Summary of Policy Statement issued by the American Heart Association
A 2013 report from the American Heart Association provided further evidence that the Transcendental
Meditation technique lowers blood pressure, and recommended
the TM technique for the prevention and treatment of hypertension.
According to the report, the TM technique is the only meditation practice that has been shown through research to effectively reduce high blood pressure.
The
statement also reported the finding that lower blood pressure through
TM practice is associated with substantially
reduced rates of death, heart attack and stroke.
After considering meta-analyses and the latest clinical trials on
different types of meditation, the report stated that while the TM
technique is recommended to lower BP, there is not enough scientific
evidence to recommend other meditation or relaxation techniques. The AHA’s scientific report states:
“Because of many negative studies or mixed results and a paucity of available trials, all other meditation techniques (including Mindfulness Based Stress Response) received a ‘Class III, no benefit, Level of Evidence C’ recommendation. Thus, other meditation techniques are not recommended in clinical practice to lower BP at this time.”
Meta-analyses referenced in the report found that TM practice lowers blood pressure on average 5 mmHg systolic and
3 mmHg diastolic. Although by some accounts modest, researchers
pointed out that for millions of people with high blood pressure, this
reduction may help to bring them into a more normal range or prevent the
need for hypertension medication with attendant side effects and costs.
“We are gratified that our research demonstrating the
efficacy of TM on blood pressure is being recognized and hope that this
consensus will result in its wider use in clinical practice,” said C. Noel Bairey Merz, professor of medicine at Cedars Sinai Medical Center and principal investigator for an NIH-sponsored clinical trial on TM and cardiovascular health.
The American Heart Association report also recognized that
Transcendental Meditation is generally considered safe and without
harmful side effects. As an additional advantage, the statement noted
that many of the reviewed alternative therapies, such as meditation, may
provide a range of health or psychological benefits beyond BP lowering
or cardiovascular risk reduction.
The AHA scientific statement concludes that alternative treatments that include the Transcendental Meditation technique are recommended for consideration in treatment plans for all individuals with blood pressure higher than 120/80 mm Hg.
*Brook RD et al., Beyond Medications and Diet: Alternative Approaches to Lowering Blood Pressure. A Scientific Statement from the American Heart Association. Hypertension, 61:00, 2013.
Life happens within the realm of three, ever-changing phases: waking, dreaming and sleeping. Yet most of us intuit there's more to human consciousness than what we ordinarily experience.
Scientists have long said each of the three major states of consciousness has its own distinct style of physiology and brain activity. Could there be a fourth major state of consciousness that likewise has its own physiological signature and brain pattern, a state that's been overlooked or forgotten?
What if the loss of this state were the cause for much of what ails us -- personally and collectively?
Transcendental Consciousness
Scientists first proposed the existence of a fourth state of consciousness in the early 1970s, when UCLA researchers discovered that people practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique shifted into a state never before seen in a physiology lab. In the history of science, if there has been a single, overarching moment of "East meets West," surely, it was this. The pioneering research appeared in Scientific American, American Journal of Physiology and the journal Science.1 The findings were expanded by numerous follow-up studies done at other research institutes and medical schools, establishing meditation as a new frontier of scientific research.2
The mind-body state associated with TM practice is very different from waking, dreaming or sleeping and distinct from other meditative states or ordinary relaxation.3 Your muscles become deeply relaxed while your breathing slows markedly. There's a sharp decrease in cortisol and plasma lactate. There's a natural re-balancing of biochemicals, such as serotonin. Changes in Galvanic skin response and other markers reflect a state of whole-body relaxation. But perhaps most interesting is what happens in the brain.
