Dealing With Headaches

Now, you might look at that headline and think “I do that anyway”, but I don’t mean swearing at your headache or migraine. I mean using EFT (Emotional Freedome Technique), developed in the 1990’s by Gary Craig. It’s very similar to acupuncture — only no needles are involved. It’s even more similar to acupressure, where you press down on acupuncture points. The only difference is that you tap.

Oh, and you’re suppossed to think about certain emotions, but quite frankly, that seems optional. (But proponents of EFT will argue otherwise. But how can we be sure that someone is REALLY thinking about certain emotions when they are supposed to be thinking about certain emotions? You can’t. So there.)

What You Do

I’ve seen some varations on a theme, but basically it looks like EFT for migraines or headaches goes something like this:

• Rub your most painful spots, saying “Although I have this migraine, I fully accept myself” (Now see, this is where I would lose it)
• Then you start to tap on all of your acupuncture points, or at least twelve of them. However, according to Tappingman on Squidoo, you only need ten points. Tapping is described as “drumming your fingers on a desk”.
• Along with the tapping, you are suppossed to focus on a phrase like “Although I have a blinding pain behind my eyeballs, I accept myself.”
• Continue until the mapin goes away (which EFT proponents claim will be ten to fifteen minutes — if you are using the technique properly).

Don’t Expect Miracles

Although I think you can get a lot of genuine help from some alternative therapies like acupuncture and acupressure, I remain highly skeptical of EFT (”No way!” you say). The technique is far too new to be reliable. So far, it could very well be acting like a placebo (which is pretty effective in helping the body believe firmly it will get better just because something new is being tried).

Also, when looking at EFT web sites, you hear a lot of rah-rah and not a lot about the actual technique. Most of the pages seem devoted to anectotal acounts (which could be faked). And, I’ve also read some questionable medical advice. In Tappingman’s Squidoo thingy, he mentions “Something like 80% of headaches and migraines are caused by dehydration…” (and no source for this statistic is mentioned.)

Bull. NO ONE knows the exact cause of migraines (a fact I keep hammering on about). This is one of the reasons why migraine disease is such a nasty problem. And I have heard about drinking a glass of water when I felt a bad headache or a migraine come one. All that happened was that I had to drag myself to the bathroom more often.

Although I am not a doctor nor do I play one on TV, I do let a hell of a lot of headaches and migraines. I’m also trained by The School of Hard Knocks of how to discriminate advterising ploys from actual helpful medical evidence.

If you want to try EFT for migraines, go for it. But don’t expect miracles. Most likely, it’ll work for the first couple of times (like any good placebo would) and then eventually won’t. And there doesn’t seem to be any known negative side effects.

But I’m not gonna try it. Saying “Although I have this migraine, I fully accept myself” would drive me bonkers. Saying, “I have a migraine and I want to bite heads off” is more my style.