TM Archives - Page 2 of 6

Meditation can reduce health care costs

September 13, 2011

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Rick Nauert: Stress can contribute to a wide array of health problems, and finding ways to reduce stress could presumably impact overall health care costs as well. A new study suggests that meditation can do just that.

According to the research, people with consistently high health care costs experienced a 28 percent cumulative decrease in physician fees after an average of five years practicing the stress-reducing Transcendental Meditation technique compared with their baseline.

The study is published in the September/October 2011 issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion.

Experts have recognized that in most populations, a small fraction of…

Meditation helps homeless children

June 11, 2011

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Beverly White and Julie Brayton: Thousands of adults and children live on Southern California streets, and so did Kelsey.

She was cast out by her abusive Midwestern family.

“I been kicked out of my house since I was nine, on and off. This last time, my father was sexually abusing me,” said Kelsey, who is 17 years old.

Living on the streets in Los Angeles was so horrifying and dangerous, Kelsey sought shelter at Children Of The Night, where she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress and introduced to Transcendental Meditation.

“When you take like twenty minutes sit down and do TM, and calm yourself and be peaceful…

Could transcendental meditation help veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder?

May 30, 2011

Dr. Norman Rosenthal: As Memorial Day approaches, it is fitting that we remember the debt owed, in the words of Winston Churchill, by so many to so few — those men and women who have fought and, in some cases, paid the ultimate price, so that the rest of us can live in freedom and safety.

Here in Washington, D.C., there will be formal ceremonies at Arlington Cemetery and informal ceremonies at the monuments that mark the wars that claimed too many. Likewise, throughout our great country, people will be remembering, grieving, reflecting.

Allow me to share with you the stories of five veterans, who are very much on my mind this Memorial Day. These five young men participated in a study under my direction to determine whether meditation could help assuage the painful and disabling aftermath of their service in Iraq, Afghanistan or both. While serving, all were exposed to the horrors of war in one form or another. They saw their fellow soldiers and the enemy killed at close quarters, directly experienced the blasts of powerful bombs or improvised explosive devices, and drove along country roads, never knowing when they would drive into the next ambush.

After returning to the U.S., these young men were among the huge number of soldiers and Marines (1.6 million and counting) who have suffered the devastating effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Symptoms of this condition vary, but typically involve hypervigilance (jumpiness, irritability), detachment, avoidance of situations that trigger memories of the traumatic events, flashbacks and nightmares – as memories spring unbidden into consciousness, accompanied by drenching sweat, a pounding heart…

Meditation in US schools

May 2, 2011

Paige Henry: Hundreds of public, charter and private schools in the United States have implemented a practice that might seem strange, foreign or even ridiculous to some adults: the Quiet Time Program.

It isn’t a ploy to have kids lay their heads on desks while teachers gossip in the break room.

It’s not an extra session of math or reading exercises either, but it does help students’ academic achievements.

The Quiet Time Program aims to improve the “overall environment of the schools” while giving students an effective way to reduce stress and develop “the full brain.” In other words, it’s a practical, highly effective form of meditation.

The Quiet Time Program began in 2005 when David Lynch, film director and Transcendental Meditation practitioner, founded the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace.

The foundation’s name may sound like a mouthful of hippie-love, but its work has produced significant, tangible results.

Students participating in Quiet Time improve their test scores, have a higher graduation rate Read the rest of this article…

For years, independent researchers have noted the benefits of meditation.

A study by Kaiser Permanente, the largest managed care organization in the country, found that teenagers practicing meditation techniques were less affected by “mood disorders, depression and self-harming behaviors like anorexia and bulimia.”

Brain waves shift in meditation. Neuroscientists have found that meditators are calmer and happier because brain activity in the stress-prone right frontal cortex moves to the calmer left frontal cortex.

Lynch’s foundation was established so children across America would be able to practice and profit from meditation.

By sending a specially trained teacher to a school for a 10-month stay, the foundation is able to provide 200 at-risk students with an individualized and intensive meditation program.

Using Transcendental Meditation techniques, the Quiet Time Program has students and teachers sit comfortably, with their eyes closed, for 20 minutes twice daily.