Neuroscientists know that when we're sleeping, our brain produces mostly delta waves, and during dreaming, theta. When we're awake, there can be a scattered mix -- beta, theta, gamma or even alpha. During TM practice there are widespread, high-amplitude alpha waves (10-12 Hz), which shows this is not merely a restful state, but restful alertness.4 More important, the alpha waves are rising and falling together, in phase. This EEG coherence -- strongest throughout the prefrontal cortex -- indicates brain functioning has become more holistic and integrated.5
Typically, during this fourth state, thoughts subside and one becomes increasingly more awake; the mind settles down and consciousness itself becomes primary. Meditators describe this as pure consciousness or unbounded awareness.
Why We Need to Transcend
"We propose that what happens during TM is a fourth state of consciousness, because it's very different from the other three states," says neurologist Gary Kaplan, M.D., Ph.D., of New York University School of Medicine. "After 40 years of research, we now know that TM produces a unique, wakeful, coherent state of deep rest -- physiologically the opposite of stress. The science also suggests that experiencing this state twice daily through TM is the key to maximizing well-being and overcoming stress."
The fourth state may be a new discovery for modern science, but knowledge of this state has existed for thousands of years in the traditions of yoga and meditation. In ancient Sanskrit, this state is called turiya, meaning "the fourth."
Experiencing the fourth state repeatedly over time is said to be the key -- the elusive "requisite stimulus," to borrow from William James -- for positive human transformation and full awakening of consciousness.
Transcendence Deprivation
When you're sleep deprived, you know what happens: alertness, reaction time, tolerance and appreciation of others and the world around you all diminish. You're not yourself, and you're probably less fun to be around.
Similarly, research shows that subjects deprived of dream state become anxious, confused, suspicious, withdrawn, irritable and have difficulty concentrating.
If we're hardwired to experience a natural, rejuvenating, fourth state of consciousness, what is the consequence of omitting this fourth state from daily life? Dr. Kaplan says: "There's a growing pandemic of stress. There's a healthcare crisis. As a nation we have widespread anxiety, depression, hypertension and stress-related disorders that costs us billions every year, with untold costs in human suffering. This is what happens when life is lived without the restorative experience of transcending. Human history becomes the story of stress and suffering."
Restoring the Fourth State: A Return to the Self
What happens to people who routinely experience transcendental consciousness?
Renowned author Norman E. Rosenthal was a senior researcher at the National Institutes of Health for 20 years. He's now clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University Medical School and oversees pharmaceutical trials. His new book, "Transcendence", is about what happens when you experience the fourth state twice daily. Dr. Rosenthal: "There's something about entering that state of transcendence twice a day that has a remarkable effect. In the morning, it seems to put the mind in a positive state for facing the day -- everything feels more manageable. In the evening, it seems to erase the accumulated burdens of the day, like grime off a windshield. When you enjoy transcendence twice a day, every day, the overall effect is to experience life as less stressful and more vibrant."
Iowa psychologist and TM instructor Patrick Pomfrey has used meditation as a clinical tool for decades, often prescribing it to patients. He sees transcending as the primary human mechanism for creating a higher state of mind-body health. "The ultimate goal of psychology is to develop the whole person," says Pomfrey. "But you cannot develop the whole person without including the whole person. To do this, each person must discover for themselves this lost experience of the fourth state."
Sages throughout history, from Laozi to Ralph Waldo Emerson, have sung the praises of this exalted "lost" state. Transcendental consciousness is the essence of who we are -- our inmost self. If we don't have an effective technique for diving deep within and taking our attention there, then this rich, vibrant field of all possibilities may remain virtually of no use to us. A person can live an entire lifetime not even knowing it exists.
Awakening to this state, we access a limitless wellspring of energy, creativity and intelligence. Even if we were already happy, when we start transcending we discover there's more to life than waking, dreaming and sleeping.
