we talking about here when we say nervous system? Your nervous system includes your brain, your spinal cord and your nerve endings, and it's a communication highway. And what we're realizing is that sometimes we have a thought that creates a physical experience. So you have. It's the middle of the night and you're thinking about something, you're worried about the next day, and you're in your bed. It's not happening in the moment. The event is the next day. You're thinking about something in the future, but your body is reacting as if it's happened in the moment. So your mind is sending that danger signal. Your nervous system is saying, tense up. Feel this anxiety, the stress. We have to be on high alert. It goes the other way. It starts with your body. If you were a kid and you stood up in class to share a project and something went wrong and you were laughed at, you have that Experience that can get stored in your body. And suddenly you're 45 years old, you're about to go on stage, and you know, you know your stuff. You know that it's a safe space. You're fine, but your body starts to react with this anxiety, and you feel trapped in that loop. What we're doing by stimulating these acupressure points is sending a calming signal to our nervous system. It's a specific signal. It's a signal of safety. It as it sends that signal through your nervous system, you're able to think that thought or be in that experience without feeling the physical trigger anymore. And the way this works, and the reason that we're using these nine points is because these acupressure points have a high concentration of nerve endings. And we have something in our skin called mechanoreceptors. Now, our nervous system is communicating with electrical and chemical signals. When you tap on these points with this high concentration of nerve endings, the mechanoreceptors send that signal through your nervous system. And people find that they're able to have the same thought, but their body isn't triggered. And when a thought doesn't have a strong charge, you can move past it. You can think something and choose another thought. But what tends to happen is when we have a thought that has a really strong physical reaction, we try to think our way out of it by doing more thinking, and it doesn't work because we're not bringing in the body or a signal of safety. So this is incredibly powerful when it comes to looping thoughts, intrusive thoughts, anxiety, worry. It really is able to stop that by using the body and the nervous system.
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Dr. JC
So fascinating, and I resonate with so many things as a public speaker. I learned when I started really diving into your work that there was a time in my life where I was doing tapping without knowing I was doing tapping. And a great mentor told me one of the tricks that he does is, and I want to know if you consider this tapping. One of the tricks that he did is he says, when you're out on stage and you're performing and you're not coming from the right place in your body, he says, but if you speak from the heart, you know, if you told me about your kids and things like that. So he taught me, when I go out there on the stage, so people will always see this. If I go out and speak on stage and I'm doing, like, a fairly long talk right in the beginning, I'm tapping my heart. And that was him Telling me to put the focus and bring it to the heart. Is something like that considered tapping?
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Jessica Ortner
Well, one of the points is near the heart. It's the collarbone point. So that is actually an acupressure point that you're using with tapping. I hear this a lot. I was speaking to an ex MLB all star, and he loves tapping, and he said when I used to play in the major leagues, I would start tapping on my body, as he intuitively knew that it helped settle him. So I actually hear that quite a bit. And yes, it is the form of tapping. We focus on these nine points because they're the ones that have the most research around them, and they're very easy to follow and memorize. But you do have acupressure points all over your body.
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Dr. JC
Is tapping based on the same points as acupuncture and acupressure?
