Every now and then go away, even briefly, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer; since to remain constantly at work will cause you to lose power.
—LEONARDO DA VINCI
Liming is the Caribbean art of doing nothing, guilt-free, a revitalizing habit that’s virtually unheard of in America. Liming can free you from the entanglements of convention and disengage the drive toward constant busyness. In its essence, all it takes is choosing one of your favorite healthy pleasures—such as telling jokes or flipping through an album of side-splitting cartoons. When you’re starting to feel stressed or anxious, other liming suggestions include humming a heart-warming song, reading an upbeat aphorism or poem, putting on your sunglasses and listening to escape music while sipping iced tea, leaning back in your chair and looking out the window with your feet propped up on the desk and remembering your favorite vacation or funniest stories, or practicing a deeply relaxing meditation or visualization.
Liming, at its purest, is breaking away from the stress of time, of clock-watching. This kind of mental rest gives the brain a much-needed opportunity to sort out the load of information that has reached it during the past several hours. The truth is, as little as five or ten minutes of mental playtime during a work break can put you back in synch. Time off is not the same thing as time out. The basic idea with liming is to shift yourself out of the rat race—as completely and deeply as you can—for at least ten minutes, rediscovering the natural joy of human being.
UNPLUGGING
For many stressed men and women, the telephone—despite its obvious value—is the number one irritant in their busy lives. The crux of the problem appears to be too much communication and too little time alone. Unexpected phone calls during nonworking hours can interrupt reading, relaxing, and family time. The truth is that all of us need stress breaks. Somewhere during our hectic daily lives and on weekends, we each need opportunities to get away from phone interruptions.
But what if your job requires you to answer business calls twenty-four hours a day? Even in this case, it’s essential to have some dependable way to rejuvenate your energies by leaving the battlefield—with an answering service, for example, or with the phone ringer turned off and the answering machine on during periods of unwinding. Do you really have to carry a portable phone with you on a dinner date? Do you need to have a phone in every room? Turning off the phone bell is a way to give yourself and loved ones some needed down time. You might deliberately let the phone ring without answering it at least once a day. Modern technology—pagers, websites, cell phones, faxes, and e-mail—is designed to empower you and set you free. In the information age, you must become a master of these technologies rather than allow them to control you. Unlike these techno-helpers, you were not designed to be on call twenty-four hours a day. That’s why so many people suffer from automation anxiety and techno-stress.
INNER SCANNING
Many of us are so busy, so tense, that we fall out of touch with the subtle yet important sensory signals that arise from within the body. Without this awareness, we make it easy for stress to win; we fail to catch and neutralize negative pressures at their onset. An inner scan can help you detect tight muscles and relax them more easily. With practice, scanning can be used quickly—even instantly—to help you find and release tension.
Choose an environment that’s free from distractions. Set aside about five minutes. Sit comfortably in a chair or lie on your back on a padded surface such as a carpet or bed. Spread your legs slightly, and relax your body. Close your eyes, and begin taking smooth deep breaths. Mentally scan a muscle area as you inhale. As you breathe out, imagine the tension releasing as that muscle area becomes more comfortably relaxed. After several breaths, shift your attention to another area. Systematically search your entire body: begin at the scalp and work down through the face, eyes, ears, jaw, tongue, neck, shoulders, upper arms, forearms, wrists, hands, fingers, chest, upper back, abdomen, lower back, pelvis, thighs, lower legs, ankles, feet, and toes.
For each body area you scan that is tight, mentally repeat, “Warmth and heaviness are flowing into my ____. Warmth and heaviness fill my ____ and it feels relaxed, comfortable, heavy, and warm. I feel my whole body relaxing ever more deeply as the heaviness and warmth fill my ____. I am letting go of all my tensions and worries. I feel peaceful and calm.” Visualize the tension melting away—like an ice cube being heated by the sun and turning into a pool of water—as you exhale. Don’t be alarmed if your mind wanders. Just bring your attention back and continue scanning.
