It looks unusual. It is simple to learn. And for more than three decades, people around the world have been using it to work with stress, difficult emotions, memories, fears, performance pressure and more.
EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques. It is commonly called tapping because you gently tap a sequence of points on the face and upper body while focusing on something specific that is bothering you.
That “something” might be a stressful thought, a recent argument, a fear about tomorrow, a difficult memory, a physical feeling in the body or a reaction you cannot seem to switch off.
EFT emerged in the 1990s. Gary Craig, an engineer with a strong interest in personal development, trained in Roger Callahan’s Thought Field Therapy (TFT). Craig simplified the more complicated TFT procedures into a repeatable tapping method that was easier for ordinary people to learn and use.
Craig made his early EFT material widely available and encouraged experimentation. One of his best-known phrases was “Try it on everything.” The idea was not that EFT was guaranteed to fix everything, but that its range of possible applications was much wider than people might initially assume.
Since then EFT has spread internationally. Thousands of practitioners and many more individual users have applied it in personal, coaching and clinical settings.
EFT has now been the subject of more than 200 published studies and clinical trials, including randomized controlled trials, systematic reviews and meta-analyses. The quality and size of the studies vary, as they do in many developing fields, but the research base is substantial and continues to grow.
One of the more eye-catching findings involves cortisol, a hormone involved in the stress response. In a randomized controlled study, a single one-hour EFT session was associated with an average cortisol reduction of about 24%, significantly greater than the comparison groups. A later replication reported an average reduction of about 43% after a single EFT session.
Those numbers are interesting because they point to a rapid physiological change, not merely people saying they felt a little calmer.
EFT has also been studied with military veterans experiencing significant PTSD symptoms. In one randomized study, participants received six one-hour EFT sessions. Among those who ultimately received EFT, 86% no longer met the study’s PTSD clinical criteria after six sessions. That figure remained 86% at three months and 80% at six months.
This does not mean EFT is the only effective approach to trauma. What makes results like these noteworthy is the amount of change reported after a relatively brief course of sessions and the fact that much of the improvement remained months later.
Not every way practitioners use EFT has been studied in a large clinical trial, and not every study has had access to major research funding. That is worth remembering when looking at a low-cost, non-drug technique whose research has largely grown through universities, clinicians and committed researchers rather than a large commercial sponsor.
For Tapping.men, research matters. So does what happens when a person actually uses the technique on a real problem and notices a meaningful shift.
Pressure, irritability, racing thoughts, difficulty switching off and the physical feeling of being wound up.
Breakups, rejection, anger, obsessive thinking, regret and emotional triggers.
Nerves before important situations, fear of failure, self-doubt and reactions to setbacks.
Working gently with specific memories, sensations and emotional responses, ideally with appropriate professional support when the issue is severe or traumatic.
Church D, Yount G, Brooks AJ. The effect of emotional freedom techniques on stress biochemistry: a randomized controlled trial. J Nerv Ment Dis. 2012.
Bach D et al. Reexamining the effect of emotional freedom techniques on stress biochemistry: a randomized controlled trial. Psychol Trauma. 2020.
Church D et al. Psychological trauma symptom improvement in veterans using emotional freedom techniques: a randomized controlled trial. J Nerv Ment Dis. 2013.
Schwarz R, Stapleton P. Theoretical and clinical insights into the psychological mechanisms and active ingredients of emotional freedom techniques. Front Psychol. 2026.