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Jessica Ortner
It's based on that, yeah. So I'll tell you a little bit about the history of how it evolved, because that'll answer your question on, like, why these nine points? So it started with a therapist. His name was Dr. Roger Callahan. And this was a traditional CBT therapist, cognitive behavioral therapy, just kind of the standard. And he was working with a woman named Mary, who had this incredible water phobia, could not take a bath or a shower. A sink full of water gave her anxiety. In ocean, a lake, forget about it. She couldn't even get close. And Dr. Callahan was seeing her in his house, in his office. He had a pool in the backyard, and Mary couldn't walk by the pool, couldn't even look at it. And he had been working with her for about two years, using traditional therapy, trying to loosen this phobia, but nothing was working. At the same time, he was studying acupressure points, and he saw that under the eye was the stomach meridian. When he would talk to Mary as a therapist, she would always say the same thing. It starts in my stomach, the anxiety starts, the panic starts in my stomach, and then I'm absolutely overwhelmed by the terror. And so what he did is he goes, well, why don't I combine what I know as a therapist, and let's try to stimulate this point. So he had her tap on this acupressure point. Her water phobia went away. I mean, this is one of those miraculous cases, but they happen more than you would think, where she was able to go, walk by the pool, look at the pool. They go, okay, well, this is incredible. Let's test it. Two days later, they met on the beach, which she could Never step on that sand and be that close to the ocean. And so she even went on a TV show later saying how miraculous this was for her. But that stopped, you know, Dr. Roger Callahan in his tracks and thought, okay, as a conventional therapist, how do I take what I know and combine it with these acupressure points? And he created what was called thought field therapy, where he would train other therapists. And it was really trying to figure out, okay, looking at these Chinese acupressure points, what relates to what emotion. And then a gentleman called Gary Craig came along. He was a Stanford grad, an engineer, and he thought, this is incredible. What would happen if we simplified it? What would happen if we picked nine points that are used the most often and people could do it themselves. And that's what started eft and it became this huge movement because it worked, because people were going. A lot of times when you have a phobia you've lived with for your whole life and you feel so powerless, so when something comes along, you're like, I'll try it, I'll try anything, because this is making my world so small. And so it started to spread and it got to the point that it was gaining so much attention that then universities started to take a look. There's this man, Dr. David Feinstein, the head of psychology in his university in the 1980s, went to him and goes, you got to go investigate this thing. You got to see, like, is this weird or is this some hippie stuff, is what he said. And so he went out to investigate it and was so impressed, saw a woman who was claustrophobic completely change that and not be claustrophobic anymore. And so slowly, as more people were discovering it, more research started to go into it. At this point right now in 2026, there's over 300 published studies on the effectiveness of tapping. 120 of those are peer reviewed studies. And we have the Tapping Solution app, which is an app that has, you know, 10 minute tapping meditations to release anxiety. This is what I created with my brothers. The reason I'm bringing it up in this context is that we have had 26 million sessions played. Out of those 26 million, 18 million people have done before and after numbers. So a zero to 10 scale. What's your anxiety before tapping? What's your anxiety after? 18 million data points, which makes this app, the Tapping Solution app, the most well documented app in the mental health industry. A lot of those other apps out there, they celebrate you for showing up, but they're not tracking your Progress we track to make sure your anxiety, your fear, your stress is going down. And for example, we have a tapping meditation called releasing anxiety. And when we took the data set of a million plays of this particular tapping meditation, anxiety went down by 41% in a nine minute tapping meditation. So it has been so incredibly well documented. And now we have some very big universities who have been studying our app. And it's. I think in the next, the next five years, we're going to see an even bigger explosion of this data from larger universities.
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Lowe's Announcer
Wow.
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Dr. JC
And I'm going to give you some unsolicited testimony right now that you don't know about yet. And this is, this is pretty miraculous. So in preparation, I have a big community that I speak to and one of the things that I did just to kind of get their feedback is I showed them one of your videos. There's like a 13 minute video. And you just did a really good job at explaining tapping and you gave some exercises. And I just said, hey, does anybody have any, anything to say about this? Any? And they all did this. One person's like, oh, my God, Jessica Ortner, I know her. I use the app. So a lot of people were saying that, but this one woman said, oh, my God, my niece. So Jessica did not ask me to say this. My niece. And I'll give her a shout out. Her name is Alyssa Dube. She went through some stuff in life and didn't know, you know, where to turn, and she found your work. And she had three autoimmune disease disorders and they were probably generated from stress, but she was really struggling with it and no doctors could help her medication was failing, making it worse, and that whole story. And all she did was tapping. And she said that not only did she resolve her three autoimmune diseases, because we're just talking about anxiety before this. So these are autoimmune diseases. But it actually motivated and inspired her to completely change her career and become a healer of sorts. So you don't know about that stuff.
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Jessica Ortner
I did.
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Dr. JC
That's what's going on out there.
