Tapping Away Exam Stress and Procrastination
WHAT’S THE ISSUE: ‘I’m re-doing the year to sit my final Yoga Instructor exam. I never went to the exam, because I keep avoiding studying the textbook.’ These are the words of an adult student who was stuck in study procrastination (the Flight Response to academic stress). The goal that she wanted us to work on together was clearing her inner blocks to start revising for her upcoming exam so that she could pass it.
After an initial two-hour tapping sessions, she agreed for us to audio record this second two-hour EFT Tapping session with me where we tapped on the stress that came up in her body when she looked at the textbook. In these snippets from that session, you get a behind-the-scenes view of how the Emotional Freedom Technique can transform study stress and procrastination into a newfound enthusiasm for studying for an exam.
These recordings come from a 2-hour deep dive with an adult student. It was not, of course, the first time I tapped with this adult student. That is why you will notice she felt save to ‘go there’ and feel some difficult feelings with me. I ask my clients to commit to a series of 4 or more sessions. We need to work on building the foundation for our work before you can do this type of deeper processing work.
EXAM STRESS & PROCRASTINATION (PART I)
In this first snippet, you hear us mapping out this adult student’s stress response to looking at the textbook she has to study to pass her final Yoga Instructor exam. In EFT therapy sessions, we’re looking for Blocking Beliefs / Limiting Beliefs, and we try to trace them back their origin (the time they were formed).
In this case, this adult student’s Blocking Belief was ‘I have a bad memory’, which felt like a 100% true fact at the start of the EFT therapy session. She remembers the last 1-2 weeks before her Biology exam, was when formed the belief ‘I have a bad memory’. She remembers how stressful it was trying to remember the Biology terminology in those final 1-2 weeks before the exam.
EXAM STRESS & PROCRASTINATION (PART II)
This second snippet occurred after she remembers how she first thought to her self ‘I have a bad memory’ when she was reading the Biology textbook in Grade 12, in the last 1-2 weeks before her final exam.
Thinking of that memory from a decade ago brings her back and shoulders out of the ‘Freeze’ stress response. We continue to tap to release the stress response that is being triggered in her body, when she thinks of that memory.
After experiencing big shifts in her stress response physiology, she chooses to shift the focus back to exploring the validity of her blocking belief, ‘I have a bad memory’ feels.
EXAM STRESS & PROCRASTINATION (PART III)
In the last 10 minutes of the EFT therapy session, the adult student has a huge cognitive breakthrough, as she shifts out of the stress response (the ’emotional’ brain) to looking at the textbook and into the problem-solving, organizing, decision-making mode (into the frontal lobe of her brain – the mindful, curious, ‘thinking brain’).
As a result, “I have a bad memory” now feels like a 0/10, as she experiences a Cognitive Reframe (meaning: the way she thinks about her memory changes).
“I have a bad memory” when from feeling 100% true, to 0% true.
SO, DID IT WORK?
Short answer: yes. She no longer procrastinated after this four-hour tapping intervention and went to sit the exam four months later. Not only did she pass the exam, she did really well!
That’s how powerful it is to identify the root cause of the problem and clear it at it’s root. All that’s needed is for the student to be ready to go there and connect with their emotion that need to be released and work on their negative beliefs.
The best outcomes are co-created. The student has to meet me half way.
About the EFT PRACTITIONER
Eleni Vardaki works online as a therapeutic coach. A UK-qualified teacher and certified Advanced EFT Practitioner, she offers one-to-one EFT therapy and coaching sessions as well as group tapping classes for kids, teens, and adults.