References:
1. Scientific American, 226, 84-90, 1972; American Journal of Physiology, 221, 795-799, 1971; Science, 167, 1751-1754, 1970
2. American Psychologist [42] 879-81, 1989; Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 16(3): 415-424, 1992; The Journal of Mind and Behavior 10(4):307-334, 1989
3. American Journal of Health Promotion, 12, 297-299, 1998
4. International Journal of Neuroscience, 14: 147-151, 1981
5. Consciousness and Cognition, 8, 302-318, 1999; Cognitive Processing, 11:1, 2010
In guided meditation — also called guided visualization, guided imagery, or guided relaxation — a speaker offers instruction or suggestion aimed at guiding the listener into a meditative state (such practices can also be self-guided). Depending on the particular type of practice, these approaches can employ either controlled focus or open monitoring.
This approach to meditation can create pleasant moods, provide insight, allow degrees of relaxation and other valuable benefits. Such practices tend to keep attention in the realm of thinking, feeling and imagining. The Transcendental Meditation technique is not guided meditation, but a form of automatic self-transcending, a very different process. The TM technique is designed to take attention beyond thought and imagination to access deeper reserves of peace, energy and happiness at the basis of the mind.
The Transcendental Meditation technique does not require a meditation CD or any outside stimulus. It’s not an act of imagining, visualizing or responding to narrative. The TM technique is a quiet process of settling inward to experience finer and finer stages of the thinking process, until one transcends thinking and arrives at the silent source of thought—the mind’s inner reservoir of creativity and intelligence, known as pure consciousness. Research studies have shown this to be a distinct state of restful alertness, characterized by decreased respiratory rate, reduced cortisol, decreased plasma lactate and other indicators of profound relaxation, accompanied by frontal alpha brain wave coherence.
Practices that tend to keep the mind’s thought processes engaged on the levels of thinking, imagination or suggestion certainly produce their benefits, but are not designed to consistently produce the extensive, holistic positive effects known to result from the process of effortless transcending (research on the TM technique).
The goals of guided meditation or visualization — such as relaxation, stress reduction, more positive thinking and inner growth — are spontaneously and more powerfully fulfilled by transcending thought and imagination and experiencing your deepest, inmost Self, as happens automatically through through twice-daily TM practice. This state of restful alertness is described as always positive, blissful, and fully awake to its limitless potentiality.
CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE
During TM practice, one experiences that it is the mind's inherent nature to settle inward and experience the state of pure awareness. While it may be possible to transcend during any form of meditation, practices such as guided meditation, guided imagery or guided relaxation tend to engage the mind on the more active levels of thought, emotions or imagination—anddo not create the conditions conducive to the deep, inward settling associated with transcending.The Transcendental Meditation technique allows the mind to spontaneously settle inward and experience finer, increasingly subtler stages of the thinking process, until one arrives at the source of thought—the state of pure awareness.
The Transcendental Meditation program is designed for full awakening of human potential. The TM technique comes from the most long-standing tradition of meditation on earth, the Vedic tradition of India. After being long lost to society, the practice was revived by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and introduced to the modern world in 1955. The TM technique is considered by many to be the quintessential meditation practice from the world's most venerated tradition of self-development.
More researched than any other form of self-development, the TM technique is the only meditation practice found by independent scientific studies to have such a broad, holistic range of benefits for mind, body and behavior.
Spiritual growth is easy: Before Maharishi introduced the Transcendental Meditation technique, the common thinking was that it is difficult to directly experience the Transcendent, the most deeply settled and expansive state of human consciousness — unbounded awareness — and even more difficult to attain the highest states of consciousness. There was, and still is, much misunderstanding about meditation and the process of transcending.
To transcend means to settle inward in meditation beyond all mental activity, to experience the silent field of pure awareness at the source of thought. Perhaps unknowingly, many people of good intention still promote meditation practices that obstruct the mind's natural tendency to settle inward or completely transcend. While non-transcending-type practices have their range of benefits, in the Vedic tradition effortless transcending is known to be the key to unfolding the highest stages of human development.
Simplicity:It's been said that anyone can get complicated, but it takes a true genius to be simple. The TM technique's simplicity is what renders it so effective. Maharishi once remarked, "It is my joy to make the difficult simple."
