A 4-month Transcendental Meditation program lowered daytime systolic and diastolic blood pressure more than health education alone in African-American adolescents with high normal systolic blood pressure. The 100 participants, average age 16.2 years, were randomly assigned to meditation or control groups. Ambulatory 24-hour blood pressure measurements taken before the program, at 2 and 4 months, and at a 4-month follow-up showed greater decreases in daytime systolic blood pressure in the meditation group, with a similar trend for diastolic blood pressure. These results suggest the meditation program benefits youth at risk for developing hypertension.
Practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique reduces trait anxiety more effectively than treatment as usual and most active alternative treatments, with the largest benefits seen in people who initially have high anxiety. Across 16 studies involving 1,295 participants, the effect size compared to treatment as usual was d=-0.62. Individuals with initial anxiety in the 80th to 100th percentile—such as patients with chronic anxiety, veterans with PTSD, or prison inmates—showed larger reductions (d=-0.74 to -1.2), bringing their anxiety down to the 53rd to 62nd percentile range. Reductions appeared within two weeks and were sustained at three years. No adverse effects were reported.
Stress is thought to worsen the development and progression of cardiovascular diseases. The Transcendental Meditation technique produces both immediate and long-term reductions in sympathetic nervous system activity and stress reactivity. In adolescents at risk for hypertension, it lowers resting and ambulatory blood pressure, reduces left ventricular mass and cardiovascular reactivity, and improves school behavior. In adults with mild or moderate essential hypertension, it decreases blood pressure and the need for anti-hypertensive medication. It also reduces symptoms of angina and carotid atherosclerosis, lowers cardiovascular risk factors like alcohol and tobacco use, decreases medical care utilization for cardiovascular diseases, and significantly lowers cardiovascular and all-cause illness and death.