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Jessica Ortner
That's beautiful. And I. It's incredible. And I'd love to break down why? Because I think that's the question we get. Someone goes, all right, someone's saying that their autoimmune is better or gone. Like how? Why you're tapping on your face. It makes no sense. So one of the studies with tapping showed that it reduces cortisol. Cortisol is a stress hormone. We all need a certain level of cortisol to wake up in the morning. The challenge is when cortisol is spiked continuously throughout the day. When you talk to a doctor who specializes in any aspect effect of the human body, whether it's brain health, digestion, your immune system, autoimmune diseases, all the doctors will say one thing, lower cortisol, lower your stress. It's one of the biggest things that you can do to improve your health. This is so well documented. We all know that when we have stress we tend to have flare ups, right? So if you're dealing with an autoimmune disease and suddenly you go through a stressful time, it will flare. And so we know this through experience and we know this through science. And what we have found is that tapping lowers your cortisol. So it has been documented this one university, it's a published study, it was done by Bond University in Australia. They had a group using tapping, they had a group relaxing, just being able to read magazines. They had a third group which was doing psycho education, which means someone was talking to them about how to be more mindful strategies on how to look at things, changing your perspective. And they found that, that the group that lowered the group that did the tapping lowered their cortisol by 43%. The other group that the more kind of talk therapy, education based was 19%. So we have seen that it lowers cortisol. So that's what we're doing when someone says oh these symptoms are gone, my back pain is gone. It's because when you lower cortisol in the body, your body is able to do what it is designed to do which is to heal and to recover. So the magic isn't in the tapping, the magic is in your body and you're supporting your body through the tapping to lower that cortisol.
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Dr. JC
That's so fascinating. It, it seems like it's, it has to do with like regulation because I think people forget that the body like even when it raises cortisol, it's doing that for a reason. Like the body is a self healing system and if it's you know, dysregulated or riding high from stress and things like that. So I love that you said it's not the tapping that fixes the cortisol, it's the tapping that put places the body, I think you're saying, in a position to do what it is hoping to do, it can't do that when you're riding. So it seems like some sort of a method of regulation. I remember Wayne Dyer used to always say this Is a big component of our ecosystem would make sense is if you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. Everybody loves those things, but they go, yeah, but how? How? You know, that's kind of where my work does. I find
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Ahora Mascolos Hill.
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Dr. JC
Ahora Quince porciento.
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Lowe's Announcer
Nuna selection de puertas personal.
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Dr. JC
It interesting though how humans kind of instinctively place their hands on certain parts of their body. And I know you've spoken about this, so my question is, is tapping something that works whether you like it or not, or is it something that somebody would have to embrace and accept and maybe believe in for it to work?
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Jessica Ortner
You absolutely do not have to believe in it for it to work. Really not about your mind. It's about your nervous system. So you could be incredibly skeptical. And as you tap on these nerve endings, your body will begin to relax. When I first learned about tapping, I mentioned I was very young and I was going through a really difficult time. And my brother had come over because he had heard Tony Robbins talk about it. Tony Robbins mentioned it. It wasn't like a big part of his program. It was almost like a side comment because he had been using it. And my brother came over and he goes, you know, I've heard this thing. Let's tap on these points. And I have two older brothers. The amount of practical jokes played on me as the younger sister is like too many to count. It's just kind of part of the, the family dynamic. And so there was a moment when he had me tapping on the top of my head and I looked at him and I said, nick, if this is a joke, I am going to murder you because I was having such a tough time. He goes, no, no, no, no. It's not like, just try it. I know you don't believe this, but just please stick with it. And at the time I had a cold, I was very congested and it was week two of being sick and I just couldn't get over it. Like it was just this stubborn sickness. And so I was tapping Actually focusing on how awful my body felt. And as I was tapping, I felt this quietness come. Like I just felt quiet. And a thought that I'd never consciously thought came up. And I look up at my brother and with tears in my eyes, I said, I don't want to get better. He goes, what do you, what do you mean you don't want to. What do you mean you don't want to get better? And I said to him, I have been working so hard and I'm so hard on myself that the only way I can take a break without drowning in guilt is by being sick. Now, I did have a virus. It wasn't like I was faking my stuffy nose. I didn't go outside and go, I'm going to go hug someone who's sick. But the stress in my body and the high levels of cortisol was so much that you begin to manifest these things. You begin to get knocked down by the cold because of that stress. And you have certain beliefs in the background that could be impacting your stress level and your ability to recover, to allow yourself to really rel, to really recuperate, to get better. And so then we switched the tapping and I just started focusing on how stuck I felt. The unfairness. I had been reading every self help book. I had been doing everything right, you know, quote unquote, right. I was taking action, I was trying to have faith, I was putting myself out there and nothing was going my way. And so I had this moment of just feeling like, one, I can't take a break, and two, this unfairness that brought me to tears. And it was that moment that I started tapping with being honest with how I felt, that I felt a release physically in my body that I had never experienced. It's almost like if you, if you've ever been carrying a heavy backpack around, you know, you're spending the day, you're doing stuff, you kind of forget how heavy it is. And then when you take it off, you're kind of like off balance a little bit and you think, whoa, that was, that was heavy. The lightness I felt, that's exactly how it felt. It was like, wow, have I been living with this emotional heaviness for years? And I didn't even know how heavy it was until I let it go. And that was my first experience. And I will be honest with you, what did I do? I didn't tap again. I just went on with my life because that's what we do. We find something, it helps us. And then we get busy doing the next thing. And it wasn't until maybe six months later I was going through a breakup and I was, I had moved back into my parents house.