Full awakening of human consciousness, the state of Enlightenment, is everyone's birthright. The world just needed a fully effective practice that makes the process simple and easy—and a systematic, scientific knowledge of consciousness to render higher states comprehensible. The world needed a scientific age for humanity to have a clear vision of possibilities for life on earth through unfolding higher stages of development. This is what the TM program is ultimately all about.
You don't have to clear your mind of thoughts to successfully practice the Transcendental Meditation technique. There's no mind control involved, no concentrating against thoughts or anything else. The TM technique is a different kind of practice all together. It's simple, effortless, and totally natural.
It's not just sitting and watching your thoughts, either. Nor is it a process of contemplation or trying to gain insight. You simply practice the technique as instructed and it pretty much just goes along by itself, allowing the mind to automatically settle inward to quieter and quieter levels, until you transcend (or go beyond) even the faintest impulses of the thinking process and arrive at the deepest, innermost field of your own awareness — a peaceful, expansive state of restful alertness or pure consciousness. This natural state of profound rest dissolves deep-rooted stresses and rejuvenates mind and body.
But it's during your daily activity that you really enjoy the benefits of TM practice. You become more aware in life and less affected by stress — everyday growing in comprehension, clarity and inner happiness — unfolding deeper values of your potential as a human being.
The most comprehensive of the "no benefits" reviews is the AHRQ paper (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality). Experts in meditation research note that the review is methodologically flawed, laden with errors and grossly amiss in its conclusions.
Faulty research design: Scientists who conduct research on exercise, meditation or other behavioral health modalities have developed rigorous and widely accepted ways to determine effects. As a result of using such established methodologies, much of the research on the Transcendental Meditation technique is considered to be on par with the highest quality pharmaceutical research. However, if the research criteria used by this review, such as the double-blind experiment, were used for all scientific studies, there would be no acceptable research showing that cigarette smoking is harmful or proper diet and exercise are good for you. (The double blind experiment would require you to study smoking without the smokers knowing that they are smoking cigarettes—which is obviously not possible. Similarly, you cannot do a double-blind study on meditation whereby the subjects would not know whether or not they are meditating or practicing a particular technique.)
Yet, we know that cigarette smoking is bad for one’s health, and that a balanced diet and exercise are good for you, and that meditation does have many beneficial effects. How do we know this? Because scientists have ways other than double blind studies to identify effects.
Questionable conclusions: Based on its faulty approach, the review concluded—using unusually strong language—that all research on meditation is of “poor quality.” One can say “unusually strong language" because the wording used by the review’s authors is nonstandard and in fact rather odd for science journals.
Studies that have the most rigorous designs are often the largest (i.e., have the highest number of subjects and control groups, are conducted over longer time periods, etc.). They are also exceedingly expensive—typically costing several million dollars for a single research project.
Smaller studies (which are more common) can still employ rigorous clinical controls. They have their place and play a significant role in the scientific literature. Smaller studies point the way to further research, or, in combination with other studies, can strongly suggest an effect or benefit. Usually the researchers themselves will explicitly acknowledge the limitations of a study’s design and the limited conclusions that can be drawn from a single study. And that is the language that is typically used: “only limited conclusions can be drawn” or “further research is needed.”
But the ARHQ reviewers instead chose to characterize such studies as poor: “Scientific research on meditation practices does not appear to have a common theoretical perspective and is characterized by poor methodological quality.”
Quite a number of the studies so described were published in major medical journals, which generally would not be said to publish “poor research.” In fact, there have been over 350 research studies on the TM technique published in peer-reviewed science and medical journals (studies that were conducted at 250 independent research institutes and medical schools worldwide). The National Institutes of Health has awarded $26 million for scientists to further the body of research on the TM technique. NIH grants are intensely competitive and given only for studies that meet high standards of research. The NIH reviewers are no fools; they would not continue to grant millions of dollars over a 20-year period for research on the TM technique unless there was a precedence of promising findings based on quality research. Independent, peer-reviewed journals and their editors and peer-reviewers would not risk their reputations and continue to publish research on the TM technique if all previous research in the field was known to be “poor.”
