Increased rates of adverse health conditions across the spectrum of cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, and metabolic disease (CKM) have been linked to social, psychological, and environmental stressors. Stress from daily living can elicit protective responses from multiple physiological systems that include psychological/neurocognitive and biological/cellular pathways. Excessive exposure...
IntroductionBlack Americans suffer from disproportionately high rates of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Psychosocial stress contributes to this disparity. Previous studies reported that the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique reduced CVD risk factors, surrogate endpoints, and clinical events in high-risk populations. However, no study has evaluated the effects of stress reduction with...
Obesity ReviewsJuly 28, 2024Mahesh Kumar Khanal, Leila Karimi, Peter Saunders et al.
Psychological distress has a demonstrable impact on cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and risk factors. Transcendental Meditation (TM) has been shown to reduce stress and improve health and well‐being. The current review aimed to synthesize the evidence on the effects of TM on cardiometabolic outcomes and identify gaps for future research. We searched PubMed/MEDLINE, EMBASE, SCOPUS, and Web of...
In the midst of global armed conflicts, notably the Israel-Hamas and Ukraine-Russia wars, there is an urgent need for innovative public health strategies in peacebuilding. The devastating impact of wars, including mortality, injury, disease, and the diversion of healthcare resources, necessitates effective and durable interventions. This perspective aligns with WHO recommendations and examines...
[1] Among all physician specialties in the United States (US), more than 50% report at least one symptom of burnout. This is twice the general population’s rate. Less than half of the physicians were satisfied with their work–life balance. [R2-R4] At least 50% of the US cardiologists are stressed. [5] Cardiologists around the globe suffer from high rates of mental health conditions that put...
Background: Black men and women suffer from disparities in morbidity and mortality from hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and currently, COVID-19. These conditions are associated with social determinants of health and psychosocial stress. While previous trials demonstrated that stress reduction with meditation lowered BP in the grade I range in Black adults, there is a paucity of evidence...
Background: High stress level is thought to be a factor in the disproportionate rates of mortality from CHD and stroke in African Americans. Stress-related CVD risk factors such as hyperglycemia, dyslipidemia, obesity, and high blood pressure tend to occur together, and their co-occurrence has been labeled the “insulin-resistance” or “metabolic” syndrome. The Transcendental Meditation (TM)...
African Americans have disproportionately high rates of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is an independent risk factor for CVD and may contribute to this disparity. Psychological stress contributes to LVH in African Americans and other populations. This study evaluated the effects of stress reduction with the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique on preventing...
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a complex and difficult-to-treat disorder, affecting 10-20% of military veterans. Previous research has raised the question of whether a non-trauma-focused treatment can be as effective as trauma exposure therapy in reducing PTSD symptoms. This study aimed to compare the non-trauma-focused practice of Transcendental Meditation (TM) with prolonged...
Despite advances in modern medicine, cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in Australia and globally. In a recently published scientific statement on alternative methods to lower blood pressure (BP), the American Heart Association (AHA) reported that the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique may be considered in clinical practice to lower BP. The AHA statement also...
Although meditation therapies such as the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique are commonly used to assist with stress and stress-related diseases, there remains a lack of rigorous clinical trial research establishing the relative efficacy of these treatments overall and for populations with psychiatric illness. This study uses a comparative effectiveness design to assess the relative...
Blacks have disproportionately high rates of cardiovascular disease. Psychosocial stress may contribute to this disparity. Previous trials on stress reduction with the Transcendental Meditation (TM) program have reported improvements in cardiovascular disease risk factors, surrogate end points, and mortality in blacks and other populations. This was a randomized, controlled trial of 201 black...
A randomized wait-list controlled trial (N = 295 university students) of the effects of the Transcendental Meditation program was conducted in an urban setting. Substance use was assessed by self-report at baseline and 3 months later. For smoking and illicit drug use, there were no significant differences between conditions. For alcohol use, sex X intervention condition interactions were...
Activation of a default mode network (DMN) including frontal and parietal midline structures varies with cognitive load, being more active during low-load tasks and less active during high-load tasks requiring executive control. Meditation practices entail various degrees of cognitive control. Thus, DMN activation patterns could give insight into the nature of meditation practices. This 10-week...
Background: Psychological distress contributes to the development of hypertension in young adults. This trial assessed the effects of a mind-body intervention on blood pressure (BP), psychological distress, and coping in college students. Methods: This was a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of 298 university students randomly allocated to either the Transcendental Meditation (TM) program or...
This single-blind, randomized controlled trial evaluated the impact of the Transcendental Meditation program plus standard care as compared with standard care alone on the quality of life (QOL) of older women (≥55 years) with stage II to IV breast cancer. One hundred and thirty women (mean age = 63.8) were randomly assigned to either experimental (n = 64) or control (n = 66) groups. Functional...
Mindfulness is associated with low levels of neuroticism, anxiety, and depressive symptoms, as well as high levels of self-esteem and satisfaction with life (Brown & Ryan, 2003). As part of a 3-month randomized waitlist-controlled trial of the effects of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) program on university students (N=295), we examined the impact of TM practice on mindfulness as measured by...
This randomized controlled trial investigated effects of Transcendental Meditation (TM) practice on Brain Integration Scale scores (broadband frontal coherence, power ratios, and preparatory brain responses), electrodermal habituation to 85-dB tones, sleepiness, heart rate, respiratory sinus arrhythmia, and P300 latencies in 50 college students. After pretest, students were randomly assigned to...
Some meditation techniques reduce pain, but there have been no studies on how meditation affects the brain's response to pain. Functional magnetic resonance imaging of the response to thermally induced pain applied outside the meditation period found that long-term practitioners of the Transcendental Meditation technique showed 40-50% fewer voxels responding to pain in the thalamus and total...
BACKGROUND: The metabolic syndrome is thought to be a contributor to coronary heart disease (CHD), and components of the syndrome have been identified as possible therapeutic targets. Previous data implicate neurohumoral activation related to psychosocial stress as a contributor to the metabolic syndrome. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of transcendental meditation (TM) on...
Psychosocial stress contributes to high blood pressure and subsequent cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Previous controlled studies have associated decreasing stress with the Transcendental Meditation (TM) program with lower blood pressure. The objective of the present study was to evaluate, over the long term, all-cause and cause-specific mortality in older subjects who had high blood...
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the leading cause of death in the United States today and a major contributor to total health care costs. Psychosocial stress has been implicated in CVD, and psychosocial approaches to primary and secondary prevention are gaining research support. This third article in the series on psychosocial stress and CVD continues the evaluation of one such approach,...
Psychosocial stress has been implicated in the disproportionately higher rates of hypertension among African Americans. This randomized controlled trial compared the effects of two stress reduction techniques and a health education control program on hypertension during a period of 1 year in African-American men and women (N = 150, mean age 49 +/- 10 years, mean blood pressure (BP) = 142/95 mm...
Unlike younger women, the risk of cardiovascular disease in older women matches or exceeds that of men. Excessive cortisol may play a role in this increased risk. Here we explore the possibility that the Transcendental Meditation (TM) program may reduce the cortisol response to a metabolic stressor as a way of reducing disease risk in older women. Data from 16 women who were long-term...
Because of growing evidence for stress as a major factor contributing to cardiovascular disease (CVD), techniques of meditation are being increasingly used. The Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique is distinct from other techniques of meditation not only in its origin and procedure, but also in the amount and breadth of research testing it. Evidence for its ability to reduce traditional and...