The Sandwich Technique is one way your teen can utilize The Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) or Tapping to calm stress in the moment. When we feel stress, our fight and flight response is activated. Our ancestors main stress was survival, so the amygdala starts pumping out hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, to help us run away or fight dangerous situations like being chased by a tiger. While this was perfect when our reaction to stress required physical movement, today, stress happens mostly in our minds. If we don’t release it, it builds and builds to the point where we have physical symptoms like extra weight or tight muscles, which can eventually can lead to diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancer. The Emotional Freedom Technique, and in particular the Sandwich Technique can help your teen relieve stress when it arises, so that the amygdala doesn’t become activated.
The Emotional Freedom Technique is based on lightly tapping on meridian points similar to acupuncture. When your teen taps on these points, a relaxation signal is sent to their brain. Even if they are saying stress inducing statements, their body remains calm and does not pump out unnecessary hormones. This allows your teen to safely and easily release the stress, which keeps them happier and healthier.
Teens are in the process of figuring out how they fit into this world. They focus on what they don’t have and have difficulty valuing themselves. They stress about body image, excelling in school and sports and their social standing. A common stressor in teens lives, that was not an issue when we were teens, is managing social media. They post pictures hoping to get lots of likes. They have Snapchat streaks that can last for months. They need to be followed by more people than they are following. And while this may seem like a silly, unnecessary stressor to us as adults, it feels VERY real to your teen and their body responds in kind.
Let’s say your teen posts a picture from the school dance and gets 30 likes, but a classmate posts a picture and gets 130 likes. All of the sudden, the simple act of posting a picture sends your teen into the Chronic Stress Loop. They panic that nobody likes them, and they rely on their default habit to make themselves feel better. If their default habit for managing stress is overeating, then without even thinking, they are in the kitchen eating an enormous bowl of ice cream. This makes them feel better in the moment, but in the end, they feel worse.
Let’s replace the default habit of overeating with The Sandwich Technique. The Sandwich Technique consists of rating the intensity of the negative emotion on a scale of 1-10, creating a set up statement, negative phrase, and positive phrase and then doing three rounds of tapping.
Rate Emotion: 7
Set Up Statement: Even though I feel like a loser because I only got 30 likes, I fully and completely accept myself.
Negative Phrase: I am a loser.
Positive Phrase: I am loved by many.
The first round of tapping your teen claims the pain, but because they are tapping, their body remains relaxed, and your teen begins to release the negative emotion. During the second round, your teen alternates between the negative and positive statement. They continue to release the negative emotion and begin to fill that “hole” with the positive emotion. During the third round, your teen repeats the positive emotion. Then your teens takes a deep breathe, exhales and then rates the negative emotion. Hopefully, the emotion will have reduced a bit. If not, your teen could do more rounds until the negative emotion is eased. Ideally, it is best to shoot for a 5 or below on the emotional rating scale.
Completing three rounds takes around one minute. In one minute, your teen can reduce their stress and begin to focus on how many people actually love them. In reality, the teen that got 130 likes might have gone to two different schools, attended a sleep away camp, or comes from a large family, so they have more people to like their pictures. Even if your teen can intellectually grasp this, the negative emotions will still creep up on them, and they need a way to manage it. Instead of falling into the Chronic Stress Loop, they can use The Sandwich Technique to reduce their stress and remain calm in the moment, which keeps them happy and healthy moving forward.