Ep. 34: Transform Your Holidays: Destress in 15 Minutes or Less — with Amy Stark, PhD

The holidays can be the most stressful time of the year — so this episode is a gift you can actually feel. Dr. Regina Druz sits down with Amy Stark, a former New York City science teacher who turned her love of science toward healing the nervous system, and who teaches a simple, accessible form of tapping she calls a ‘gentle nervous system reset.’ Amy shares how three decades of chronic illness led her to meditation and Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), then walks Dr. Druz through a live, step-by-step reset for anxiety that you can follow along with in about fifteen minutes. They also cover quick resets you can do anywhere — a head turn, an interlaced-knuckle squeeze, a hand-over-heart self-hug — and the mind-body science Dr. Druz sees in her own cardiology practice, including the ‘echo’ loop between the brain, the immune system, and the heart. (The techniques here are complementary self-care, not a replacement for medical or mental-health treatment.)

Watch on YouTube: A video version of this episode is available on the Own Your Heart Health YouTube channel. Subscribe to be notified of new episodes.

Episode Chapters

[00:00] Introduction: Meet Amy Stark
[02:38] From Chronically Ill Teacher to Healer
[06:22] Cold Plunge, Inflammation & Discharging Stress
[09:20] What Is EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique)?
[10:50] The Science Stark Cites: Cortisol, Genes & Blood Pressure
[12:37] A Live Gentle Nervous System Reset (Anxiety Demo)
[23:35] Quick Resets for Anywhere: Head Turns, Knuckles & Self-Hug
[27:54] The Book “Bridging the Divide” & Getting Back to Basics
[31:21] How Tapping Rewires the Brain
[36:05] The Head-Heart Loop, Forgiveness & Where to Find Amy

Transcript

[00:00] Introduction: Meet Amy Stark

Dr. Regina Druz (00:02): Welcome to Own Your Heart Health. I’m Dr. Regina Druz, your holistic cardiologist. This week we’ll dive into common heart health concerns, uncovering root causes and unpacking scientific discoveries and controversies. The information provided does not constitute medical advice. Please contact your healthcare practitioner before making any changes that may impact your health.

Dr. Regina Druz (00:40): Hi everyone, I’m back, and I’m super excited to be with Amy Stark, who runs Stark Transformation. I love that name, because Amy makes stark transformations in real people. Amy comes from the same area I do — New York City — and is a former science teacher who channeled her love of science into helping people heal from trauma. Amy, welcome to the show.

Amy Stark (01:17): Thank you for having me. I’m excited to have this conversation.

Dr. Regina Druz (01:20): As a physician and a science person, I’ve long known our emotional wellbeing and thoughts are critical to health — not just for chronic disease but for longevity. But I never appreciated the magnitude of how influential negative thoughts could be until I went through a health crisis of my own and experienced them firsthand. That gave me a newfound respect. After 25 years in cardiology, the more I practice in an integrative, holistic way, the more I understand how impactful our life experiences are on our health trajectory. So I’ll ask what I ask every guest: how did you grow up to be who you are today?

[02:38] From Chronically Ill Teacher to Healer

Amy Stark (02:38): For the first 30 years of my life I was chronically ill, and one day I realized I could keep going the same way — more medications, more doctor’s visits — or ask if there was another way. I’d been a New York City public school teacher at a Brooklyn high school for students with emotional disturbances; I took the job because it came with a free master’s degree, but I was young and naive, it felt like a war zone, and it burned me out in four years. At 26, this sick, I wondered what the rest of my life would look like. Someone suggested meditation. I was skeptical, but I’m a person of my word, so I tried it — and thought, wow, I feel better. Pretty soon I was meditating two hours a day.

Amy Stark (04:30): As my body shifted, I started to hear the thoughts running on repeat in my mind — and I was shocked at how negative and dark they’d become, because I’d always been the ‘sunshine’ person. The more I cleaned up my thinking and calmed my nervous system, the better choices I made — I started gravitating toward salads and green things instead of sugar and soda. When you go inward and calm down, you start to hear the wisdom of the body. That’s what I teach now on a global scale: gentle nervous-system resets that use the points from EFT — Emotional Freedom Technique — but simplified, so we just tap on the body and release the emotions. People are finally sleeping through the night, becoming more present, and leaving jobs or relationships that were making them sick.

