Health News: Top Stories

Transcendental Meditation reduces heart disease risk factors
by Robert Schneider, M.D., F.A.C.C.

Enlightenment: The Transcendental Meditation Magazine Translate This Article
5 September 2012

Robert H. Schneider,* M.D., F.A.C.C., describes in a recent article—''Total heart health with Maharishi Ayurveda''—how the Maharishi Ayurveda program reduces risk factors and measures of heart disease.

What is the Root Cause of, and Approach to Heart Disease?
To answer this question, we may look at a parallel in modern science. Over the past 300 years, modern science has progressively uncovered deeper layers of order in nature. In recent years, quantum physicists have described a unified field that gives rise to all fundamental forces and particles in the physical world.

In a similar way, Maharishi Ayurveda describes a fundamental level of human physiology, the inner intelligence of the body that gives rise to all its molecules, cells, tissues, organs, and systems. In Ayurvedic terms this field is called Atma, the Self, or pure consciousness. Modern theoretical physics calls this the unified field.

The ultimate goal of the Maharishi Ayurveda program is to enliven this unified field at the basis of mind and body, to restore and maintain health, and to promote higher states of well-being and fulfillment known as enlightenment. (Click here for more about enlivening the body's healing intelligence.)

Heart disease, like all disease in the body, starts when the body loses connection with its inner intelligence or consciousness. This results in a specific mind/body imbalance at the most subtle level of functioning. If this imbalance continues, it eventually manifests as a disorder or risk factor, such as psychological stress, high blood pressure, high cholesterol or obesity, and eventually blocked arteries in the heart.

A fundamental program for enlivening the inner intelligence of the mind and body is the Transcendental Meditation program. Research shows that the Transcendental Meditation technique reduces psychological stress, its physiological correlates, and other risk factors and measures of heart disease.

As just one example, over the past 20 years, our Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention and collaborators at academic medical centers around the country have conducted a series of randomized controlled trials on the effects of the Transcendental Meditation program on hypertension and related disorders. These studies have been published in leading medical journals such as the American Heart Association's Hypertension and the American Medical Association's journal, Archives of Internal Medicine.

The results have shown that this technique lowers blood pressure on average—alone or in combination with conventional medications—but without the harmful side effects. And along with lowering of blood pressure, there are positive side benefits for mind, body, and even the people around us.

Global Good News will continue to feature Dr. Schneider's recent article.

Source: Enlightenment—The Transcendental Meditation^® Magazine

* Dr. Schneider is a physician-scientist-educator, and one of the world's leading authorities on scientific, natural approaches for prevention and treatment of heart disease, high blood pressure, stress, and other cardiovascular risk factors. Over the past 25 years, he has directed $25 million in research grants from the National Institutes of Health and private foundations for his pioneering research on natural approaches to heart disease. The results of this groundbreaking research have been published in more than 100 peer-reviewed medical journals and proceedings, and featured in more than 1,000 television, radio, magazine, and newspaper reports, including CNN Headline News, ABC's 20/20, Fox News, The New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, and Time Magazine.

© Copyright 2012 Maharishi Foundation USA

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