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Grainger Announcer (Spanish)
House.
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Jessica Ortner
I didn't want them to hear me crying. I just needed to, like, I wanted to chill. I wanted to stop crying. I want, I, I. But I just felt like this again. Just this grief. I was mourning the loss of this relationship. And I. And I was like, what are the points? And I didn't remember all of them. I, I'm pretty sure I missed two of them, but I just started tapping on the points and again, ooh, I felt this relief. And that's when I called my brother. And I go, there's really something here. And he goes, at the same time, he goes, I've been doing the same thing. I've been getting all my friends to tap. And that is when we kind of joined forces. And then later my brother Alex joined us as well, where we were like, we need this to be in more people's hands because it is free and it is easy and it does work and everybody should know about it.
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Dr. JC
I heard you say, when you pull out the weed, we can now plant the seed. Can you kind of explain what that means? Because I think that'll really hit home for people.
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Jessica Ortner
People, yeah. So when you start tapping, whether it's on your own or doing a tapping meditation, you often start with how you're feeling. And a lot of people have resistance. They go, I don't want to say I'm upset or I'm angry. I just, I want to think positive. I want to just be happy about it. But then when we try to do that, there's a part of us that's like, ugh, I'm such a phony. That's such a lie. I don't feel that way. And I even brought this up to Louise Hay, who, for those who don't know, she wrote, you can heal your life. She's known as the godmother of affirmations. She said she loved tapping. And she said, sometimes you have to look at the dirt in order to clean it. And to the same other metaphor, you have to pull the weeds before you could plant something else. Those feelings are there and they're real and they're valid. And if we just try to bypass our own experience and just think positive, because we don't have that safety signal, our nervous system, our body is going to keep bringing it up, because if you had an event in the past that made you feel a certain way, that wasn't processed. Your body is going to go, no, it's not safe to speak out. It's not safe to be seen. It's not safe to try new things, it's not safe to make mistakes. And so you try to be positive and take action, but you find that you're always sabotaging yourself. This is a big takeaway that, this is a big takeaway in my life. And I want people to really lean in and listen to this. Your nervous system does not care about you reaching your goals or hitting your potential. All your nervous system cares about is your safety. So if it doesn't feel safe to grow, you will sabotage yourself. Not because you don't deserve it or because something's wrong with you, but because it's misguided self love. It's trying to keep you safe. And so by looking at those beliefs and those fears as you tap, you're sending that safety signal saying it's safe even though this happened, I am safe. Even though I'm scared this could happen, I am safe. And when you feel safe, you're able to, able to try new things, to experiment, to be creative, to feel more free. And so that is what we're really doing here. We're pulling out the weeds. We're allowing ourselves to look at the places where we don't feel safe so we can address them with tapping. When your resistance to, when you're, you know, the anxiety or the worry or the, you know, whatever it is, the depression, the looping thought, when the charge goes down, you have more room for the hope, the creation, creativity, the different way of looking at things. And so we're always looking at the progress I talked about before on the 0 to 10 scale, how has it changed? Because even if you lower your anxiety from a nine to a four, you're speaking differently, you're walking differently, you're showing up differently. And that's what we're doing here, addressing what's really bothering us first before we build ourselves up with those positive words once again.
