What is Havening Techniques®?

What is Havening? Or as it’s also know as Havening Techniques. This is a question I get a lot! So let me try and brake it down the best I can.
- A wonderful form of therapy designed to help you heal and find lasting relief from emotional stress, trauma, and everyday anxiety.
- It can change the brain, de-traumatize the memory, and permanently remove its negative effects.
- It uses the brain’s natural ability to reorganize itself—known as neuroplasticity—to help you move past old traumas and emotional hurdles. It’s truly a wonderful form of somatic therapy.
- Havening is done through a gentle touch that calms the brain’s stress response system, particularly the amygdala. This touch helps reset the brain’s emotional pathways, making it easier to find peace and balance in your life.
The Neuroscience of Havening
“Havening Touch” stimulates the production of calming delta waves in your brain. These brain waves are naturally produced during deep, restorative sleep, and they help regulate emotional responses. By using specific touch techniques, Havening therapy taps into this natural calming mechanism, which soothes the amygdala—the brain’s stress and fear center.
On a neurological level, this form of therapy helps to “unglue” AMPA receptors from your brain cells. That’s important because these receptors are involved in amplifying stress responses. By creating delta waves, this process facilitates the removal of these receptors from the brain’s surface, reducing their influence. This process helps to lower stress chemicals like cortisol while boosting your brain’s natural feel-good chemicals “happiness chemicals”, like dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. This shift in brain chemistry helps to rewrite the neural pathways that keep you stuck in cycles of trauma and stress.
So in other words, when you’re stressed or anxious, your amygdala becomes overactive, sending out high-frequency gamma waves that trigger your body’s stress response. Havening counteracts this by promoting the generation of slow delta waves through touch. This helps to calm the amygdala and reduce the impact of stress and trauma.
Who Can Benefit from Havening?
Havening is a gentle and effective approach that can offer significant relief and support for a variety of emotional challenges. Here’s who can benefit from this method:
- Individuals Dealing with Past Trauma:
- Helps address the lingering effects of traumatic experiences and provides a way to process and release deep-seated emotional pain.
- People Facing Overwhelming Anxiety:
- Offers a calming technique to manage anxiety and stress, helping to restore emotional balance and reduce feelings of overwhelm.
- Those Struggling with Persistent Negative Emotions:
- Assists in transforming negative emotions and thought patterns, supporting emotional healing and a more positive outlook.
- Individuals Who Haven’t Found Lasting Relief with Other Therapies:
- Provides a new approach for those who have tried other therapeutic methods without achieving lasting results, offering a fresh perspective on emotional well-being.
- Anyone Looking to Boost Emotional Health and Personal Development:
- Supports personal growth by helping to overcome self-doubt, enhance self-esteem, and cultivate a greater sense of calm and balance.
- People Seeking to Enhance Their Overall Sense of Well-Being:
- Creates a safe and supportive environment for exploring and transforming emotions, contributing to a more balanced and fulfilling life.
In summary, Havening is beneficial for anyone looking to address emotional challenges, whether they’re dealing with deep-seated issues or simply seeking to enhance their overall emotional health.
Take the Next Step in Your Healing Journey
There’s no doubt that this method offers a gentle and effective way to address emotional challenges and find relief.
So, whether you’re dealing with the aftermath of trauma, struggling with anxiety, or simply looking to boost your emotional well-being, Havening can help you find the peace and balance you’ve been seeking. It taps into your brain’s natural ability to heal and reset, helping you move past old hurdles and feel more centered in your life.