The instruction is entirely optional, of course, and only done with parental permission.

Since the program is so helpful for the students’ entire well-being and implemented with virtually no cost to the parents or school, it’s hard to imagine anyone would say, “No.”

Transcendental Meditation is appropriate for everyone. The technique does not involve any religious or philosophical beliefs, nor does it require a change in lifestyle.

The foundation has already brought the Quiet Time Program to schools in New York City, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago, Tucson, Ariz., San Francisco and Los Angeles, but more cities should be aware of what the foundation can offer.

“Consciousness-based education is not a luxury,” David Lynch says on the foundation’s website. “For our children who are growing up in a stressful, often frightening, crisis-ridden world, it is a necessity.”

David Lynch offers music for meditation

March 9, 2011

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Acclaimed film director David Lynch (Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Mulholland Drive) released a 17-track charity compilation on March 8 to support his foundation, which encourages healing through meditation. The album features exclusive tracks by Tom Waits, Iggy Pop, Peter Gabriel, Moby, Ben Folds, and others.

In exchange for a pledge of $18, the David Lynch Foundation, founded in 2005, will provide all of the tracks in digital format over the course of the next six weeks. Proceeds go to the organization’s global effort to teach meditation to 1 million at-risk youth and 10,000 veterans of war with post-traumatic stress disorder.

A supporter of transcendental meditation, dubbed TM for short, Lynch believes that it is the cheapest, most effective, and medication-free way of healing people who have suffered severe stress in war and any other extreme experience.

Waits’ track is a live recording of “Briar & the Rose,” composed…

From time-out to quiet time: meditation comes to SF schools

February 12, 2011

Original article no longer available

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Natalie Jones, KALW News: Innovative ideas are often born in California. This is the home of Silicon Valley, after all. But, that spirit of innovation isn’t limited to finding more ways to plug in to the world of high tech. Innovation also means finding ways to disconnect from it all. This kind of innovation is taking place in three San Francisco public schools that have started school-wide meditation programs. The hope is that a little quiet time and mindfulness will help facilitate learning.

It’s all paid for with private money, and one school says it’s seeing results. Natalie Jones reports on how it works.

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NATALIE JONES: Middle schools do not tend to be quiet places. For many people, middle school is hard enough in the best of circumstances. For students growing up in rough neighborhoods or dealing with difficult family issues, it can be especially stressful.

That’s why four years ago, James Dierke, principal of Visitacion Valley Middle School in San Francisco, decided to implement a meditation program for the entire school to see if it would help students and teachers deal with stress and focus on schoolwork.

JAMES DIERKE: There’s individual stresses of just being a teenager, there’s family stress, there’s community stress, and all those things multiply within a person. So this is something that everyone can do and doesn’t require a tremendous amount of effort on their part but has great results.

The program is called Quiet Time, and it teachers students the practice of Transcendental Meditation.

PA SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT: Please excuse this interruption, teachers and students, please prepare for Quiet Time, please prepare for Quiet Time.

Mr. Tagaloa’s homeroom is getting ready for the morning meditation session – they do fifteen minutes at the beginning of their school day, and fifteen minutes at the end.

VAO TAGALOA: Going to start our Quiet Time, let’s start by sitting up straight…close the eyes….let’s enjoy.

The dozen or so 8th graders in the room turn to face front, shut their eyes, and stay that way for a full fifteen minutes, without breaking the silence or fidgeting.

Visitacion Valley is one of the more challenged schools in the district – about two thirds of its students were getting free or reduced lunch last year, and the percentage of students proficient in basic subjects is lower than both the district-wide and the state-wide percentage.

In the last three months alone, there have been two homicides and more than a hundred assaults within just a mile radius of the school. Principal Dierke compares growing up in the neighborhood to living a war zone.

DIERKE: A lot of our kids come down with post-traumatic stress, just like you would if you lived in Iraq. So it’s hard to turn that off when you come in the school building when you sit down and try to study.

