What Butterfly Tapping Is—and Isn't
Butterfly tapping is a gentle, self-held technique for anxious moments. You cross your arms over your chest, rest your hands on opposite shoulders or collarbones, and tap slowly from side to side. Left, right, left, right—a rhythm you can do anywhere without drawing attention.
It's related to the standard EFT tapping sequence, but it isn't the same thing. EFT moves through nine specific points on the face, hands, and body in a set order. Tapping on specific points while you name what's troubling you sends a calming signal to the brain's alarm center. Butterfly tapping is gentler: you stay in one position, held and grounded, and tap at a slow pace.
Tapping has been studied at length. More than 300 published studies of tapping, including nearly 100 randomized controlled trials. Reviews that pool many trials have found tapping's effects to be moderate to large, including for anxiety and depression.
Butterfly tapping offers something the full sequence doesn't: a way to ground yourself when you can't work through all nine points. In a waiting room before a difficult appointment. Lying in bed with your thoughts circling. When you need to settle your body in the next sixty seconds, not the next ten minutes.
When Anxiety Takes Over the Body
When anxiety rises, the body's alarm system activates. Your heart rate increases. Your breathing shallows. The parts of your brain responsible for calm, deliberate thought go partially offline while the threat-detection centers take over. This is the body doing exactly what God designed it to do in the face of danger.
The problem is that modern anxiety rarely involves actual danger. The body sounds the alarm anyway—for an email, a memory, a conversation that hasn't happened yet. And once the alarm is sounding, telling yourself to calm down doesn't work.
What a flooded body needs is a slower pace and a place to rest. Butterfly tapping offers both: a steady rhythm, left and right, and a posture in which your own hands hold you. The crossed arms are a small, physical way of saying what you need to hear:
You are held.
The Christian Dimension: Being Held
For Christians, there's something more here than stress management.
Psalm 131:2 offers an image that butterfly tapping makes physically available:
But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. (ESV)
A weaned child isn't nursing. The child isn't getting anything from the mother in that moment except presence—being held, being close, being safe. That's the posture. Not striving. Not demanding. Resting in the arms of someone who has proven trustworthy.
And Psalm 139:5 reminds us whose hand is actually on us:
You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. (ESV)
When you cross your arms and tap, you take the shape of being held. But the holding isn't ultimately your own. You're placing yourself, physically and deliberately, in the posture of someone resting in God's presence.
This is why the language we use during butterfly tapping matters. Secular approaches often build the setup around self-acceptance, a declaration that you accept yourself completely. There's nothing wrong with that language for those it serves. But for Christians, there's a truer word available.
We don't hold ourselves. We are held. We don't accept ourselves into peace. We surrender ourselves to the One whose peace surpasses understanding.
A Two-Minute Butterfly Tapping Routine
Here's a practical routine you can use anywhere—a waiting room, your car before a hard conversation, your bed when sleep won't come.
Step 1: Position
Cross your arms over your chest. Let your hands rest gently on opposite shoulders or just below your collarbones, wherever feels natural. Close your eyes if you can. If you're in public and want to be less visible, you can fold your arms more casually—the key is having both hands in contact with your upper body.
Step 2: Begin Tapping
Tap slowly, alternating left and right. Not fast. Not urgent. A gentle, steady rhythm—about one tap per second, alternating sides. Left hand taps. Right hand taps. Left. Right.
Step 3: Name What You're Carrying
As you tap, acknowledge what's present. Not out loud if that's not possible. In your mind is enough.
Even though I'm carrying this anxiety right now...
Even though my chest feels tight and my thoughts won't slow down...
Even though I don't know how this will turn out...
Step 4: Speak the Surrender
After naming what's true, speak what's truer:
I am held by God.
His hand is on me.
I release this to Him.
You can pair this with a breath prayer—a short phrase timed to your breathing:
Inhale: You hem me in. Exhale: behind and before.
Or:
Inhale: Like a quieted child. Exhale: I rest in You.
Keep tapping through both the naming and the surrender. The rhythm doesn't need to change. Left, right, left, right.
Step 5: Notice and Close
After a minute or two, pause. Notice what's shifted. Your breathing may have slowed. The tightness in your chest may have loosened. The racing thoughts may have quieted—not disappeared, but settled enough that you can think again.
If you'd like, close with a short prayer:
Lord, I brought this to You. I leave it with You. Thank You for holding me.
Two minutes. No equipment. No special space. Your hands, your body, and the God who promises to be present.
When Anxiety Is More Than a Moment
Butterfly tapping is a tool for anxious moments. It's not a treatment for an anxiety disorder.
If anxiety is constant—if it's disrupting your sleep, your relationships, your ability to work or worship—please don't try to tap your way through it alone. Tapping in Faith is a practice alongside faith and good care, not a replacement for either. If you're living with trauma or a health condition, keep working with your doctor or counselor.
What butterfly tapping offers is a way through the next two minutes, and a posture from which prayer can begin again. If you're ready to learn the full nine-point sequence, our guide to the tapping points walks through each location with Scripture for every point.
Try It Where You Are
You can try butterfly tapping wherever you're reading this.
Cross your arms. Rest your hands on your shoulders. Close your eyes.
Begin tapping. Slowly. Left, right, left, right.
And as you tap, pray:
Lord, I quiet my soul before You. Like a child resting with its mother, I rest with You. You hem me in, behind and before. Your hand is on me. I am held.
If you'd like to see the research on tapping, our science of tapping page lays out the studies.
And if you'd like to bring this to God in a guided way, you can try a free tapping session whenever you're ready.