Once you’ve finished, remain completely relaxed for a minute more. Notice the warm sense of ease in your body, especially in those places—perhaps the face, neck, jaw, shoulders, abdomen, or back—where you tend to hold tension. Can you feel your breath as it comes in and goes out? The slightest breeze on your cheeks or hands? The surface beneath your feet, legs, or back? Which arm or leg is more relaxed right now? The more senses you involve—sight, touch, sound, smell, and taste—the more you can restore inner balance and harmony.
UNLOCK YOUR BREATHING
Conscious breathing, the technique employed by both the yogi and the woman in labor, is extremely powerful. There is a wealth of data showing that changes in the rate and depth of breathing produce changes in the quality and kind of neurotransmitters.
—CANDACE PERT, PH.D., MOLECULES OF EMOTION
You can change your emotional state from worry and feeling threatened to self-confidence and a feeling of inner safety, by consciously altering your breathing. One of the most basic blocks to natural well-being is restricted breathing. Most people learn at a very young age to control feelings by holding their breath, and restricted breathing then becomes a habit in response to intense emotion. Surprisingly, most people halt their breathing for several seconds or more when they feel stressed. This reduces oxygen to the brain and pushes you toward feelings of anxiety, agitation, and panic. Situations that evoke fear, such as abusive parents or contentious siblings, can cause a child to grow up with chronic tension in the chest muscles out of fear of opening the heart. This results in poor posture and consistently holding one’s breath.
Here is a simple exercise to gradually unblock your breathing. Sit comfortably, and loosen your clothes so that you can breathe easily with your abdomen. Now inhale deeply through the left nostril and hold for a count of four, then exhale through the right nostril to a count of four. Then inhale deeply through the right nostril, count to four, and exhale through the left to a count of four. Using your index finger and thumb to help you, continue this alternated breathing for three minutes, and let yourself enjoy it. The point is to breathe deeply, easily, and pleasurably. Notice the streaming energy with each inhalation as oxygen fills your lungs. You’ll soon become very relaxed. If at some point during the day you feel tense, this exercise can bring relaxation in a matter of three to five minutes.
A remarkably effective on-the-spot technique for reducing stress and mild anxiety is one-breath relaxation. With practice, you can use one-breath relaxation whenever you start to feel jolted off balance by life’s demands. First straighten your back and completely clear your mind. Now take in a deep breath of air. Don’t force it; be aware of your breath coming in, feel the sensation—does the breath feel warm or cool? On inhalation, relax your shoulders, straighten your back, and let the air open your chest as you take a moment to be silent. As you deeply inhale, vividly imagine yourself drawing the breath into every fiber of your being, into every cell of your body, and imagine a bright light filling every corner of your mind. Hold the breath for a few extra moments, feeling it lift your spirit, and then, as you exhale, release every bit of darkness and tension from your thoughts and muscles.
Some people like to add a word or sound to help the mind focus as the breath goes in and out. Some individuals use one or God or aum (om). Hu is an ancient sound for power. Many good words begin with hu: human, humor, hum, hub (the center), hug, huge, hue, humus (the good earth), humble, and, of course, hula. Hu is pronounced like the name Hugh. You can say it silently as you breathe in and again as you breathe out.
To make one-breath relaxation even more effective, you can link it to a specific and consistent hand position—perhaps pressing your thumb lightly against the tip of your index finger—as a memory cue. After a while, the touch alone can help elicit and deepen the immediate effects of one-breath relaxation.
One-breath relaxation is a simple technique, but it works. Many people feel the effects right away, and it can be used again and again throughout the day—as an easy way to stay calm when things around you are particularly hectic or tempers are short. A research study found that people who practiced daily breathing exercises were able to cut their levels of stress and tension in half.1
LEARNING TO LET GO
Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
The simple act of safely letting go of control can become a wonderful means of stress reduction. What you resist persists; what you accept lightens. Just feel whatever you feel, and notice whatever you notice.
