A new study has revealed that people with high blood pressure may find relief from it through Transcendental Meditation.
The Transcendental Meditation, a technique derived from the ancient Vedic tradition of India by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1958, is found to produce a significant reduction in high blood pressure which is not found with other forms of relaxation, meditation, biofeedback or stress management. The new meta-analysis reviewed randomized, controlled trials of all stress reduction and relaxation methods in participants with high blood pressure that have been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Blood pressure changes for the Transcendental Meditation technique included average reductions of 5.0 points on systolic blood pressure and 2.8 on diastolic blood pressure, which were statistically significant, according to the review. The other stress reduction programs did not show significant changes in blood pressure.
Blood pressure changes associated with Transcendental Meditation practice were consistent with other controlled studies showing reductions in cardiovascular risk factors, improved markers of heart disease, and reduced mortality rates among participants in the Transcendental Meditation program.
The new meta-analysis was conducted by researchers at the NIH-funded Institute of Natural Medicine and Prevention at Maharishi University of Management and the University of Kentucky College of Medicine.
According to Dr. James Anderson, professor of medicine at the University of Kentucky and co-author of the new meta-analysis, the findings of the new review rebut a July 2007 report sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the NIH-National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, which concluded that most research on meditation is low quality and found little evidence that any specific stress reduction effectively lowers blood pressure.