Post-traumatic stress is a hard thing to combat, but there are signs that Quiet Time is effective. Since the program started, test scores have gone up a little bit, attendance rates have gone up a little bit, and suspension rates have gone down, although the changes are only by a few percentage points. Most of the evidence of the program is anecdotal. Students and teachers participate willingly and say it’s helpful for them, and surveys that school has done return positive feedback. Though not everyone was enthusiastic at the beginning.

TRISTAN: Well, when they first took me in to train, I wasn’t so sure about the program…

Tristan is an 8th-grader, and has been doing meditation at school since 6th grade.

TRISTAN: But when I started to get into it and started to do it every day I noticed that it really helped me because I was sort of a trouble child, and then when I started to meditate I started to become a leader, I got good grades, so it was really helpful.

Students do have the option of doing something else quiet, such as reading, but Principal Dierke says only a few have chosen to do that. He’s also had strong support from parents.

DIERKE: In the last four years that we’ve been involved in this, I haven’t had one negative parent complaint.

The program, which for this school year costs about $175,000, is funded almost exclusively by the David Lynch Foundation, an organization set up by the filmmaker David Lynch, who’s known for surreal films such as Mulholland Drive and the TV series Twin Peaks. The organization’s goal is to provide Transcendental Meditation in schools and communities that could benefit from stress reduction. The rest of the funds come from private donations, which pay for 3.5 full time staff members who are trained to teach meditation. They spend their time teaching new students, helping returning students remember how to use the method, and training the teachers.

Two other schools in San Francisco are also trying the program – Everett Middle School and John O’Connell High School. They haven’t been doing it as long as Visitacion Valley, but they’re all hoping that meditation can create a refuge for students who wouldn’t otherwise have one.

For Crosscurrents, I’m Natalie Jones.

Natalie Jones is a reporter with the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

Meditation school to transfer to state sector

January 30, 2011

Britain is set to get its first state school dedicated to the values of transcendental meditation. A private school run by followers of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi will transfer to the state sector in September.

The Maharishi School in Ormskirk, Lancashire, has been given the green light to be part of the first tranche of Education Secretary Michael Gove’s “free” schools.

Mr Gove announced yesterday that 35 “free school” applications had received the go-ahead. In all, 249 applications have been received by the Department for Education to join the scheme. Under the “free schools” policy, parents, teachers and charities can open schools – funded by the taxpayer.

Pupils at the Maharishi School – for four-to-16-year-olds – have three 10-minute meditation sessions every day. The school has smaller-than-average classes and just 80 pupils. It says meditation calms pupils, making it easier to learn, and claims it could double its numbers with state support. Head Derek Cassells said: “All scientific research shows transcendental meditation brings more balance to the brain… It helps with behaviour and improved relationships with other people.”

His school’s philosophy is that of the Maharishi, pictured, whose movement gained prominence in the 1960’s when The Beatles became converts.

Mr Gove said ministers hoped every new state school would be an academy or “free” school. He spoke ahead of a conference on “free” schools today when he will be accompanied by leaders of the Charter school movement in the United States – which is advising ministers on the “free” schools’ policy.

Charter schools do not recognise teacher unions, but Mr Gove said it would be up to individual school heads to decide if they do. US education experts said it was essential schools could “terminate” weak teachers.

Joel Klein, former chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, said that there must be “reasonable processes in place for terminating non-performing and under-performing teachers.”

[via the Independent]

Operation Warrior teaches meditation to vets with PTSD

January 6, 2011

After the horrors of World War II, everyday life seemed impossible for one Vero Beach man.

But 20 years later in 1965 he said something pulled him through. Jerry Yellin, now 86, has started an organization that helps soldiers with post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, in an unusual way and he wants to share that secret with today’s combat veterans.

His new organization, Operation Warrior Wellness, is a division of the David Lynch Foundation, which is a national nonprofit started in 2005 that pays for the teaching of meditation to at-risk populations.

The kind of meditation used is called transcendental meditation, a form practiced in India for thousands of years that requires only 20 minutes twice per day.

Yellin was a P-51 pilot in World War II who flew 19 missions over…

Russell Brand: meditation helped me overcome promiscuous past

December 16, 2010