What is the scientific evidence behind Havening?

Have you heard of the new approach called Havening Techniques® to helping people with mental health struggles, trauma and day-to-day anxiety and are wondering what the scientific evidence is behind it?

Havening is a fantastic new approach to helping people with trauma all the way through to day-day anxiety. It is phenomenally powerful, but also incredibly simple in terms of how it is used.

We are all capable of using and applying Havening techniques, particularly from a self-Havening perspective, to help ourselves with our general low-level day-to-day struggles.

So what is Havening?

Havening is an approach that uses the power of Havening Touch - which is basically washing the palms of our hands, stroking our shoulders all the way down our arms, and also washing our face to generate calming delta waves in our brain.

These calming delta waves help depotentiate (unplug) the AMPA receptors that are plugged onto the surface of our brain cells (in particular within the amygdala) at the time a trauma took place. By applying Havening Touch®, the delta waves, through unplugging these AMPA receptors, reduce the emotional charge and anything that is encoded as part of a trauma that you may have experienced.

That trauma could be anything from, for example, for me it was witnessing my dad's sudden death back in September 2019, to a major car crash, or a childhood trauma, that could be somebody saying something hurtful to you when you were a child.

For more information visit my blog on 'What is Havening and how does it work?'.

What is the scientific evidence?

The founders of Havening, brothers Drs Ron Ruden and Steven Ruden, have been undertaking extensive research for the last 30 years to find the best, most effective technique to help deal with trauma.

They first started looking at tapping therapy (Electromagnetic Field Therapy, or EFT) and one of the results that they achieved in the very early days was using tapping to help people with phobias. 

Whilst they were doing their research, they found by applying Havening Touch and using our innate ability to generate delta waves in our brain, which we can measure using QEEG, was more powerful and more effective.

So what research has happened since then?

Research done by Thandi Gursimran et al at King's College London in the UK, looked at the effect of one single session of Havening Techniques to help people who had self-reported symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Back in 2015, after just one session of Havening they noted a significant reduction in the participants level of anxiety and depression. They demonstrated the efficacy of Havening in reducing the symptoms associated with general anxiety and depression.

That's was the first major piece of research that had been done beyond the research and the theories postulated by Drs Ron and Steven Ruden.

More recently, research by Kirsty Hodgson et al at Cardiff Metropolitan University in the UK looked at Type D personality disorder. These are people that are much more vulnerable to anxiety and depression.

In their statistician-blind parallel-group controlled trial (intervention group vs. waiting list control group) they examined the impact of Havening Techniques on the Type D constituents of negative affect (NA) and social inhibition (SI).

The study consisted of 125 participants (57 waiting and 68 treatment), of which 40 participants in treatment group received additional stress biomarker assessment of heart rate, blood pressure, salivary cortisol.

Again, they found after just one single session of Havening (and within 24 hours) that the heart rate, the blood pressure and the cortisol levels - that's the hormone associated with stress, had significantly reduced.

In fact, in many cases of those with the Type D personality disorder, those people that received the Havening treatment no longer had the attributes associated with Type D personality disorder.

It really is a phenomenal technique that has been proven scientifically through research here in the UK to help change our brain state, to relax our brain, and really reduce the responses that we have associated with common conditions linked to mental health.

Hope for future mental health support

For myself, personally, I was struggling with the trauma associated with my dad's passing in September 2019. I explored Havening to help remove the distress level from my dad's death. I wouldn't be able to talk about had I not had Havening.

I went into the session with a distress level of 7/10 and at the end of the session, my distress level was only 2/10. After only one session and within a week, I was able to talk about my dad's death without wanting to go into an emotional meltdown.

At the time of his death, I was wearing this t-shirt, which says 'Honor the struggle.' I was unable to wear this t-shirt because of the association I had with his death. Since having the Havening session, I can now wear it with pride because it reminds me of my dad in a positive way now, rather than in a negative way due to his sudden passing.

In fact, following Havening, I can now look back to that experience that I had and reflect on it with much more kindness, compassion, and acceptance.

Since certifying as a Havening Techniques practitioner, I've been able to help people with a variety of struggles, from helping people remove flashbacks related to PTSD, to significantly reducing the anxiety levels of people who've had major life traumas - all within one session, as well as helping people with phobias.

What has been wonderful is I've also been able to help my mum who also witnessed my dad's sudden death. I've been able to help her reduce the guilt that she felt as a result of his sudden death, and also help her with the subsequent grief and depression.

Following the brain health protocol provided by myself, which included self-Havening guided meditation specific to her needs in less than three months she is feeling very positive about life again.

It really is a phenomenally powerful technique that has a really great standing in helping people with mental health struggle quickly, which is particularly important in this time. 

It has been described by Dr. Daniel Amen as a treatment alongside EMDR to help people with trauma. It's really making good headway into the mainstream approaches for helping people with mental health struggles.

The scientific evidence behind it is continuing to grow. There is some amazing research now being done in United States to look at the brain SPECT images of people who have received Havening sessions.

To find out how I can help you register for your FREE Unleashed Strategy Call.

Learn more about what Havening is and how it works. To find out about the variety of conditions Havening can help address, as well as links to scientific articles and the option to book yourself a FREE 15 minute consultation click here.

www.ruthmaryallan.com/havening.

Your past does not have to be your present.