[06:22] Cold Plunge, Inflammation & Discharging Stress

Dr. Regina Druz (06:22): You bring up so many things I want to unpack. Recently a place opened in my neighborhood with infrared sauna, cold plunge, and a vitamin C shower. I was too chicken for the full cold plunge — I did maybe half my legs — but the sauna was fantastic, and I came home so refreshed. That night, a lot of the thoughts and fears I’d been carrying just floated by in my dreams and went away, as if my brain discharged the negative energy. I think I de-inflamed myself enough that my brain could let go of the ‘crap.’ So tell us: what is Emotional Freedom Technique, what’s the premise, and how do you make it simpler for people who don’t have two hours a day?

Amy Stark (07:48): So much there. First, on the cold plunge — going into cold changes the electricity running through your body and discharges a lot of that lower-vibrational stuff. There’s old wisdom in ‘when someone’s hysterical, go jump in a lake,’ because they’d come back to their senses. And not everyone has time for a long session — sometimes you’re in the school pickup line not feeling your best and need something quick, even in public, so you don’t take your stress out on your kids. I keep a slew of quick techniques in my back pocket. The gentle nervous-system reset is just tapping on the points without the full script. EFT itself is based on Chinese medicine — it uses the acupuncture, or acupressure, points on the body.

[09:20] What Is EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique)?

Amy Stark (09:24): Each point relates to specific emotions we carry in the body, so tapping on them helps release them. If you’re very scientific, it’s hard to comprehend at first — I was skeptical too — but once people try it, they’re amazed: they yawn, they cry, they say ‘what is this?’ It’s accessing deeper emotions we’ve stored over a lifetime. We do store emotions — think of the partner who carries in all the groceries but forgets to take his shoes off, and the explosion that follows isn’t really about the shoes; it’s the backlog. So we want techniques to keep releasing these emotions, so we’re not a walking time bomb.

Dr. Regina Druz (10:48): Exactly — diffusing ourselves before we detonate.

[10:50] The Science Stark Cites: Cortisol, Genes & Blood Pressure

Amy Stark (10:48): What really got me interested in EFT are the findings often cited in this field: that an hour of tapping is associated with lowering cortisol substantially — she cites about 37% — turning on dozens of genes related to healing (she cites 72), and decreasing blood pressure, with reported benefits for stress, anxiety, test-taking, and PTSD.

Dr. Regina Druz (11:27): Can you show us exactly what you mean by tapping? Full confession — I’ve never done it, and I want to understand it.

Amy Stark (11:37): In EFT there’s a setup statement: ‘Even though I’m feeling [anxious / depressed], I deeply love and accept myself.’ If ‘I deeply love and accept myself’ is too much, you can say ‘I’m willing to love myself’ — pick what’s comfortable. As a scientist, I like this next part: you rate how much it’s affecting you on a scale of zero to 10, then keep tracking that number as you tap, so you can actually watch yourself feel better.

[12:37] A Live Gentle Nervous System Reset (Anxiety Demo)

Dr. Regina Druz (12:37): I’d love to — take me, I’m your subject. The emotion I’d like to work on is anxiety. I think I do reasonably well, but as a woman in menopause, and as we get older, resilience isn’t the same — I feel better overall, yet there’s an undercurrent of anxiety with me every day. I’d like to lower that.

Amy Stark (13:17): Perfect. On a scale of zero to 10, what number would you give it? I sense energy, so I’d guess a bit higher — around an eight. We’ll start there. Take a deep breath in, and out. We’ll begin tapping on the side of the hand — the ‘karate chop’ point — and say: ‘Even though my anxiety is at an eight, I deeply love and accept myself.’

Dr. Regina Druz (15:14): For those listening on audio: I have my left fist up and I’m tapping the side of it with my right fingers. My back already feels a little easier.

