BBC, Daily Telegraph feature benefits of Transcendental Meditation for heart disease

 

Meditation “cuts risk of heart attack by half”

 

Meditation is good for the body as well as the mind, scientists have discovered, as the practice significantly reduces the risk of a heart attack for people with heart disease

 

On 17 November, news media in Britain and around the world reported: “Meditation 'cuts risk of heart attack by half.'”

 

This was stimulated by several almost concurrent events. The first ever randomised controlled trial looking at the effect of a mental technique – Maharishis’s Transcendental Meditation – on the blood pressure and mental health of university students was published in the American Journal of Hypertension. The American Heart Association at its annual meeting, in Orlando on 16 November, heard that a nine-year, randomised control trial followed 200 African American men and women, average age 59 years, with narrowing of arteries in their hearts had nearly 50% lower rates of heart attack, stroke, and death compared to non-meditating controls. And the US National Institutes of Health announced a further $1m of funding – bringing the total to $24m – to research the ability of Transcendental Meditation to prevent future heart attacks.

 

This spate of news followed the recent endorsement of Transcendental Meditation for cardiovascular disease by America’s “first research university”, John Hopkins.