Select a quiet place and a comfortable position. Take the phone off the hook, or put a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door. Loosen all constricting clothing. Give yourself full permission to let go. (Missing this simple step is one reason many relaxation plans don’t succeed.) Let your eyelids close, and take a deep breath, filling your abdomen and entire chest. Repeat “Letting go” silently to yourself several times. Each time you exhale, imagine you’re breathing all tension out from your body. As you exhale, repeat “Letting go” to yourself several more times. As your body relaxes and your emotions calm, unnecessary thoughts may parade through your mind. It’s important not to fight or resist these thoughts—that only makes the distraction more powerful. Imagine that with each breath in, fresh, clean air is cleansing your mind of unneeded thoughts.
You cannot force yourself to relax—it doesn’t work. Relaxation is basically a letting go process, so don’t try to become relaxed. Gently, fully, place your attention on the sensation of tension without trying to fix it or change it. Just be with it. It’s mindfulness and simple innocence that you’re settling into. Bring into your consciousness positive words like “peace,” “love,” and “light” to assist you in letting go.
ONE-TOUCH RELAXATION
Here’s one of the simplest and quickest ways to relax—anywhere, anytime. One-touch relaxation is achieved through gentle fingertip pressure on key muscles, which can trigger a cascade effect that quickly dissolves tension throughout the body.
Place your fingertips on your jaw joints just in front of your ears. Inhale for a few seconds, tightening your jaw muscles—bringing the upper and lower jaw together—which will feel like clenching your teeth. As you exhale, let the jaw muscles go totally lax, releasing all tension, letting the lower jaw drop, and relaxing your tongue. Notice the contrast between the sensations of tension and relaxation. Now repeat the exercise, but use only half the tightness in your jaw muscles. Hold for a few seconds, then release. Repeat with one-quarter of the original tension and then one-eighth—you’ll find it much harder to discern these differences in tension.
You’re using one touch to set the sensory cue for relaxation. You’re specifically associating the sensation of your fingertips pressing on the jaw muscles with the highly desirable sensation of releasing tension. This process is triggered by a combination of your touch and the accompanying mental command to relax.
Again take a deep breath as you press and—using one touch with your fingertips against the jaw—relax these muscles with a full exhalation. (You should feel the jaw slackening.) Let your tongue relax and settle down into the base of your mouth, with its tip lightly touching your lower front teeth. Imagine yourself breathing out stress and putting aside your “shoulds,” duties, and emotional burdens.
You can elicit a similar response by shrugging your shoulders, lifting them up toward your ears and then totally relaxing all of the muscles from your neck to your shoulders and across your chest and upper back, as you breathe away stiffness and release inner pressures. You can pick whatever other muscle areas of your body tend to stiffen up when stress mounts—such as the lower back or abdomen—and develop a similar quick-release technique for each of them. With practice you’ll be able to reach up and use a single touch on your tense jaw, shoulders, or back to trigger an immediate wave of relaxation through that area, as if you’re standing under a waterfall that washes away all tension and strain.
IMAGINE!
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN
The word imagination is defined as “the formation of a mental image of something that is neither perceived as real nor present to the senses.”2 However, the images, thoughts, and feelings that flow from your imagination can have very real consequences upon your mental and physical health. When you are experiencing terrifying images and anxious thoughts, your brain cannot determine whether you are imagining a threat or actually experiencing one. In either case, the physiological consequences are the same.
Dr. Lennart Levi, noted stress researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, has shown that violent movies produce a substantial increase in adrenaline secretion, which can trigger fear and anxiety. In this light, it is not surprising that Dr. Bozzuto of the University of Connecticut has reported in the scientific literature a condition he calls cinematic neurosis. This disorder is characterized by such symptoms as insomnia, excitability, irritability, and hyperactivity, which develop in some people after viewing violent movies. Perhaps you have experienced a rapid heartbeat, hyperventilation, sweating, nervous tension, or tight muscles while seeing a horror movie or a Die Hard thriller. Just as experiences of cinematic terror are created by images and sounds on film, “inner movies” that regularly consist of frightening images or catastrophic thoughts can result in panic, anxiety, and neurosis.