Amy Stark (15:42): Now the top of the head — this releases looping thoughts, anxiety, and overthinking. Good. As we did that, your chest opened and relaxed, a sign you’re shifting into the parasympathetic ‘rest, digest, and heal’ state. Next, the inner eyebrow — ‘Even though I have this anxiety, I deeply love and accept myself.’

Dr. Regina Druz (17:16): This time I actually believe what I said.

Amy Stark (17:24): Good. Outside of the eye now — the inner and outer eyebrow points release frustration and anger. Then under the eye, where we release the urge to control — anxiety is often about trying to control everything. Then under the nose, which connects mind and body when we’re overwhelmed, and under the lip, where we release negative self-talk — ‘I’m not good enough,’ ‘I didn’t do enough.’

Amy Stark (20:36): Now the collarbone points, the kidney-meridian fear points — releasing fear at the surface. Then the center of the chest, which isn’t in traditional tapping but I always include: hands over the heart, ‘I’m here for you, I love you, I forgive you.’ This is often where people cry, because we’re so used to conditional love. You’re all the way down to a three now.

Dr. Regina Druz (22:14): I have to tell you — this is highly restorative, and it’s such an easy grounding technique. You just have to do it, like everything else.

Amy Stark (23:11): Then the points under the arms — anger on the right, worry on the left — down to a two. Anger and worry really are two sides of the same coin: when you worry you get angry, and when you’re angry you worry.

[23:35] Quick Resets for Anywhere: Head Turns, Knuckles & Self-Hug

Amy Stark (23:35): All these emotions are interconnected, so ideally you’d tap all the points — but sometimes you’re in public. A few discreet resets: tap the ‘karate chop’ point under a desk; interlace your fingers, stack the knuckles, and squeeze for about 30 seconds; or my favorite, which first went viral on TikTok — turn your head to one side and hold for about a minute, and a yawn or a few tears will come as your system resets. There’s also placing your left hand over your left eye and looking up.

Dr. Regina Druz (24:37): This is simple, fun, and restorative. I do box breathing, I have a little vagus-nerve device, I’ve tried HeartMath — but those need a device. This is just you, anywhere, anytime.

Amy Stark (26:41): You don’t have to follow the exact order — but I recommend starting the same way each time so you don’t forget a point. And one more quick reset I love to end on: place both hands over your heart and hold for about 20 seconds. It’s like giving yourself a hug — we’re meant to get at least eight hugs a day to thrive — and it releases oxytocin, turning on the parasympathetic system and helping us feel bonded to ourselves and others. All of these build resilience; it becomes a muscle you flex when you need it.

[27:54] The Book “Bridging the Divide” & Getting Back to Basics

Dr. Regina Druz (27:54): What should the cadence be? We did this in about 12 minutes — not complicated. Once a day, or more?

Amy Stark (28:31): I’d do the gentle nervous-system reset every single day — many people do it morning and night, because it prepares them for sleep and for the day (a lot of people wake up with anxiety). Then use the quick ones throughout the day: a head-turn at a stoplight, the knuckle squeeze in a meeting. I have more listed in my book and on social media.

Dr. Regina Druz (29:18): Tell us about your book — I love that a former science teacher wrote it with real scientific grounding.

Amy Stark (29:37): It’s about my healing journey and what caused a stark transformation, and I cite over 200 research articles to support it. After all this work, when I had my biological age tested, my immune system came back markedly younger than my age, and recent bloodwork put me years younger on the inside — which is remarkable for someone who was chronically ill for 30 years and never thought she’d get better. The book is called Bridging the Divide. We overcomplicate healing; we need to get back to basics — listening to the body and emotions, slowing down, eating and sleeping better — and the book offers tools to get there quickly.

[31:21] How Tapping Rewires the Brain

Dr. Regina Druz (31:21): There’s such a strong correlation between depression, anxiety, and the emergence of chronic disease — and the reverse: chronically ill people often get depressed and anxious, and it becomes a never-ending loop where a reset feels impossible. What’s powerful about these techniques is that you can begin building those reset steps yourself, in small, consistent increments. We’re like big ships — like the Titanic — we have to adjust course early or we hit the iceberg. So what’s the science: when we do the karate chop point, what’s actually happening?

