Practicing Transcendental Meditation (TM) improved the well-being of clinical nurses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In a randomized trial with 104 nurses from three Magnet-designated hospitals, those who received immediate TM instruction showed significant medium to large reductions in posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and burnout, and increased flourishing compared to a delayed-instruction control group. The benefits were immediate and cumulative. TM is easy to practice anywhere and may help organizations and individual nurses support clinicians in challenging times.
Clinical nurses who practiced Transcendental Meditation during the COVID-19 pandemic reported that the practice fostered present-moment focus, enhanced self-care, and the development of authentic presence with others. The overarching theme identified was that authentic presence represents truth in knowing, being, doing, and becoming. These findings align with Watson's unitary caring science theory and suggest that Transcendental Meditation is a holistic self-care strategy that supports nurse well-being and may help retain nurses in practice by enabling them to care for themselves and, consequently, for others.
Nursing students and instructors who practiced Transcendental Meditation twice daily for 11 months reported benefits for managing stress, enhancing productivity, and improving relationships. The qualitative study analyzed written reflective journals from 20 students and 3 instructors who received training from certified TM teachers. Thematic analysis uncovered major themes describing positive impacts on participants' lives. The authors recommend introducing TM as a stress reduction intervention in nursing programs.
A group of 27 nurses from various levels and areas of a healthcare organization practiced the Transcendental Meditation technique. Quantitative measures showed significant improvements in compassion fatigue and resilience. Resilience also had a large, significant inverse relationship with burnout, suggesting that higher resilience is linked to lower burnout. The findings indicate that Transcendental Meditation may serve as an innovative self-care strategy to improve resilience and reduce compassion fatigue and burnout among nurses.
Regular mindfulness meditation practice reduces stress, anxiety, depression, and burnout while enhancing well-being and empathy among nurses and nursing students. An integrative review of 16 studies found positive impacts, but most studies were small and localized, limiting how broadly the findings can be applied. Larger, more rigorous studies are needed to confirm these benefits.