Just as your imagination can produce anxiety, it can also create peaceful, healing experiences. The gift of imagination can be channeled to increase confidence, reduce fear, and ease sleep problems. Mental imagery can calm heart rate, respiration, brain-wave activity, and blood pressure. The way you focus your mind can even have beneficial effects on neurotransmitters, hormones, and the immune system. “The relations between emotion and immunity may prove to be another strong argument for a return toward whole-person medicine,” stated an editorial in Lancet, one of Great Britain’s leading medical journals. A 1997 study by C. Ashton et al. in the Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery demonstrated the beneficial effects of relaxation-visualization techniques for reducing anxiety in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass surgery.
With guided imagery, you choose to focus your mind on a specific visualization. While this valuable technique most often uses your “insight” (i.e., your inner sight), you can also enrich your experience with what you can feel, hear, smell, and taste. Include all of your senses to make guided imagery more vivid and effective. You may be someone who can visualize easily—perhaps thinking in pictures comes naturally to you. Some people’s inner representations are more like a stream of verbal thoughts. Don’t worry if seeing images in your mind’s eye is not something you are used to. Even if your visualizations aren’t clear, you will receive benefits. With practice, the power of your imagination can be strengthened to shape your health. Adding appropriate background music can make you an even better producer and director of your inner movie.
VISUALIZING AN ISLAND OF PEACE
Using your own or someone else’s voice, you may wish to tape-record the visualization process described below. The advantage of making a recording is that it allows you to listen, close your eyes, and focus fully on the imagery. Modify the visualization script to make the process more personal. To do the exercise, you will need about ten to fifteen minutes of relaxed, uninterrupted time. Put a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door, and turn off the ringer on your telephone.
Take off your shoes, loosen your belt, and get as comfortable as possible. Sit in an easy chair or lie on a sofa, bed, or carpeted floor. Put a pillow under your head, and use a blanket to keep warm. Dim the lights, and perhaps put on some soothing background music. If you experience any nervousness or distress while practicing this guided imagery, just be easy until it passes. However, please know that you can stop the process and open your eyes at any time. If you like, you can seek professional assistance to help you gain more confidence in using the visualization exercises. Imagery skills usually take time to acquire.
Begin by using the relaxation and breathing exercises described earlier in this chapter to feel safe, comfortable, and calm. Now you are going to visualize your own island of peace, a place where you can go at any time to rejuvenate your mind, body, and spirit, to escape whenever you like from life’s barrage of information and demands. Your own island of peace can put you in a relaxed vacation mode.
Breathe in slowly and gently, fully expanding your lower ribs as the air comes in and you arch your lower back. Breathe out smoothly as you imagine any worries and struggles floating away. Allow your mind to drift off to a secluded beach on your own island of peace. Rhythmic waves are gently splashing not far from your bare feet, and the water reflects the clear blue sky and the golden glimmer of the sun’s rays. Feel the heat on your cheeks and shoulders and the soft dry sand beneath your feet. Take a step into the surf, and feel the cool wet sand between your toes. Feel the breeze picking up and drying you off. Notice how the breeze makes your skin feel cool and then hot again in the sun’s pulsing warmth.
Now imagine yourself walking down the beach with a loose, carefree stride. You are deeply relaxed, drawing in deep breaths of fresh air, looking far down the shoreline to the distant horizon. You can see the white sand disappear into the emerald sea as a few small white clouds float in the timeless blue sky. You feel the awe and wonder of life pulsing in your heart. Take some time to relax and enjoy your island of peace.
Continue giving your imagination free rein. Just take it as it comes, neither anticipating nor resisting change. If you find yourself getting caught up in your daily demands, just gently ease off and bring yourself back to your island of peace. After about ten minutes, slowly open your eyes.
