Troops Overcome Trauma with Meditation and Yoga

War veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder are finding relief - and strength - through an alternative approach to treating the condition that experts hope to use on a much larger scale.

Yoga and Transcendental Meditation are among therapies used in a groundbreaking treatment programme at a US veterans medical hospital in the American capital, Washington, DC.

David George (see video clip top right), a 26-year-old infantryman who was diagnosed with PTSD after returning from Iraq several years ago, is one of an estimated 300,000 Iraqi and Afghanistan veterans affected by the symptoms of severe anxiety and distressing flashbacks characteristic of the condition. Like most sufferers, George was treated with counselling and medication for several years, but it had limited effect.

It was only when he learnt Transcendental Meditation at the ‘There and Back Again’ project in Washington that he at last found relief.

"With meditation, I had a break from the anxiety attack that had become my life," he says. Not only did it relieve his long-term symptoms, TM also enabled him to give up alcohol and drugs, and he even found the effects of his lifelong dyslexia had eased.

"I really do treat myself like my best friend now," he said. "Medications took away the symptoms, but they didn’t leave me the same. TM has left me better."

A number of military physicians also believe Transcendental Meditation is particularly beneficial for veterans suffering from PTSD.

“Severe stress can shut down the prefrontal cortex, which is like the commander-in-chief of the brain,” said Dr Sarina Grosswald, the executive director of PTSD and stress-related disorders for the David Lynch Foundation. "TM rebalances the brain chemistry."

"It creates the brain waves associated with settled-ness," said Grosswald. "As you experience it over and over, these brain connections get stronger, and the connections related to trauma begin to fade away."

Colonel Brian M. Rees, a medical corps command surgeon who served in Afghanistan and Iraq recommend TM to military patients and has led scientific studies supporting it. He says soldiers undergo physical training before deployment but they often lack emotional tools to cope with trauma. "We should be exploring TM more,” he said. “It’s a stone that has remained unturned."

Read more in an article by Samantha Michaels

See other video footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8fbyWOOzFY