Criticism of AHRQ: A number of meditation researchers have said that due to its methodological errors, the review's conclusions are invalid. One of the paper’s reviewers, Professor Harald Walach of the University of Northampton and School of Social Sciences and the Samueli Institute for Information Biology in England, strongly urged the authors to withhold publication. “When I looked carefully into the details of the study, the whole analytical strategy looked rather haphazard and ad hoc,” Walach said.
Theoretical perspective: Moreover, experts in the various, long-standing traditions of meditation would flatly deny the review’s reference to meditation practices lacking a “theoretical perspective.” In the case of the Transcendental Meditation program, there has been 50 years of theoretical development aimed at providing a scientific understanding of the mechanism of the TM technique and integrating technique’s theoretical framework into modern science—especially with regards to quantum field theory. The TM program has its basis in a tradition of theoretical analysis that, according to scholars, is at least 10,000 years old.
VIDEO: Dr. Mehmet Oz speaks about the Transcendental Meditation program's health benefits: "This meditation can help a lot of people. It is important to understand exactly how it effects stress—which of course impacts our physiology— and in particular how TM reduces stress and stress-related disorders."
Harmonizing, life-supportive effect: Different sounds affect us in different ways. The Vedic Tradition of meditation, as revived by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, is a science of consciousness that thousands of years ago established a systematic, comprehensive knowledge of mantras and their effects. Specific sounds were known for producing positive, soothing effects on mind, body and surroundings. These mantras are used today in the Transcendental Meditation program.
No meaning:The mantras used in TM practice are not associated with meaning. Whether spoken aloud or thought mentally, every word has its sound, but it also has meaning. The word rosehas a meaning and a sound. Words or phrases with meaning engage the mind in the realm of thought and meaning. In TM practice, the mantra is used for the effect of its sound only. The fact that the TM mantra is used free of meaning helps the mind settle down, beyond thinking, to experience more refined stages of the thinking process until the meditator goes beyond the faintest impulse of thought and arrives at the field of pure consciousness. In this state, the intellectual activity that is involved with thinking and meaning istranscended. This is the revitalizing experience of pure "Being."
These unique qualities of the mantras used in TM practice — harmonizing, life-supportive effects and no association with meaning — facilitate the transcending process.
The right mantra: Certified instructors of the Transcendental Meditation technique are trained in systematic Vedic procedures of selecting and imparting mantras. Selecting the mantra is not guesswork. It's not a mystical process. Nor is there a one-of-a-kind mantra for every person. But there is a particular mantra that will be most effective for you, just as everyone has their own blood type. Over 50 years of teaching millions of people the TM technique to has shown that this timeless system works marvelously well.
Receiving the mantra: Certified TM teachers make sure that a person learning to meditate initially receives the correct, precise pronunciation of the mantra. But it is not the mantra or sound alone that produces the benefits. How one first receives the mantra — along with continued correct use — is just as important for getting results as is getting the right mantra.
Mantras found on the Internet, learned from books, or shared by friends or unqualified teachers are not learned with the precision and authenticity of the Vedic system of imparting mantras. Certified TM instructors adhere to the time-tested Vedic procedures. Learning the mantra properly in this way is said to activate the sound so it can be effectively used as a mantra. Otherwise the sound may fail to produce the intended results.
Correct use of the mantra When you learn the Transcendental Meditation technique, you learn more than just the correct mantra: you learn how to use the mantra so that it becomes a vehicle for transcending.
Learning the TM technique is easy and enjoyable, but it’s also a delicate process, so delicate that the technique had been long lost to society — even in the land of its origin — because of misunderstanding and inadequate teaching methods. Maharishi reintroduced the practice of “effortless transcending” and structured a systematic, standardized course of personal instruction and follow-up. The seven-step TM course includes not only practical, customized instruction about how to meditate effectively, but also gives comprehensive knowledge of consciousness and higher stages of human development.
