How To Tap Your Way to Calm and Clarity

The Science of Happiness

PRX and Greater Good Science Center

Science, Social Sciences

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 14 August 2025

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There’s a tapping practice shown to ease stress, balance emotions, and support healing. We explore the science behind Emotional Freedom Technique, or EFT.

Summary: Emerging research shows that a body-tapping technique called Emotional Freedom Technique, or EFT, can help calm the nervous system, improve emotional awareness, and support healing from trauma. In this episode of The Science of Happiness, we follow illustrator Minnie Phan's journey of using this evidence-based practice to connect with herself, care for her mental health, and create from a place of resilience.

How To Do This Practice:

Identify the issue: Choose one specific feeling, thought, or physical sensation that’s bothering you, such as stress, sadness, or tension in your body.
Rate the intensity: On a scale of 0 to 10 (with 10 being the most intense), rate how strongly you feel it right now. This will help you notice changes as you tap.
Create your setup statement: Say a phrase that names your feeling and affirms self-acceptance, such as: "Even though I feel anxious, I fully and completely accept myself."
Gently tap 5–7 times on each point: Side of hand, inner eyebrow above your nose, side of eye, under eye, under nose, chin, collarbone, under arm, and top of head.
Repeat while tapping: As you tap each point, repeat a shortened reminder phrase (e.g., “I feel anxious” or “I accept myself”) while taking slow, steady breaths.
Reassess and repeat if needed: Pause, take a breath, and rate your intensity again. Continue another round or two until you notice a shift toward more calm or ease.

Scroll down for a transcription of this episode.

Today’s Guests:

MINNIE PHAN is an illustrator and publisher of the picture book, The Yellow Áo Dài. Phan has also collaborated with Pulitzer Prize winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen on the book, Simone.

Learn more about Minnie Phan here: https://www.minniephan.com/

Follow Minnie Phan on Instagram: @minnie_phan

DR. PETA STAPLETON is a world-leading researcher in the Emotional Freedom Technique.

Learn more about Dr. Peta Stapleton here: https://www.petastapleton.com/

Follow Dr. Peta Stapleton on LinkedIn: @petastapleton

Related The Science of Happiness episodes:

How Holding Yourself Can Reduce Stress: https://tinyurl.com/2hvhkwe6

The Science of Humming: https://tinyurl.com/4esyy6nd

Related Happiness Breaks:

Tap into the Joy That Surrounds You: https://tinyurl.com/2pb8ye9x

The Healing Power of Your Own Touch: https://tinyurl.com/y4ze59h8

Tell us about your experience with this practice. Email us at [email protected] or follow on Instagram @HappinessPod.

Help us share The Science of Happiness! Leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts and share this link with someone who might like the show: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

Transcription: https://tinyurl.com/psmskjyp

Transcript

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0:00.0	I went to five elementary schools, and though my environment constantly changed when I was a child,
0:08.0	one thing stayed consistent, and that was access to a piece of paper and a pencil.
0:13.0	No matter where I lived, no matter who was around me, I could always draw.
0:18.0	I think drawing was a way for me to see myself and to be with myself in a way that was safe and comforting.
0:26.6	And it was the one place, one thing that I could control in a life where I felt very powerless.
0:33.6	Being a child is a powerless experience, especially being the daughter of refugees,
0:38.3	or our parents were doing their absolute best to survive in this country without knowing the language, the culture,
0:43.3	and also not having any real formal education.
0:47.3	Being an artist requires a deep connection to one's self, one's child's self.
0:53.3	I think being an artist is opening
0:56.7	doors to parts of yourself that people I think are really terrified of. Their needs,
1:01.4	the curiosities, their hungers. And I recently found myself in a really intense place
1:07.2	where I felt so opened up but also so emotionally creatively charged and I was
1:14.5	ready to just dive in but I found that I wasn't really taking care of myself during
1:19.5	my most heightened emotional places and so EFT has been a way of grounding myself
1:25.8	and caring for myself while I'm doing the work of creativity and expression.
1:30.3	Tapping started to bring me back to my physical experience, something to focus on that was outside my mind.
1:39.3	For thousands of years, Chinese medicine has worked with the body's energetic pathways,
1:52.8	using techniques like acupuncture to support healing.
1:56.1	A more recent approach works with those same pathways through tapping. I'm Shuka Kalantari. Welcome to the
2:03.1	science of happiness. Today we're exploring emotional freedom technique, or EFT. It draws from traditional
2:10.2	Chinese medicine, modern psychology, and the science of neuroplasticity. And it's gaining attention for how it can help us with stress, anxiety, pain, sleep, and even our immune system.
	...

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