By Christine Wheeler, MA

Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is a remarkable new healing technique that has proven invaluable to people with food-related issues like out-of-control cravings and emotional eating. 

EFT has also been shown to provide relief for people who are fasting for health or religious reasons. EFT eliminates your food cravings and quiets hunger pangs, making the process of fasting less difficult.

This procedure borrows from the theories of Einstein (that everything, including the human body is composed of energy) and the fundamentals of acupuncture (that stimulating meridian points balances the body's subtle energy system). The integration of these two theories has contributed to the development of this unique system for balancing the body's energy.

When your body's energy system is disrupted, you are more likely to experience distractions and discomforts related to food, and more likely to engage in emotional eating. Instead, if you engage your body's subtle energy system with EFT, sometimes called the "Tapping Technology," the distracting discomforts like food cravings and hunger pangs often subside.

Dr. Mercola's Patients use EFT to Help Them Easily Follow his Total Health Program.

Health professionals and laypersons alike are successfully using EFT to take control of their own healing and to get control of their eating habits and food cravings. For several years, Dr. Mercola has been recommending EFT to his patients to alleviate their food cravings as they change to a healthier diet with his Total Health Program. While EFT does not claim to be a cure-all, it has established a proven track record of helping people to eliminate food cravings about 80 percent of the time.

Following is a synopsis of a story from the EFT Web site. 

Using EFT Makes Fasting Easier

Deborah Mitnick's husband, Searle, was observing Tisha B'Av, a day of fasting in the Jewish tradition. Searle was expecting this year's fast to be a difficult one. It was a hot summer day, he had to work and was likely to be around people who were eating. 

Furthermore, because he was working late, he did not have the opportunity to eat a large meal before his fast began. He started the fast feeling hungry.

In the morning Deborah suggested that they use EFT to help him through what he expected to be a "rough fast." They did a few minutes of EFT before he left for work and the fast went well until later in the day. Searle was distracted by hunger pangs and so he telephoned Deborah. They did EFT over the phone addressing that issue as well as his worries and concerns about the fast. 

After a few brief applications of EFT, Searle felt no more distress from the fast. He said it was the easiest fast he'd ever experienced and planned to use EFT as he prepared for Yom Kippur.

More on EFT

Please note that in addition to eliminating food cravings, EFT has been a consistently effective healing tool for hundreds of other physical, mental and emotional ailments. For more information, you can explore the EFT Web site and its numerous success stories regarding fears, phobias, emotional traumas and physical ailments. 

While a complete description of EFT is beyond the scope of this article, you can learn all the basics from the free EFT Get Started Package, including a free download of the 79-page EFT Manual. Those wishing to save time and dive right in can get the affordable five-star training DVDs.

Please consult qualified health professionals before putting EFT into practice for yourself or others.