Meditators often say that you can't put a price on the Transcendental Meditation technique—because it's priceless.
Is is true that nothing spiritual should have a price tag on it, or that anything this good that will make the world better should be taught for free?
If the TM technique is everyone's birthright, as TM's founder, Maharishi, always said, then why not give it out to everyone free of charge?
That would be great, if it were possible, but unfortunately that's not how the world works.
Take water, for example. Certainly it should be everyone's birthright to have pure water. And how could anyone put a price on water, natural and essential to every living being?
Yet, every month, most of us get an envelop in the mail from the water department. We open it and pay the bill to keep the water flowing. Have we put a price on something natural and essential that's everyone's birthright? Not really, it seems.
Water is of infinite value because we couldn't live without it, but we still pay our finite water bill. When we do, we're not placing a monetary value on water itself. We're paying the cost of getting the water to us, of being able to conveniently turn on the spigot to let the water flow. We're paying the cost of keeping the water pure and consistently available. We're paying for the delivery system.
When a person pays their course fee to learn the TM technique, they're not paying an amount that people in a boardroom somewhere determined was the value of the technique. If the TM course fee were set at even a fraction of the technique's true worth (in health care savings alone), few of us could afford it.
So what does the course fee pay for? It pays for the cost of getting the technique to you in its pure form — meaning, in its original effectiveness. You could say you're paying for the convenient system that allows you to turn on the spigot and enjoy the consistent, satisfying results of tapping into your deepest inner reserves.
The TM technique is a tool for accessing the reservoir of limitless creativity and intelligence that resides within everyone. It's every person's birthright to be able to dive within and experience that inner treasury. But without proper instruction in the use of an effective technique for transcending, that experience remains pretty much out of reach for most people — left up to chance or to the realm of imagining or conceptualizing. Without an effortless, natural way to experience the mind's full, untapped potential, and without the knowledge that the transcendent exists within easy reach, a person may live an entire life not knowing this experience and never making use of the infinite possibilities of human consciousness. This lack of knowledge is said to be the cause of all suffering and problems in society.
Maintaining the delivery system: Teaching the TM technique is time-intensive for the teacher. When you pay the initial TM course fee, you're paying for the expert services rendered and you're helping sustain the non-profit organization that will always be there to offer you lifelong guidance and support that comes with learning the TM technique. Once you've learned, without any further cost you'll always have access to the trained and experienced TM teachers who can give you continuing knowledge and will make sure you're practicing meditation correctly. ("Correctly" means: in the natural, effortless way that leads to maximum benefits.)
You're paying the cost of getting the water to you and maintaining the delivery system, so that others after you will not go thirsty.
If the TM technique were no different, in practice and results, from any other form of meditation, or if you could learn it from a book or on your own, there would be no reason for TM teachers to be trained, no reason for the seven-step TM course or the follow-up and support, no reason for the non-profit organization and no reason for the course fee. The program's founder, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, would have had no reason for leaving the Himalayas to offer this technique to the world.
But the Transcendental Meditation technique is very different from other meditation practices, and you cannot learn the technique properly on your own or from a book.
If it's possible for human life to be lived in a state of harmony, happiness, progress and well-being, if peace is possible — for each of us individually and the society as a whole — then, considering mankind's history of suffering, clearly something very basic has been missing from human life.
Maharishi taught that it is the direct experience of transcending that has been missing, the natural process of going beyond the surface, active levels of the mind to experience pure, silent, unbounded awareness, the inner source of all our energy, creativity and intelligence.
The TM technique had been lost to society for many centuries before Maharishi introduced it in 1955. To help ensure that it doesn't get lost again, the technique is taught in this systematic, standardized way. Learning may require one-on-one instruction, a few classes and a course fee, but that's a small price to pay for what you're getting. By making your contribution to the program, you're helping preserve the technique for this and future generations.
