The Effect of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) as a Forest Healing Program on Menopausal Symptoms and Quality of Life in Middle-Aged Women

Controlled trial👥 24 participants⚖️ vs. meditative forest walking (and EFT delivered in an urban setting as a comparison arm)Preliminary✓ Source-checked📍 South Korea

In plain English. Twenty-four Korean women going through menopause tried tapping either in a forest or a city setting, or tried a guided meditative walk in the forest instead. Tapping in the forest brought the biggest drop in menopausal symptoms and the biggest boost in quality of life among the three approaches, and unlike the walking group, its benefits kept growing rather than fading afterward. This was a small, non-randomized comparison, so it's an early signal about environment and tapping together, not a definitive test of tapping alone.

What they found

people took part

24 middle-aged women were assigned across forest-EFT, urban-EFT, and forest meditative-walking arms; forest-based EFT reduced menopausal symptoms an average 6.09 points more than forest meditative walking and raised quality-of-life scores 10.89 points more than forest walking and 8.62 points more than urban EFT, with EFT's benefits growing rather than fading at follow-up.

How the study worked

Who took partmiddle-aged Korean women (mean age ~55) with menopausal symptoms and no prior EFT or meditation experience (n=24)

What they didIn a controlled trial, a tapping group was compared against a separate comparison group.

Compared withmeditative forest walking (and EFT delivered in an urban setting as a comparison arm)

Measured withmenopausal symptom scale, quality of life scale

💡 Where this could help

If findings like these hold up in larger trials, the promise is simple: a low-cost, self-administered tool that could reach people who can't easily access traditional care — at home, between appointments, or where there aren't enough clinicians to go around.

🔬 What to study next

The natural next step: a larger sample to confirm the effect.

The full record

Design	Controlled trial
Participants	24 people
Population	middle-aged Korean women (mean age ~55) with menopausal symptoms and no prior EFT or meditation experience
Comparison group	meditative forest walking (and EFT delivered in an urban setting as a comparison arm)
Outcome measures	menopausal symptom scale, quality of life scale
Journal	Korean Journal of Forest Recreation (한국산림휴양학회지)
Year	2016
Country	South Korea
Language	Korean
Method	EFT / tapping
Publication type	Study / trial
Verification	✓ Confirmed against the primary source

Read the original study →

Cite this study

APA

Kim, H.-G., Lee, Y.-H., Koo, C.-D., & Yeon, P.-S. (2016). The Effect of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) as a Forest Healing Program on Menopausal Symptoms and Quality of Life in Middle-Aged Women. Korean Journal of Forest Recreation (한국산림휴양학회지). https://doi.org/10.34272/forest.2016.20.3.008

This record is part of the Tapping Evidence Base — an openly-sourced, fully-referenced directory of the research on EFT/tapping.