Health News: Top Stories

Evidence shows Transcendental Meditation has real health benefits
by Robert Schneider, M.D., F.A.C.C.

The Huffington Post Translate This Article
7 February 2014

On 7 February 2014 The Huffington Post reported: ''Needless to say, I was surprised to see the recent headline in The Wall Street Journal: 'Meditation Has Limited Benefits, Study Finds.' I've been researching the effects of meditation on health for 30 years and have found that it has compelling benefits.''

The article by physician, scientist, and educator Robert Schneider, MD, FACC,* continues: ''Research on Transcendental Meditation, for example, has found reduced blood pressure, increased insulin resistance (useful for preventing diabetes), slowing of biological aging and even a 48 percent reduction in the rates of heart attack, stroke and death. I would consider those to be benefits. And so does the American Heart Association, which last year released a statement saying that decades of research indicate TM lowers blood pressure and may be considered by clinicians as a treatment for high blood pressure.'' It is a joy for Global Good News service to feature this news, which indicates the success of the life-supporting programmes Maharishi has designed to bring fulfilment to the field of health.

Dr Schneider goes on to say: ''Why, then, did The Wall Street Journal report that meditation has limited benefits? The article was summarizing a review published in a specialty journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA Internal Medicine) that examined 47 studies. That review was narrowly focused on research showing that meditation alleviates psychological stress, so objective benefits such as reduced blood pressure were outside its scope. In addition, the review only looked at studies in which the subjects had been diagnosed with a medical or psychiatric problem. The authors excluded studies of otherwise normal individuals with anxiety or stress as well as any study that wasn't on adults.

''These selection criteria resulted in the omission of many rigorous studies, which, when taken as a whole, show that there are indeed benefits for reducing stress and anxiety. A 2013 meta-analysis (a type of rigorous review) of 10 controlled studies found that at least one meditation, Transcendental Meditation, significantly reduced anxiety. And the greater the starting level of anxiety in the test subjects, the greater was the reduction with meditation.''

Click here to read the full article by Dr Robert Schneider online at TheHuffingtonPost.com.

* Dr Schneider is Dean of Maharishi College of Perfect Health, Professor and Chair of the Department of Physiology and Health, and Director of the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention at Maharishi University of Management in the USA.

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post and the David Lynch Foundation (DLF), a nonprofit organization that brings Transcendental Meditation to at-risk communities. On Feb. 11, DLF will host Meditation, Creativity, Performance and Stress, a panel discussion led by Andrew Ross Sorkin featuring Ray Dalio, Dr. Mehmet Oz and Mario Batali. For tickets and information, click here.

Copyright © 2014 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

See related article: Research on Transcendental Meditation: Lower blood pressure, other benefits - Dr Robert Schneider responds to JAMA Internal Medicine review, in which Dr Schneider discusses in the Chicago Tribune the 'limited scope' of the recent JAMA Internal Medicine review about health benefits of meditation.

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