Absolutely not. Learning and practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique is way simpler than that. TM is a technique, not a belief system. It's sort of like learning to dive, when you just stand above the water, take the correct angle, and let go — nature (gravity) does the rest. When you learn the TM technique, you learn how to dive effortlessly into your deepest, inner Being, to experience the reservoir of unbounded happiness, creativity and intelligence that resides within everyone. This is the state of restful alertness identified by so many scientific research studies on the TM technique — the brain becomes more coherent and the body gains deep rest.
The founder of the TM program, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, is regarded by many as a great teacher. But Maharishi did not play the role of "guru with followers." Rather, he offered a powerful knowledge and practice that helps anyone reduce stress and unfold their inner potential. The TM technique is a tool you can use and enjoy on your own — for the rest of your life.
The knowledge of how to use this tool — how the TM technique works and what it does — is not some teaching to be followed or believed in, but a set of simple, scientific principles that explain the process of transcending, principles verified through your own direct experience.
"I have no followers," Maharishi once remarked to a reporter who asked how many followers Maharishi had. "Everyone follows their own progress."
After fifty years of scientific investigation of the Transcendental Meditation technique, more than 800 scientific papers, research studies and reviews have substantiated holistic, beneficial effects for mind, body, behavior and society. These research studies were conducted at over 250 independent universities and research institutions in 33 countries — including independent research at leading medical schools such as Harvard, Stanford, Yale and UCLA.
Hundreds of these research studies have been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, including the journals of the American Medical Association and American Heart Association, along with The International Journal of Neuroscience, American Journal of Physiology, Science and many others.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has granted $26 million over the past 20 years for scientists to study the impact of the Transcendental Meditation program for the prevention and treatment of heart disease, hypertension and stroke. Competition for government research grants is considerable, and only the more promising fields of research continue to receive substantial funding year after year, over decades. It is precisely because there is a precedence of high-quality scientific research behind the Transcendental Meditation technique, conducted by reputable scientists around the world, that government research funding continues.
American Heart Association: A research study from the American Heart Association confirms that the Transcendental Meditation technique lowers blood pressure, and recommends the TM technique for the prevention and treatment of hypertension. Report from the AHA's journal Hypertension: "All other meditation techniques (including mindfulness) received a 'no benefit level of evidence.’ Thus, other meditation techniques are not recommended.”
Randomized controlled trials: There have been 50 randomized controlled (or clinical) trials on the Transcendental Meditation technique — showing significant positive effects on intelligence, anxiety, depression, substance abuse and other areas.
Meta-analyses: Numerous meta-analyses, which examined 597 separate studies on a variety of meditation, relaxation and wellness practices, have found the Transcendental Meditation technique to be the most effective mind-body practice for producing deep physiological relaxation, reducing trait anxiety, lowering high blood pressure, decreasing cigarette, alcohol and drug use, improving psychological health, and increasing self-actualization. Meta-analysis is a qualitative procedure used by scientists to draw definitive conclusions from large bodies of research studies.
Support of medical doctors: The American Medical Association, which represents 140,000 medical doctors, has published and promoted research showing that the TM technique improves high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity.
"Transcendental Meditation is Good Science"—Pamela Peeke, M.D., National Institutes of Health; Doctor for the Discovery Channel:
Scientific research on the Transcendental Meditation program—National
Institutes of Health Senior Researcher Norman Rosenthal, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University Medical School:
“Because of many negative studies or mixed results and a paucity of available trials, all other meditation techniques (including Mindfulness Based Stress Response) received a ‘Class III, no benefit, Level of Evidence C’ recommendation. Thus, other meditation techniques are not recommended in clinical practice to lower BP at this time.”
“We are gratified that our research demonstrating the
efficacy of TM on blood pressure is being recognized and hope that this
consensus will result in its wider use in clinical practice,” said C. Noel Bairey Merz, professor of medicine at Cedars Sinai Medical Center and principal investigator for an NIH-sponsored clinical trial on TM and cardiovascular health.
