EFT Vs Mindfulness: How They Differ and When to Use Each

The feeling of anxiousness and emotional distress is quite common during treatment days. Regular scans, reports, and hospital visits can overwhelm your cancer journey more than any treatment and medications. Realizing that recovery is more than just medication, people are now adapting new tools like EFT and mindfulness to regain the calmness of their minds. Knowing these techniques and their impact on the patient’s mind during cancer can clarify the misconceptions. This helps in understanding the role of calmness during difficult days.

What is EFT?

Long and tiring treatment procedures, hectic therapies, and strong medications can overwhelm patients. Patients often come ot a point where they actually start losing hope in the treatment. To tackle this and regain hope, patients are now adopting Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFTs). EFT is a mind-body practice that works by tapping the specific pressure points while focusing on distressing thoughts or emotions. This technique calms the patient’s nervous system, allowing them to remain composed even during the most challenging phases of their treatment. It helps reduce the emotional intensity associated with the stress or anxiety of the treatment. By combining this physical tapping and mindful attention, EFT enables a sense of relief and allows patients to stay hopeful during their treatment

Understanding mindful practices

Maintaining a calm and composed mind becomes even more essential when undergoing a major surgery or therapy session. Mindfulness is a practice that involves paying attention to thoughts and emotions in the present moment without judgment. It helps patients express and feel rather than suppress their emotions. Mindfulness encourages acceptance and awareness, helping patients react to stress with clarity. Over time, this practice also helps patients in dealing with difficult emotions and supports focus and reduces anxiety.

How do EFT and mindfulness differ

EFT and mindfulness help in supporting the emotional well-being of the patient; they still differ in how they are practiced.

• Technique: EFT uses physical tapping on specific pressure points, while mindfulness relies on mental awareness.
• Effort level: EFT is often more guided and easier for beginners, but mindfulness takes consistent practice.
• Emotional processing: EFT engages with specific emotional triggers, and mindfulness observes emotions without actually reacting to them.
• Immediacy: EFT offers faster emotional relief, while mindfulness is gradual but offers long-term relief.

Knowing the difference

EFT and mindfulness are totally effective, but their impact depends on the emotional context and the patient's needs. Understanding which approach is best in which condition helps in choosing the right option.

• EFT works best during emotional distress, like stress, anxiety, or intense emotional triggers that demand quick calmness.
• Mindfulness works best for ongoing challenges like chronic stress, emotional regulation difficulties, and other situations that require emotional resilience.

Using EFT and mindfulness together

EFT and mindfulness can be used together to support the emotional well-being of the patient during their cancer journey. EFT helps reduce emotional distress, which makes mindfulness easier to practice with focus. Mindfulness can bring emotional awareness and resilience, completing the task started by EFT. When combined thoughtfully, both these practices create more balance.

Choosing the best for your emotional well-being

Emotional needs are not the same for all, and neither are the tools that are used to regulate them. EFT and mindfulness offer unique benefits, and choosing them depends upon the intensity of the patient’s situation. Understanding how these practices work and what is best to opt for can help patients respond to emotional challenges with much awareness.