RELEASING FEAR AND LIGHTENING UP
Here is powerful guided imagery for releasing fear, anguish, or guilt. It can allow you to heal emotional conflicts that generate anxiety and to discover a source of inner peace. Light is the source of all life and warmth and therefore the source of all healing energy. Visualizing a healing light is used as an adjunct to conventional medical treatment, from healing wounds to cancer recovery. This healing imagery can help you lighten your emotional burdens. Follow the instructions below.
Unplug the phones, and put a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door. Find a comfortable chair, or lie down, and give yourself a few minutes to relax and let go. Close your eyes and take five very slow, deep breaths, exhaling through your mouth. Begin to notice the soothing effect of settling down. Direct your attention to your toes, and feel them relax. Let your attention slowly glide up your body—feet, ankles, calves, knees, thighs, hips, abdomen, back, chest, neck, arms, face—and stop at each part to feel relaxation taking place.
Now imagine that you are floating in space or lying in a warm meadow. Create any mental image that you find peaceful, relaxing, and enjoyable. Let the world slip away, and drift naturally in your reveries. From this safe and relaxed place within you, perceive yourself without self-criticism. You can feel the release of letting down your guard. As you progress in your relaxation, you can feel the love and peace deep inside you.
When you are feeling relaxed and comfortable, picture the person(s) you feel you have hurt, as realistically as possible. Observe your feelings and thoughts as they occur. You may experience some tension in your chest, shoulders, or neck. Your breathing may become shallow or feel constricted. Without resisting the feelings and sensations as they arise, continue to focus your attention on the peaceful images you created during relaxation. Remember to breathe slowly and comfortably, letting go of any tension. Continue to relax, unwind, and feel more comfortable.
Imagine a white light surrounding you. Let it fill you with healing warmth and grace. Imagine this light focusing specifically on the area of your body in which you experience anxiety or remorse: your stomach, perhaps your heart, maybe your head. See your emotional pain surrounded by this goodness and light. Now imagine the light penetrating and dissolving the anxiety or guilt. The more the light saturates the guilt, fear, or hurt, the lighter you become. Imagine any remaining anguish entirely diffused in the light. As the darkness in a room is dispersed when you turn on the light, your self-punishment is no more. Be at peace in the goodness and light.
Use this visualization process daily for a time to help lighten and further dissolve your emotional burdens. Each time you do the exercise, take a few deep breaths and imagine a healing light sweeping over you. The light can be seen as emanating from any source comfortable to you—God, spirit, or love. This inner light can assist in healing the pain and bitterness in your heart. Relax for five or ten minutes in this inner light. If you experience lingering pressure in your head or irritability after the exercise, be sure to take additional time to rest. Lie down, take some deep breaths, and let yourself unwind. You may practice this technique as much as needed until your heavy feelings lose their intensity and become lighter.
ANCHORING INNER SAFETY
An anchor is a single nervous-system cue that can elicit from memory sensations of feeling confident and being at your best. With a bit of practice, you can create a personal anchor that enables you to instantly shift your mind and elicit a surge of confidence and calmness under pressure.
In truth, countless anchors, or triggers, are affecting your behavior every day. For example, think of the immediate wave of emotions and memories that arises when you hear a favorite song. Or the forceful feelings you get from recalling one of your great (or worst) moments in a love relationship, parenting, or work. These anchors can be good or bad, strengthening or weakening, empowering or victimizing. The important fact is that they’re everywhere. You can choose to either take greater charge of your life by forming anchors of inner safety and strength, tapping into a deep safe space within yourself, or make no effort at all and let your environment and the people around you dictate your emotional reactions.3
Here’s a way to create a powerful personal anchor of inner safety. Sit in a comfortable, quiet place, and close your eyes. Direct your attention to your breathing, focusing on the air as it gently passes into and out of your nostrils and chest. Begin to feel the sensations of your body—air or clothing on your skin, the weight of your shoulders and arms, the texture and support of the surface you’re sitting on, and so forth. Now draw your awareness to the center of your chest, to your beating heart. Whenever you notice your attention wandering, gently return it to the center of love and warmth in your chest.