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Dr. JC
Just so cool that people have this tool. And I think that was a big moment right there. I think a lot of people are going to recognize that. And I don't think it's a reason to be afraid of tapping. I think a lot of people are afraid of bringing things out, but they're there.
- [28:12]
Jessica Ortner
That's my point. They're there. And that's why you have trouble falling asleep at night, or you wake up at three in the morning, or you procrastinate, or you tell yourself I'm going to get this done. And it never happens when we can understand that our nervous system only cares about ourselves, safety. What I think also happens is it allows us to be a little more compassionate towards ourselves. We're not broken. We're in need of comfort and care. Okay, I'm going to say that again. You are not broken. You're in need of comfort and care. And if a child comes to you crying and you just say to them, hey, you're fine, think positive, the world is great. Don't cry. They don't feel validated or heard, that doesn't help them. But if they can feel that like I see you, I see that you're scared. And my job is to let you know that even though this feels scary, you're safe. And the more you feel safe, the easier it is to move through that fear.
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Dr. JC
In our ecosystem, we say people are not stuck. We actually think people are highly capable, but they're just scattered and lack clarity. That's just another way of saying the same thing is like when people want, when people feel safe, it's another form of kind of like recalibrating and getting clarity. So your new newest book, Rewired, feels especially timely right now because it just seems like people in general. General. So I'd love to know what inspired you after all this work. What inspired, Rewired, what did you and your brothers most want people to understand?
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Jessica Ortner
So we started this journey 18 years ago and when we started, we didn't have an understanding of the science and research. And now we do, not only with those 300 published studies, but also the thousands of people like the story you shared earlier. And what I think is so empowering is that in the past, past, you know, it was all about working with a practitioner we're seeing with these tapping meditations that someone like that audience member you mentioned was able to get her own results on her own. And so I really wanted to write this book with my brothers to be the cornerstone. If there's only one book that you read that has the latest research and also breaking down these different areas of our lives where we get stuck, this would be the book to go to. If you love tapping and you've been trying to get your son or your sister in law to do it, this is the book that you gift them. So that was really the intention behind it to go. How can someone buy one book and fully understand and feel confident to implement this tool into their life?
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Dr. JC
I want to talk about overthinking. Why is it that you Think overthinking has like, become like almost like an epidemic now.
- [30:52]
Jessica Ortner
Yes. So it's important to understand why we're overthinking. And there's difference. So there's a difference between the. The. Maybe you call it overthinking because you have so many ideas. Ideas. A lot of people, what they relate to more is the overthinking where they can't stop thinking about the thing that they said or the thing that they did that they did in the past or what might be coming up. That kind of spiraling thought is most often known as the overthinking. And the reason that we're overthinking is we are searching for safety. So we have a thought that's creating this anxiety in our body and our mind. Thinking thinks, well, let me keep thinking about it because I'm searching. I'm searching for reassurance. I'm searching for clarity. I'm searching for answers. The clarity in the answers don't come when you're overthinking about something that you did in the past that you have no control over changing or something that might happen in the future that you also don't have control over in that moment. And so it's like your brain is just scanning for danger. Scanning for danger. What we have to do in those moments. Moments is find a way to use our body to send that signal of safety because you cannot think your way out of overthinking. I'll say that again. You can't think your way out of overthinking. And overthinking is happening because you're searching for comfort by searching for answers, by thinking everything through. When you tap, you really bring your body and your mind back in the moment. You send that safety signal so you can detach yourself from that thought. The reason that thought is on a loop is again, your nervous system is like, my number one goal is to keep you safe. So if something feels dangerous, I will not stop thinking about it. We have to let our nervous system know, hey, we're safe. It's 8pm it's not. We can calm our mind. And so when we understand why we overthink, that is very helpful. Because then we realize, oh, I'm searching for comfort. How can I give myself that reassurance using the tapping? Because the thinking isn't getting me there.