Amy Stark (33:12): EFT is based on Chinese medicine; I developed the gentle nervous-system reset by taking the words out and just tapping and breathing. The research on a full hour of tapping suggests it can durably rewrite trauma, limiting beliefs, and fears — it changes how the brain is oriented toward the world. If you fear going over a bridge and you tap while feeling that fear, you interrupt the loop, and the brain is forced to rebuild a new framework — so you start associating bridges with calm instead of fear. As you reset the nervous system, you change the chemicals and hormones running through the body, and your thinking shifts. The less we dwell on trauma, anxiety, or depression, the more we heal: we sleep better, make better choices, and stay present.

[36:05] The Head-Heart Loop, Forgiveness & Where to Find Amy

Dr. Regina Druz (36:05): Years ago, investigators at Harvard — Dr. Peter Libby’s group at Mass General — published a stunning paper in a major cardiology journal describing an ‘echo effect.’ When someone suffers a heart attack, there’s pain but also huge emotional trauma; the brain’s fear pathways send inflammatory signals to the immune system, whose cells migrate to the ruptured coronary plaque. They call it an echo because it starts in your head but plays out in your heart — a loop between the head and the heart. I first glimpsed this in fellowship: a co-fellow trained in the UK was stunned that we admitted heart-attack patients without much sedation or pain relief, and once we adopted gentle sedation, patients did better — it took the edge off. Years later the science explained why.

Amy Stark (39:17): Exactly — and there’s data that staying angry for a few hours lowers your immune function. As the Buddha said, anger is like holding a hot stone you don’t throw: it only burns you. EFT and other somatic practices help you release it — for your own health, not the other person’s. I have a whole chapter on forgiveness, because people say ‘I can’t forgive my parents,’ but you forgive for yourself: people who forgive live longer, are happier, and have more purpose. We already know we feel better with gratitude or after a walk — there’s real science behind why, and it makes drastic changes.

Dr. Regina Druz (41:14): How can people find you and become part of Stark Transformation?

Amy Stark (41:25): I have a website where you can join my newsletter for the latest offerings, and you can find me on social media, where I post tapping sessions and resets and remind people — especially at the start — how to keep a gratitude practice and reset the nervous system. You can teach your kids these tools too, and shift the course of their lives. Find me under Stark Transformation.

Dr. Regina Druz (42:09): You heard it — Stark Transformation. Last year my number-one tip for the year was giving grace and gratitude to yourself, and for the coming year it’s still at number one; I don’t think it’ll ever shift. The more we bring gratitude and a gentle nervous-system reset into our modern, over-challenged lives, the better off we’ll be — it’s an extraordinary protection against chronic disease, and for anyone committed to health optimization it can be more powerful than far more expensive things, because it works. Amy, thank you — this was a delight, I learned a lot, and I do feel better. Thank you for tuning in to Own Your Heart Health with Dr. Regina Druz. This podcast is powered by Holistic Heart Centers. If you enjoyed the show, please rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform. To learn more about our services, visit holisticheartcenters.com and subscribe to our YouTube channel — the link is in the show notes. See you next week.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is EFT tapping, and how is Amy Stark’s “gentle nervous system reset” different?

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is a self-help method, rooted in Chinese-medicine acupressure points, in which you tap on specific points on the body while naming an emotion and a self-acceptance phrase (the classic setup is ‘Even though I feel [X], I deeply love and accept myself’). You rate the feeling’s intensity from 0 to 10 and track it as you tap. Amy Stark’s ‘gentle nervous system reset’ is a simplified, word-optional version — she keeps the same points but removes the full script, so people can just tap and breathe, even discreetly in public. In the episode she walks Dr. Druz through the points (the side of the hand or ‘karate chop’ point, top of the head, around the eyes, under the nose and lip, the collarbone, the center of the chest, and under the arms). These are complementary self-care techniques, not a medical treatment.

Does tapping actually work — what does the science say?