Now vividly imagine yourself thinking, feeling, looking, sounding, and performing at your relaxed best in a specific past place and circumstance—a peak experience—when you felt safe, calm, and confident. Picture the safest moments of your life, as a child, as an adult, in the past year, or in the past month. Visualize yourself at your best, at a time when you were able to respond effortlessly no matter how intricate or demanding the challenge.
Recall your finest moment in great detail. Etch it into your awareness so that you can summon it in an instant whenever you choose or need to. Develop every aspect of this mental image of confidence, strength, and calmness. How deeply at ease are you? Do you feel a sense of adventure or discovery? What does it feel like to have this sense of mastery and balance? Are you indoors or out? In sunlight or shade? Rain or snow? What is the temperature? Do you notice air currents? What are you wearing, and how does it feel on your skin? What can you see in all directions? How do the muscles in your body feel? What is the rhythm of your breathing? What sounds are around you and off in the distance? Where is your mind focused? In what specific ways do you feel connected to nature and the universe around you?
At the peak moment of your image, make a unique sensory signal. Choose a touch, such as your thumb against the second knuckle of your index finger with a specific amount of pressure, and form a mental picture of yourself in a fluid state of confidence and relaxed alertness. These combined signals become your personal anchor.
Wait half an hour or so, and repeat the process. Later on, test your cue. Recreate the quiet, relaxed scene. Then, in slow motion, imagine a simple, specific phobia, but be certain to maintain the feeling that you are in a safe place while viewing the scene.
Research shows that with practice many fears can be overcome in this way. If you feel yourself becoming tense or anxious, make the barking dog less hostile or move it farther away from you in your mind until the sense of being safe and strong returns to you. Perceive the phobic scene, and then trigger your anchor. When your anchor is programmed into memory, it can be recalled, producing a quick surge of positive energy and inner calm.
With practice you can make the effect even stronger. If the anchor is well programmed into memory, for example, you can gain a few extra crucial moments of calm energy and self-control just by pressing your thumb and forefinger together. You are then less likely to freeze up or panic at the thought or the sight of a barking dog.
If your anchor doesn’t seem to be effective at first, you probably haven’t found vivid enough mental images or sharp enough sensory cues. Rehearse several more times. Again form the signal, increasing the richness and brilliance of the scene. How, exactly, does your best moment look, feel, sound, taste, and smell? Sense the lighting, colors, shapes, temperatures, textures, movements, physical sensations, and feelings. Be certain your sensory cues are unique, and see how they work for you. You’ll be surprised how helpful such a simple tool, when practiced regularly, can be in mastering a phobia.
MUSIC AS MEDICINE
We are spectacular, splendid manifestations of life. We have language. We have affection. And finally, and perhaps best of all, we have music.
—LEWIS THOMAS, M.D.
Research has documented the powerful psychological effects that music can have on mood and emotions. The right song or melody can soothe frayed nerves. Listening to music you truly enjoy can give your nervous system a lulling massage. Hearing a tune or symphony that you love can dispel the “noise” of anxiety and create inner harmony. You can use music as a tool for stress reduction by itself or combine it with a visualization process, such as the previously described island of peace.
Alfred A. Tomatis, M.D., a French otolaryngologist, conducted research that demonstrated how music can recharge and retune the brain by dispelling tension and increasing enthusiasm. Music can lessen the level of stress hormones, blood pressure, respiratory rate, and stomach and intestinal contractions. Music is an inborn universal language system, which speaks to us so powerfully that it integrates memory and imagery with our innate healing capacity. A rhythmic beat can evoke tears, laughter, song, and dance. People are able to suspend their worries, release pent-up feelings, and become one with the composer or performer.
Find music that either nurtures, inspires, or relaxes you. You might choose Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the Pachelbel Canon, an Enya album, birds chirping, or pouring rain. Whatever music or natural sounds you find soothing, just close your eyes and drift away. Vary your selections because after about twenty minutes the nervous system may become oversensitized to a specific tune and react to the tedium irritably.
