Transcendental Meditation may help fight depression

WASHINGTON - Transcendental Meditation, a stress-busting technique, may help reduce symptoms of depression, according to two new studies.

The studies will be presented at the 31st Annual Meeting of the Society of Behavioral Medicine in Seattle, Washington April 9th, 2010.

The studies, conducted at Charles Drew University in Los Angeles and University of Hawaii in Kohala included African Americans and Native Hawaiians, 55 years and older, who were at risk for cardiovascular disease. Participants were randomly allocated to the Transcendental Meditation program or health education control group, and assessed with a standard test for depression-the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression (CES-D) inventory over 9-12 months.

“Clinically meaningful reductions in depressive symptoms were associated with practice of the Transcendental Meditation program,” said Sanford Nidich, EdD, lead author and senior researcher at the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention at Maharishi University of Management. “The findings of these studies have important implications for improving mental health and reducing the risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality,” said Dr. Nidich.

Participants in both studies who practiced the Transcendental Meditation program showed significant reductions in depressive symptoms compared to health education controls. The largest decreases were found in those participants who had indications of clinically significant depression, with those practicing Transcendental Meditation showing an average reduction in depressive symptoms of 48 percent.

“These results are encouraging and provide support for testing the efficacy of Transcendental Meditation as a therapeutic adjunct in the treatment of clinical depression,” said Hector Myers, PhD, study co-author and professor and director of Clinical Training in the Department of Psychology at U.C.L.A. (ANI)