Health News: Top Stories

US: Vestavia Hills resident pushes for use of Transcendental Meditation to treat PTSD
by Ana Rodriguez

Birmingham News - Alabama, USA Translate This Article
4 July 2013

On 2 July 2013 Birmingham News reported: For Vietnam War veteran John Harrod, a resident of Vestavia Hills, Alabama, USA, enough is enough. In the face of a rapidly escalating epidemic of suicide among war veterans and active duty service members, Harrod talked with Birmingham News about his struggles with PTSD and what he is doing now to help others live to see another day. It is a joy for Global Good News service to feature this news, which indicates the success of the life-supporting programmes Maharishi has designed to bring fulfilment to the field of health.

Today, nearly 43 years since he first set foot in Vietnam, Harrod is a proponent of Transcendental Meditation. The practice, a meditation technique created by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, said Harrod, ''saved his life''.

Writer Ana Rodriguez explains that the TM technique, practiced 15-20 minutes twice daily, involves sitting comfortably with eyes closed. TM students are taught to settle their minds inward, beyond thought. It is believed that TM is unique among other techniques of meditation in its effortlessness. It involves no concentration, contemplation or control of one's mind.

After serving in Vietnam with the 4th Infantry Division, Harrod returned home in 1970. ''I was just kind of numb. I was sad, hopeless, I really didn't care if I lived or died.''

In 1975 he learned Transcendental Meditation. ''After that first meditation, my PTSD, all those symptoms, all those feelings, just lifted. They just left.'' Harrod has not missed a meditation session in 38 years.

Last year, Harrod decided to dedicate 100 percent of his efforts to working as a TM instructor after he learned of how the David Lynch Foundation promotes the practice of Transcendental Meditation to treat PTSD.

Today, as Executive Director of the Transcendental Meditation Program of Birmingham, a full-time teacher of the TM program, and Communications Director for the David Lynch Foundation's African PTSD Relief Project, Harrod is once again working to establish a base where he can teach veterans how to ''do nothing for 20 minutes, twice a day,'' and change their lives.

Ms. Rodriguez also describes scientific research showing beneficial effects of Transcendental Meditation in reducing PTSD symptoms, anxiety, and blood pressure.

Click here to read the full article online at AL.com.

Copyright © 2013 Alabama Media Group

Every day Global Good News documents the rise of a better quality of life dawning in the world and highlights the need for introducing Natural Law based—Total Knowledge based—programmes to bring the support of Nature to every individual, raise the quality of life of every society, and create a lasting state of world peace.

Translation software is not perfect; however if you would like to try it, you can translate this page using:

(Google)
(Altavista babelfish)