- [32:57]
Dr. JC
That's such a huge distinction to make that distinction first about, like, why am I overthinking? And you just made me think. Like, you can't think your way out of overthinking. It's like, I think that's what overthinking is, is thinking about overthinking.
- [33:10]
Jessica Ortner
I find that people, when they use this as a practice, they are not as overstimulated and they don't get as stressed as easily. Like, I feel like my set point is so different than it was when I was in my 20s. Completely different. But I still have moments of stress. I still have moments of uncertainty. If I haven't slept well, my 5 year old has a bad dream and has been waking me up. There are moments in our lives when we feel more fragile and that is okay. We're not supposed to be these happy robots that don't feel the spectrum of emotions. One of the things we talk about in this book is can you feel without drowning? And that's the difference. Okay, you're allowed to be sad and you're allowed to be disappointed, but can you do it without drowning? Can you feel like you feel steady and present, that they don't overpower you? And that's really what I found, is the emotional control and resiliency you gain from tapping.
- [34:04]
Dr. JC
I love that you say, said that, you know, it's about first acknowledging why it's happening. Right. And, and also saying, you know, tapping is not about getting yourself in this position where you never overthink again and you never feel the icky feelings of things again. But it's now a proactive approach to have something in, you know, like a structure, like a morning routine of sorts to do something about it so that you don't drown.
- [34:28]
Jessica Ortner
Yes. And we talked a little bit about the sabotage and the resistance. And this is where I see it have the biggest, biggest effect size. We have a category in the app which is called Help me stop. Help me stop overthinking. Help me stop thinking about what I said or what I did or what that person said. Like, help we get stuck there. We're like, help me stop overthinking this. And what that tends to happen is it also creates a lot of resistance in our lives. We feel a little, little bit stuck. I'm a big fan of James Clear, you know, atomic habits. And one of his main things is making things easier, really looking at what is the resistance. So if you want to work every day putting your shoes next to your bed in the morning so when you wake up there's less resistance, you can go, what I work on is emotional resistance, right. So if you can do the tapping and lower that number now the emotional resistance to take action is gone. And so we see with the data that people. We have one that's called help me have a productive day. We're seeing that we can emotionally lower resistance to help people take action in a way that feels easier because we've dealt with the emotional resistance. Resistance.
- [35:36]
Dr. JC
I love that. So I'm a huge fan of the morning routine and I find like. And I want to know what you think about this. I find like that there's this very fragile but valuable piece of real estate that we find and it's very, very small window where we go from offline to online. It's like that first moment where our eyes open and our computer boots up and you either do something about it or you let the computer run the day. My trick is that I always consciously capture that moment by just saying thank you and starting my day from like a present moment thing. What is like the professional tapping version of the way to start the day?
- [36:11]
Jessica Ortner
Well, I tend to tap.
- [36:13]
Dr. JC
What do you do when you.
- [36:15]
Jessica Ortner
Well, I tap in the evening because the evening is usually when I feel the most overwhelmed and stressed. So I'm not. So I am one of those obnoxious people that wake up happy. Like, I wake up like, let's go. And I also have friends that are like, I'm going to murder you and I'm a pumpkin. But by 10 o' clock I'm sleeping. So to me, nighttime is when I feel the burden of stress. Like, and there's a one tapping meditation I go to almost every night, which is called Center. I am a mom. I. My struggle now is there's a lot for me to think about. I'm thinking about my kids needs and their schedules and what's going on. But I also own a business and so I'm also thinking about my employees and what we're working on and deadlines. And sometimes by the end of the night I just feel like there's so much on my plate that I can't think straight. And then I find when I'm overwhelmed, it's hard for me to distinguish what's a priority. And so when I do the center tapping meditation, it's like I'm pulling those strings back. Like all the. I almost like look at it as like my energy is being pulled in a million directions and I just bring it all back to my body. And when I feel center, it's very easy for me to distinguish wish what my next step is and everything doesn't feel so urgent. And so that is my daily practice and what I'm, what I work through and in the morning, though, I do go for a walk, and I sometimes tap on my walk, and I can tap positive things. Recently I had a video go viral. I think it's the one that you talked about where I was thinking every single cell inside my body is happy and. Well. And so I was just tapping and just. And like, singing the song I heard online and.
