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submitted: 2008-04-08 10:55:51 | by: Magnus
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Ever feel tired or hungry even though you just ate and had plenty of sleep? Let me tell you about a little trick your body sometimes plays on you - let me introduce you to FakeTired and FakeHungry.

Recently I attended a weekend of lectures in London, something I'd been looking forward to for a while. I remembered finding it hard to concentrate in lectures at Cambridge, usually due to being tired or hung over or confused by the subject, so I made sure to get an early night the night before, and read up on the subject as much as I could.

After a great night's sleep and a light breakfast I arrived at the venue feeling great. But for some reason about ten minutes into the lecture I started to feel really tired. I felt confused and drowsy and could hardly keep my eyes open.

Instantly I started doubting that I'd slept well that night. I started taking sips of water to wake me up, and popped to the toilet for fresh air and to slap myself in the face. Having left the seminar room and run down the stairs, I felt wide awake. But two minutes after sitting down again I instantly felt tired.

This puzzled me and led me to experiment with EFT as I now do with almost every situation. I tried tapping the tiredness, but did it in my mind. This is just as effective provided you can clearly visualise or imagine yourself saying the phrases and tapping the correct points.

I stopped feeling tired, and woke up to the point where I could easily pay attention to the lecture. I tapped some more in the break and a bit more that evening before I went out for a friend's birthday. Despite drinking alcohol and getting to bed later than I had intended, the next day during the lectures I was wide awake and thinking clearly.

That was the first time I really noticed FakeTired - Tiredness You Can Tap (TM). Before I explain what's going on, I'll tell you about FakeHungry.

I was giving a talk during one of my weekend seminars. During these we do a lot of tapping and we don't hold back on working on deep issues. This sometimes brings up bad feeling in people so I often have to check how everyone is feeling. People sometimes describe cloudy or foggy feelings, but this time someone said he felt a bit hungry.

But a few other people told me they were hungry. We all laughed when I suggested we use EFT on it. However we all became curious when it actually worked. When it came to lunch time the first person still had little appetite and he told me he ate less than usual.

What's going on?

The different signals that our body gives us such as being tired or hungry are interpreted as negative feelings. They are useful in this way because they prevent of from passing out or starving.

Sometimes however, it can happen that we associate these signals of tiredness or hunger with particular locations, activities or people. In my case I spent three years at University attending lectures while being hung over, tired and confused. A strong association had been created in my mind that was still strong many years later.

Similarly, who knows what our minds associate with being hungry, it could be as simple as "I don't have an empty plate in front of me". We can certainly associate it with sitting in a seminar room. Our minds are wonderfully powerful learning machines, and all it takes is one time when you were really hungry and sat in a chair, to associate sitting down with hunger.

When that association is triggered we feel FakeHungry or FakeTired, and the system is designed so that you can't tell the difference between that and the real thing.

It can get confusing when you do manage to get rid of FakeTired and Fakehungry by sleeping or eating. When you start eating your body gets feelings associated with digesting food which can mask the FakeHungry feelings. Those FakeHungry feelings might be a constant presence, but are only noticed when the first stages of digestion have passed. All of this happens before you've even become really hungry.

You can take a break from negative feelings by sleeping, which is why taking a power nap is less about resting your body and more about taking a break mentally. You don't need long to recuperate from emotional stresses yet it's quick to come back when we need to get back into action.

Because it is generated by the survival mechanism, FakeTired is fear-based. The creates a beautiful irony - have you ever felt so tired you couldn't sleep? That's because the strong fear-based FakeTired feelings are also keeping you awake to deal with possible threats.

Yet another way to tell the difference between RealTired and FakeTired, or RealHungry and FakeHungry is try and feel them at will. You can try making yourself feels those feelings on purpose by thinking of times when you were very hungry or tired.

You might want to Tap that.

About the Author

Magnus runs Tapping.com, where you can find 13 EFT Videos that take you through your first few Tapping sessions. Visit that site for more articles and Magnus's Emotional Freedom Techniquebook.

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