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Transcendental Meditation

Meditation and high blood

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Benefits of Proper Sleep

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Benefits Transcendental

Meditation

Hypertension and Transcendental Meditation

Transcendental Meditation is described in medical and nursing textbooks as a scientific way to reduce blood pressure and stress. Since 1974 hundreds of scientific studies on TM have verified its benefit in lowering hypertension. Even the reduction of mild hypertension is a great achievement, because over time, even a small rise in blood pressure is considered very dangerous. Half of the deaths that are associated with this disease occur in borderline patients. Insurance companies consider blood pressure a significant indicator of life expectancy. A middle-aged man with normal blood pressure (120/80) is expected to live sixteen years longer than one with moderate hypertension (150/ 100).

Dr. Robert Schneider, MD, and Skip Alexander, Ph.D., found that TM reduces blood pressure, even if one’s lifestyle exacerbates the condition. In other words, if improper diet, drinking, or smoking are contributing to your condition, you can still benefit from practicing TM. The American Heart Association regarded this finding so significant that they sent out over eight hundred press releases about it. There is also evidence that with regular practice of Transcendental Meditation, practitioners opt for an overall healthier lifestyle. As stress and anxiety decrease, people make wiser choices and poor health habits diminish.

A study conducted at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, and published in the August, 1999 issue of Psychosomatic Medicine, demonstrated the effectiveness of TM in reducing high blood pressure. This study evaluated the effect of relaxing blood vessels in reducing blood pressure. Dr. Vernon Barnes, the study’s primary author, stated that the underlying mechanisms responsible for the beneficial effects of TM on risk factors of heart disease are beginning to be understood. A decrease in blood pressure by decreasing blood vessel constriction may be one of the beneficial results of TM. The researchers conducted cardiovascular tests on 32 healthy adults 18 of whom were long time meditators. In one experiment both groups simply rested with eyes open. In the next experiment non-meditators closed their eyes, and were told to relax as completely as possible for 20 minutes, while the TM practitioners meditated for the same amount of time.

In the first experiment systolic blood pressure of meditators dropped by 2.5 mm Hg; that of non-meditators rose 0.5 mm Hg. In the second experiment the meditating group averaged a drop of 3.0 mm Hg, the non-meditating group averaged a rise 2 mm Hg. The meditating group had an increase in cardiac output of 2.7%, while the non-meditators have a decrease of 2.2%. The TM-meditators showed a significant decrease of 6.5% in total peripheral resistance, the measure of blood flow within vessels, while the non-meditators had a 1.6% rise.41 This research demonstrates how TM lowers blood pressure.

How did the TM group experience a lower blood pressure? Declines in vessel resistance are associated with hormone-related reductions in vessel constriction. This may be due to a decrease in levels of endothelin- 1, a potent vessel constrictor, or an increase in nitric oxide, a powerful vessel dilator.

Perhaps one of the most important benefits of TM is the realization that health comes from within. The TM Program produces positive side benefits in many areas of life. For example, studies show decreased anxiety, which can decrease blood pressure. Each benefit of TM augments other benefits, indicating that it is a complete system of health on all levels.

Borderline hypertension responds extremely well to the practice of Transcendental Meditation. At Harvard Medical School a study was conducted with twenty-two hypertensive patients before and after learning TM. One thousand two hundred measurements were taken beginning one month after learning, and lasting until five years later. The average readings dropped from 150/94 to 144/88. These figures represent significant improvement in diastolic pressure, the lower reading, which dropped from borderline to acceptable. Although the systolic pressure was still in the borderline range, it improved to within 5 points of the high normal category.

Starting TM has dramatically helped patients with recent onset of high blood pressure. The practice, demonstrated in major medical schools to reduce systolic and diastolic pressure, can also prevent its onset. Regular practice of TM has a cumulative effect — the longer you practice TM, the lower your blood pressure. TM subjects over the age of 50 have lower blood pressure than the average 30 year old.

From 1989 to 1999 the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded over 18.5 million dollars in grants to the Center for Health and Aging Studies. In September 1999, NIH awarded 8 million dollars to study hypertension in minorities. “The fact that NIH awarded such a large grant to study the effects of the Transcendental Meditation Technique in these areas shows their confidence in the research we’ve been doing,” says Dr. Robert Schneider.44 Medication alone, which works on only one aspect of disease, often has side effects, and is limited in its potential to prevent or reverse heart disease. These studies on the effects of TM are unique in that they are the first research on any non-drug antihypertensive modality. New research in progress demonstrates that the Transcendental Meditation Technique can help prevent heart attacks, strokes, and mortality in high-risk African Americans.

Recent studies on Transcendental Meditation published in the American Heart Association journal, Hypertension, show that Transcendental Meditation reduces high blood pressure as effectively as medication, and without negative side effects. A study published in The American Journal of Cardiology in April 1996 reported that patients with coronary artery disease who practiced the TM technique had improved exercise tolerance and maximal workload.46 This study, together with others previously mentioned, indicates that TM is a very useful adjunct to all forms of cardiac rehabilitation. It can increase efficiency of biochemical and hormonal secretions, improve blood pressure and blood flow, lower cholesterol levels, and increase capacity for exercise.

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