Clinical journal of the American Society of Nephrology : CJASN
July 18, 2025
Marino A Bruce, Roland J. Thorpe, Robert H Schneider et al.
1 citation
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...
Frontiers in Medicine
March 19, 2025
Keith C Norris, John Salerno, C. Noel Bairey Merz et al.
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 Reviews
July 28, 2024
Mahesh 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...
Frontiers in Public Health
2024
Robert H Schneider, Michael C. Dillbeck, Gunvant Yeola et al.
3 citations
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...
Heart Mind
September 18, 2023
Robert H Schneider, Fred Travis, Tony Nader
9 citations
BURNOUT IN CARDIOLOGISTS AND OTHER PHYSICIANS Physicians Are More Burned Out Than Ever – Here’s What Can Be Done About It was a Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) headline in 2023 highlighting the alarming rates of burnout among physicians and health care professionals.[1] Among all physician specialties in the United States (US), more than 50% report at least one symptom of...
American Journal of Preventive Cardiology
October 23, 2021
Robert H. Schneider, Clarence Grim, Theodore Kotchen et al.
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...
Ethnicity & disease
2019
Robert H Schneider, Hector F Myers, Komal Marwaha et al.
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...
The lancet. Psychiatry
December 1, 2018
Sanford Nidich, Paul J Mills, Maxwell Rainforth et al.
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...
Advances in integrative medicine
December 1, 2014
Robert H Schneider, Timothy Carr
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...
Contemporary Clinical Trials
September 1, 2014
Thomas Rutledge, Sanford Nidich, Robert H Schneider et al.
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...
Circulation. Cardiovascular quality and outcomes
November 1, 2012
Robert H Schneider, Clarence E Grim, Maxwell V Rainforth et al.
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...
Cardiology research and practice
March 21, 2011
David A F Haaga, Sarina Grosswald, Carolyn Gaylord-King et al.
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...
Cognitive processing
February 1, 2010
Fred Travis, David A F Haaga, John Hagelin et al.
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...
Integrative Cancer Therapies
September 1, 2009
Sanford I. Nidich, Jeremy Z. Fields, Maxwell V. Rainforth et al.
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...
Journal of Clinical Psychology
February 24, 2009
Melissa Tanner, Fred Travis, Carolyn Gaylord-King et al.
58 citations
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...
International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology
February 1, 2009
Fred Travis, David A F Haaga, John Hagelin et al.
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...
Neuroreport
August 21, 2006
David W. Orme-Johnson, Robert H Schneider, Young D Son et al.
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...
Archives of Internal Medicine
June 12, 2006
Maura Paul‐labrador, Donna M. Polk, James H. Dwyer et al.
282 citations
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...
The American journal of cardiology
May 1, 2005
Robert H Schneider, Charles N. Alexander, Frank Staggers et al.
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...
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
December 2004
Kenneth G Walton, Jeremy Z Fields, Debra K Levitsky et al.
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...
Cardiology in review
2004
Kenneth G Walton, Robert H Schneider, Sanford Nidich
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...
Behavioral medicine (Washington, D.C.)
2002
Kenneth G Walton, Robert H Schneider, Sanford Nidich et al.
Psychosocial stress is a nontraditional risk factor for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality that may respond to behavioral or psychosocial interventions. To date, studies applying such interventions have reported a wide range of success rates in treatment or prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD). The authors focus on a natural medicine approach that research indicates reduces both...
Psychosomatic Medicine
1998
Robert H Schneider, Sanford Nidich, John Salerno et al.
95 citations
OBJECTIVE: Oxidative stress or free radical activity may contribute to the pathophysiology of atherosclerosis and other chronic diseases associated with aging. Because psychosocial stress has been shown to increase oxidative stress, we conducted an exploratory study to investigate the effects of stress reduction with the Transcendental Meditation program on serum lipid peroxide levels in...
Psychoneuroendocrinology
May 1997
C R MacLean, K G Walton, S R Wenneberg et al.
Stress has been implicated in both somatic and mental disorders. The mechanisms by which stress leads to poor health are largely unknown. However, studies in animals suggest that chronic stress causes high basal cortisol and low cortisol response to acute stressors and that such changes may contribute to disease. Previous studies of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique as a possible...
The International journal of neuroscience
January 1997
S R Wenneberg, R H Schneider, K G Walton et al.
Cardiovascular responses to stress reactivity has been proposed as a risk factor for hypertension. In this study, we evaluated the effects of stress reduction on both laboratory cardiovascular reactivity and ambulatory blood pressure in real life on 39 normotensive male subjects who were pretested for ambulatory blood pressure and cardiovascular reactivity to stress using a battery of...