Journal of Clinical Psychology
June 29, 2026
Ofra Walter, Sanford Nidich, Kimia Shahrokhi
The mass evacuation of Israeli residents from conflict zones after the events of October 7, 2023, coupled with ongoing security threats, has taken a substantial psychological toll, with many individuals exhibiting symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and sleep problems. This pilot study examined the feasibility and preliminary within-group changes associated with...
Health care for women international
February 5, 2026
Leslee Goldstein, Daniela Romagnoli, Sanford Nidich
1 citation
In this randomized controlled trial with women living in poverty in Uganda (n = 199) we explored the impact of Transcendental Meditation® (TM®) on perceived stress-the primary outcome measure, and self-efficacy, anger, anxiety, fatigue, sleep, and resilience as secondary measures. After baseline testing participants were randomly assigned to either practice of TM or to a waitlist control group....
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...
Journal of Traumatic Stress
February 1, 2022
Mayer Bellehsen, Valentina Stoycheva, Barry H. Cohen et al.
Preliminary studies have demonstrated the efficacy of Transcendental Meditation (TM) for treating posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The present study extended previous research with a pilot trial of TM as a treatment for PTSD via a single-blinded, randomized controlled design. veterans with PTSD (N = 40) were assigned to a TM intervention or treatment-as-usual (TAU) control group....
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...
Frontiers in Education
March 4, 2021
Laurent Valosek, Staci Wendt, Jan Link et al.
Teacher burnout affects job performance and mental and physical health. This study evaluated the effects of a meditation-based wellness program on burnout, resilience, psychological distress, and fatigue. Seventy-eight participants, randomly assigned to the Transcendental Meditation program (n = 39) or to a wait-list control group (n = 39), were administered the Maslach Burnout Inventory,...
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...
Health care for women international
July 1, 2018
Leslee Goldstein, Sanford Nidich, Rachel Goodman et al.
Vulnerable women living in poverty in Uganda, who are primarily single, illiterate mothers, face high levels of physical and psychological stress. Our study assessed the impact of the Transcendental Meditation® (TM®) technique on self-efficacy, perceived stress, and mental and physical quality of life of these women. This single-blind controlled study involved 81 women who were assigned to...
Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment
April 1, 2018
Jan Gryczynski, Robert Schwartz, Marc J Fishman et al.
Maladaptive responses to stress are thought to play a role in addiction and relapse. Transcendental Meditation (TM) is a popular meditation technique with promising clinical applications. This study sought to: (a) examine the feasibility of providing TM during AUD treatment; (b) compare outcomes for TM vs. treatment as usual (TAU); and (c) investigate the relationship between TM practice and...
The Permanente Journal
2017
Sanford Nidich, Angela Seng, Blaze Compton et al.
Compared with the general population, trauma experiences are higher among incarcerated women. To evaluate the effects of Transcendental Meditation (TM) on trauma symptoms in female offenders. Twenty-two inmates at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville, OR, with at least 4 months left of incarceration were enrolled in this randomized controlled pilot study. Subjects were randomly...
The Permanente Journal
2016
Sanford Nidich, Tom O'connor, Thomas Rutledge et al.
Trauma events are four times more prevalent in inmates than in the general public and are associated with increased recidivism and other mental and physical health issues. To evaluate the effects of Transcendental Meditation (TM) on trauma symptoms in male inmates. One hundred eighty-one inmates with a moderate- to high-risk criminal profile were randomly assigned to either the TM program or to...
December 31, 2015
Sanford Nidich
C l i n M e d International Library Citation: Nidich S, Nidich RJ, Salerno J, Hadfield B, Elder C (2015) Stress Reduction with the Transcendental Meditation Program in Caregivers: A Pilot Study. Int Arch Nurs Health Care 1:011 Received: August 11, 2015: Accepted: October 30, 2015: Published: November 02, 2015 Copyright: © 2015 Nidich S. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms...
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...
The Permanente Journal
January 30, 2014
Charles Elder, Sanford Nidich, Francis Moriarty et al.
117 citations
CONTEXT: Workplace stress and burnout are pervasive problems, affecting employee performance and personal health. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effects of the Transcendental Meditation program on psychological distress and burnout among staff at a residential therapeutic school for students with severe behavioral problems. DESIGN: A total of 40 secondary schoolteachers and support staff at the...
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...
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...
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...