- [37:54]
Dr. JC
And your face looked like it does right now. Big smile.
- [37:56]
Jessica Ortner
Yeah, I had a big smile. I wasn't taking life so seriously, and I was just, like, tapping and the sun was shining on my face, and it. I just was using it to feel good because I was already moving my body and felt good. To me, it's the evenings when my energy begins to shrink that I need the extra support. But there's other people who say that it's the mornings that they feel overwhelmed. And so the thing is that you don't need 15, 20 minutes. There are tapping meditations that are just five minutes to center your energy.
- [38:23]
Podcast Host/Outro
So.
- [38:23]
Jessica Ortner
But I'll say, like, in case people are curious. My morning thing is I don't check my phone, but I start with a book. I can't. I mean, I can if I wanted to, but I'm not the person who just, like, jumps out of bed and gets going. I feel like when I wake up, I reach for a book and I read, like, a few pages of whatever book I'm reading, and it just, like, helps wake up my brain. And then I don't look at my phone until I get the kids off to school. So I'll, like, just be with them and get ready, and then I'll check what's going on so that. So I don't tap in the morning. I tap in the evening. But it's like, wherever you can fit it and whatever feels great for you.
- [38:59]
Dr. JC
Well, I think it's. I think James Clear talks about the fact that the morning starts in the evening.
- [39:04]
Jessica Ortner
You know, it does start the night before.
- [39:06]
Grainger Announcer
It's.
- [39:07]
Jessica Ortner
It's true. You know what? That's a really good point. And I think the reason I always go back to this one is then it helps me think about the next day, and I get clear on what I have going on, and I don't feel so scattered.
- [39:18]
Dr. JC
Just quickly for somebody. You know, people have such thick skin and, like, so many people are just so good at just pretending everything is fine. I. I have a shirt that I wear that everybody gets a kick out of. It just says I'm fine. So what are some of the. Just quickly. And I want to end with Maybe you given some advice about a particular scenario. What are some signs and symptoms that somebody would notice that their nervous system is like, dysregulated?
- [39:43]
Jessica Ortner
The first one is the overthinking. Like, it's just, you're having trouble shutting your mind off and being present. You're thinking about either something in the past or something in the future. Your body also will speak through you. So if you, a lot of times, if you find yourself getting constant migraines, repetitive migraines, or even back pain, oftentimes, you know, yes, you might have a herniated disc, something might have happened. But especially when we're talking about chronic pain, there's a very big difference between acute pain, which is you fall and you cut yourself, and, and the chronic pain that's not going away. If your nervous system isn't regulated, oftentime chronic pain lingers because it's like this alarm system. Your body is saying there's something wrong, even though there isn't. You're safe. So that's another one. But I would say the biggest thing is really your own mind. Your. Your nervous system is fried and struggling. When you feel like you're kind of drowning in a feeling or you're stuck
- [40:39]
Dr. JC
in looping thoughts, that's everybody listening.
- [40:42]
Jessica Ortner
We all, we all have moments, and
- [40:43]
Dr. JC
that's not a bad thing. It's just now you, you know, you know that this might be advantageous. I, for one, have just made a distinction that I don't address these kind of things like I do. I have my own routine, but I'm going to definitely start tapping at night. Somebody wakes up in the middle of the night and they're overthinking, or maybe they're worried about nailing the jello to the ceiling or whatever it is something in the past or the future. But either way, it's. It's got them feeling and, and their nervous system is, is awake. What would be an example of something that you could give them not as a quick fix, but as something to initiate. Initiate when that happens?