Of course, music does more than just soothe or inspire. It can stimulate or enhance almost any activity, emotion, or mood—from crying to venting anger to dancing for pure joy. Lullabies, marches, dirges, and the Rolling Stones induce different feelings and states of arousal. Your natural self-healing program ought to include daily prescriptions of music. You can self-dose with music that charms, relaxes, or invigorates you.
“Music medicine” has become an active and important tool for healing anxiety and stress.
TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION
Within you there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.
—HERMANN HESSE, SIDDHARTHA
Meditation is attuning yourself to the music of your soul. It is traditionally considered a process that requires expert personal instruction for maximum benefit and understanding. If you have tried to learn a meditation technique from a book or magazine article and been disappointed with the results, you should not be surprised or discouraged. Your experience testifies to the age-old maxim that to learn to meditate properly you need a qualified teacher.
Among the various meditation techniques available, Transcendental Meditation (TM) is one of the most practical, easily learned, and effective programs. It’s an ancient, time-tested technique whose benefits have been well established through modern scientific research. Qualified teachers are widely available to teach the technique and provide the necessary supportive follow-up, as well as advanced courses. While enrolling in the TM program is costly, you’ll find that it is money well spent. You can attend an introductory lecture (no admission charge) at your local TM center. The address and telephone number can be found in your telephone directory.
Studies on the effects of meditation confirm that it can be of immense benefit to your health and total well-being. In meditation, you experience a state of very deep rest, marked by decreases in heart rate, breath rate, oxygen consumption, perspiration, muscle tension, blood pressure, and levels of stress hormones. You also achieve a state of heightened mental clarity and emotional ease, perhaps the result of increased coherence of brain-wave activity. One way to appreciate the significance of these effects is to contrast them with those produced by stress.
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STRESS |
MEDITATION |
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Respiration rate |
Up |
Down |
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Heart rate |
Up |
Down |
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Oxygen consumption |
Up |
Down |
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Blood pressure |
Up |
Down |
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Muscle tension |
Up |
Down |
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Skin conductance (perspiration) |
Up |
Down |
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Stress hormone production (ACTH, cortisol) |
Up |
Down |
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Brain-wave coherence |
Low |
High |
Numerous research studies have documented reduced anxiety and stress, measured both physiologically and psychologically, among those who practice the TM technique. One study found that the TM program was about twice as effective in reducing anxiety as any other meditation or relaxation procedure.4 Other studies suggest that regular meditation may increase energy, heighten self-esteem, improve learning ability, reduce high blood pressure, and promote deeper sleep. Meditation elicits a unique state of the body, mind, and spirit that is the exact opposite of stress—a “stay and play” instead of a “fight or flight” response.
Research on the Transcendental Meditation program has consistently demonstrated both cross-sectional and longitudinal health benefits. A five-year sutdy of 2000 subjects has shown that people who practice TM have health care utilization more than 50 percent lower than matched control groups. The reductions were greatest in the oldest age group (averaging 67 percent lower) and in high-cost areas (the TM group needed 76 percent less surgery and suffered 87 percent less heart disease.)5 A recent study on hypertension in elderly African-Americans found that Transcendental Meditation was twice as effective in reducing high blood pressure as progressive muscle relaxation and about equally as effective as medication, but without harmful side effects.6 A further study found that Transcendental Meditation was more cost-effective in the treatment of hypertension than any of five classes of hypertensive drugs studied.7 And a longitudinal study of 677 health insurance enrollees in Quebec showed that health care utilization declined between 5 percent and 7 percent per year after the subjects learned the Transcendental Meditation program.8
A meta-analysis of studies on reducing alcohol, nicotine, and drug consumption found that the Transcendental Meditation technique produced a significantly larger effect on stopping consumption than conventional treatment and prevention programs specifically designed to motivate people to quit.9 Moreover, in contrast to the time course of conventional programs, whose initial success rates drop off precipitously in the first three months following completion of treatment (and continue to decline gradually thereafter), the time course for the Transcendental Meditation technique showed that abstinence patterns were maintained or increased up to two years later (the longest period studied).