Amy cites figures commonly referenced in the EFT field — for example, that an hour of tapping is associated with a substantial drop in cortisol (she cites about 37%), changes in the expression of dozens of healing-related genes (she cites 72), and reductions in blood pressure, anxiety, and PTSD symptoms. These claims come from the EFT research literature and from Amy’s own experience, and the evidence base is still developing and, in places, debated — so they’re presented here as her account rather than settled medical fact, and are worth verifying against primary sources. What’s less controversial is the underlying idea that slow breathing and calming practices can shift the body toward the parasympathetic ‘rest, digest, and heal’ state. Treat tapping as a complementary tool, not a replacement for evidence-based care.

How often should I practice, and can I do it in public?

Amy recommends doing a gentle nervous-system reset every day — many people do it in the morning and at night, since it helps with both sleep and morning anxiety — and then using quick resets as needed during the day. Her discreet options include tapping the ‘karate chop’ point under a desk, interlacing your fingers and squeezing the stacked knuckles for about 30 seconds, slowly turning your head to one side and holding for about a minute (often releasing a yawn or a few tears), or placing a hand over one eye and looking up. She also likes ending with a hand-over-heart ‘self-hug’ held for about 20 seconds, which she associates with oxytocin release. The key, she says, is consistency — resilience becomes a muscle you build. This is general wellness guidance, not personalized advice.

How does calming the nervous system protect the heart?

Dr. Druz frames it through the mind-body ‘echo’ loop. She describes work from Dr. Peter Libby’s group showing that emotional stress — such as the fear and trauma surrounding a heart attack — activates the brain’s fear pathways, which signal the immune system, whose cells then migrate to vulnerable coronary plaque; the stress that starts in the head plays out in the heart. Chronic stress and the high cortisol that accompanies it can raise blood pressure and blood sugar and fuel inflammation, so practices that shift you into the parasympathetic state — tapping, slow breathing, a walk, gratitude — may help interrupt that loop. Dr. Druz presents this as a complement to, not a substitute for, standard cardiac care. If you have a heart condition, anxiety, depression, or PTSD, work with qualified professionals.

Show Notes & Resources

Guest: Amy Stark

Amy Stark is a former New York City science teacher who, after three decades of chronic illness, turned her love of science toward healing the nervous system and releasing stored stress and trauma. The founder of Stark Transformation, she teaches a simplified, accessible form of tapping she calls the ‘gentle nervous system reset’ — drawn from Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) — to a global audience, and is the author of the book Bridging the Divide. Amy is a wellness educator and coach, not a licensed medical or mental-health provider.

Amy Stark — Stark Transformation (newsletter, tapping sessions & resets); domain stated on-air as starttransformation.com (verify exact URL). Book: Bridging the Divide

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

Amy Stark / Stark Transformation — free tapping sessions and nervous-system resets on social media and via her newsletter (domain stated on-air as starttransformation.com; verify exact URL)
Bridging the Divide — Amy Stark’s book on her healing journey and the science she cites (she notes 200+ supporting research articles)
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) — a tapping method using acupressure points; Amy’s ‘gentle nervous system reset’ is a simplified, word-optional version
Quick resets to try — the ‘karate chop’ point, a slow head-turn to one side, an interlaced-knuckle squeeze, and a hand-over-heart self-hug (oxytocin)
Mind-body & the heart — Dr. Peter Libby’s work on the ‘echo effect’ linking emotional stress, the immune system, and atherosclerotic plaque
Complementary stress tools mentioned — cold plunge, infrared sauna, box breathing, and HRV/coherence practices (e.g., HeartMath) and vagus-nerve devices
‘Chat with the podcast’ on NotebookLM — Google’s public notebook loaded with OYHH episodes (holisticheartcenters.info/notebook)

Holistic Heart Centers

holisticheartcenters.com
HeartWell.ai — AI-powered cardiovascular risk assessment
Address: 55 Bryant Avenue, Suite #6, Roslyn, NY 11576
Phone: 877-511-5166
YouTube: @reginadruzmd
Instagram: @dr.reginadruz
Podcast: Own Your Heart Health — available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major platforms

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