- [41:17]
Jessica Ortner
Yeah, absolutely. So we do have tapping meditations for that. But let's just say you don't have the Tapping solution app. You just wake up, it's two o' clock in the morning. What can you do? One of the things that we found is besides the tapping, which is just for those who are watching, I just use two hands and I'm just tapping underneath the eye. What you could do is you can stimulate that point by also pressing and holding, which tends to be more comfortable and easier, especially when you, when you've just woken up and you're trying to fall back to sleep, it's less stimulating. And if you wake up with a thought, with a fear, just allow yourself to be present and tap and just hold the points. And you can say something as comforting as, even though I can't stop thinking about this, I am safe. Even though I'm stressed about this, I am safe. And I would keep it that simple. If we're not going to do like a full tapping experience that's, you know, 10, 10 minutes, allow yourself to acknowledge what your fear is. And sometimes the fear is simply, I'm not going to get back to sleep and tomorrow is going to feel really hard. Sometimes it's, we wake up and it's not that deep. We don't really know why. And so allowing yourself to just press and hold the points and remind and even say to your body, I'm safe, so you can say what you're experiencing. And then there's actually three phrases that I think are really helpful to know, which is, I am here. I am here. We're not. It's not to my tomorrow, it's not yesterday. I am here. The next one is, I am safe. I am safe. And the third one, this will pass. It will pass. Every storm passes, so I am here. I am safe. This will pass. Pressing on the points and simply saying that will really help regulate your nervous system. That alone could work. Or first maybe you need to acknowledge your fear and then move to that.
- [43:01]
Dr. JC
Well, in the spirit of this show, I would say that that makes sense. I mean, I can, I can already tell that that would be something. I can't wait to wake up in the middle of the night with a problem if something that she just said. And I'm just speaking to everybody listening, including myself. You know, I have the app and it's a big, big difference. You know, you get the app and, and the book. I mean, I, I would actually recommend that people read the book, you know, while they have the app because it's just that understanding, you'll, you'll lock it in, especially for some people that maybe block self help and things like that book is, is an extraordinary tool, but the app is just like a great thing to have have. And God, you know, people have like 600 apps like this is, this one right here for a year is like barely anything. And it's just a fantastic app. But I just, it just seems like that is a massive game changer. That's a, that's a big power move. For human beings to have a system and a structure in place for that. Such a great conversation. You know, unfortunately I have like 6 million other things that I want to know and connect with all these other thoughts that I had in my head. But maybe we'll have you back one day. Congratulations on the success of your book. Congratulations on finding something that is in your heart that you just enjoy helping people with. And I, I for one know that that is almost sometimes considered a selfish act because I know you get so much joy by helping people and I can see that in you. You've been smiling the whole time. If somebody wants to connect with you outside of getting your book and engaging in the app, would you recommend this, that they do that?
- [44:29]
Jessica Ortner
Yeah, you can reach on Instagram, it's at Jessica Ortner and at the Tapping Solutions we put a lot of great, our social media has a lot of great resources. We have quick tapping things if you just want to try one round as well as a lot of the latest research and explaining how this really works. So those are the best ways. And our website is the tapping solution and the app is anywhere on Android and iPhone and it's called Tap Tapping Solution.
- [44:55]
Grainger Announcer
So.
- [44:55]
Jessica Ortner
And I just do want to mention that we do have free tapping meditations in there. We also have a free 14 day free trial if you want to unlock everything to explore. And we have sessions specifically for first responders who go through a lot of stress that are always unlocked and always free for everyone.
- [45:11]
Dr. JC
And even all these people out there that are watching the Knicks right now and they're excited, like sometimes we have
- [45:16]
Jessica Ortner
to calm down to sleep at least.
- [45:21]
Dr. JC
Thank you so much for being here. What, what a, what a joy. And I know that people are going to just love this because it was good information, but it's also something that they can do. So we appreciate your, your time and once again, congrats.
- [45:32]
Jessica Ortner
Thank you so much. Hi, this is Jessica Ortner and this podcast makes Sense.
- [45:38]
Dr. JC
That's it for today to support the make sense with Dr. JC podcast. Be sure to subscribe, like and share as well as follow the Makes Sense substack for free daily quotes, live streams and blogs. And remember, learning without action is just another form of distraction. If something hit home and you learned something today, give it away. That's the only way it's going to stay. See you next time. Makes sense.
- [46:11]
Podcast Host/Outro
If you like the show, please take a moment to rate, review and and subscribe. It really does help the show to grow. Thank you for listening. The laws.
- [46:40]
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- [47:22]
Podcast Host/Outro
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