This field study compared 5 years of medical insurance utilization statistics of approximately 2000 regular participants in the Transcendental Meditation (TM) program with a normative data base of approximately 600,000 members of the same insurance carrier. The benefits, deductible, coinsurance terms, and distribution by gender of the TM group were very similar to the norm, yet the TM group had lower medical utilization rates in all categories. Inpatient days per 1000 by age category were 50.2% fewer than the norm for children (0-18), 50.1% fewer for young adults (19-39), and 69.4% fewer for older adults (40+). Outpatient visits per 1000 for the same age categories were, respectively, 46.8%, 54.7%, and 73.7% fewer. When compared with five other health insurance groups of similar size and professional membership, the TM group had 53.3% fewer inpatient admissions per 1000 and 44.4% fewer outpatient visits per 1000. Admissions per 1000 were lower for the TM group than the norm for all of 17 major medical treatment categories, including -55.4% for benign and malignant tumors -87.3% for heart disease, -30.4% for all infectious diseases, -30.6% for all mental disorders, and -87.3% for diseases of the nervous system. However, the TM group's admission rates for childbirth were similar to the norm. The issue of self-selection is addressed in terms of previous medical research in this area.

Physiological indices of stress were found to be lower in people who regularly practiced Transcendental Meditation (N=14) than in nonmeditating control subjects (N=16). During normal waking (eyes open) a noxious loud tone (100 db, 0.5 sec, 3000 Hz) was presented to subjects a mean of once every 53 sec at irregular intervals. The stress reaction to each tone, as indicated by the galvanic skin response (GSR), was compared for the two groups. Habituation of the GSR to tones was faster for meditators than for controls, and meditators made fewer multiple responses during habituation, indicating greater stability in response to stress. In two other experiments, meditators were found to make fewer spontaneous GSR's than control subjects, both during meditation, as compared with rest (eyes closed), and while out of meditation with eyes open. Thus meditators were found to be more stable than controls on three autonomic indices: rate of GSR habituation, multiple responses, and spontaneous GSR.

This meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on the Transcendental Meditation® (TM) technique updates previous meta-analyses and assesses the effects of initial anxiety level, age, duration of practice, regularity of practice, research quality, author affiliation, and type of control group on effect sizes. This systematic review of the literature used the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (CMA) program for core analyses of effect sizes, bias analysis, meta-regression, and moderator variable analysis. Comprehensive literature searches included databases devoted to meditation research. More than 600 TM research papers were identified; 14 of these addressed trait anxiety and reported on 16 studies among 1295 participants with diverse demographic characteristics. No adverse effects were reported. The standardized difference in mean, d, for the TM technique compared with controls receiving an active alternative treatment (10 studies) was d=-0.50 (95% CI, -.70 to -0.30; p=0.0000005). Compared with controls receiving treatment as usual (wait list or attention controls, 16 studies), d=-0.62 (95% CI, -0.82 to -0.43; p=1.37E-10). Meta-regression found that initial anxiety level, but not other variables, predicted the magnitude of reduction in anxiety (p=0.00001). Populations with elevated initial anxiety levels in the 80th to 100th percentile range (e.g., patients with chronic anxiety, veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, prison inmates) showed larger effects sizes (-0.74 to -1.2), with anxiety levels reduced to the 53rd to 62nd percentile range. Studies using repeated measures showed substantial reductions in the first 2 weeks and sustained effects at 3 years. Overall, TM practice is more effective than treatment as usual and most alternative treatments, with greatest effects observed in individuals with high anxiety. More research is needed in this area, especially with high-anxiety patients, conducted under medically supervised conditions.

Psychosocial stress has been implicated in the disproportionately higher rates of hypertension among African Americans. This randomized controlled trial compared the effects of two stress reduction techniques and a health education control program on hypertension during a period of 1 year in African-American men and women (N = 150, mean age 49 +/- 10 years, mean blood pressure (BP) = 142/95 mm Hg) at an urban community health center. Interventions included 20 min twice a day of Transcendental Meditation (TM) or progressive muscle relaxation (PMR), or participation in conventional health education (HE) classes. All subjects continued usual medical care. Outcomes assessed were systolic BP and diastolic BP at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months after treatment, analyzed by repeated measures ANCOVA. The TM group showed decreases in systolic BP/diastolic BP of -3.1/-5.7 mm Hg compared to -0.5/-2.9 mm Hg for PMR or HE, (P = .12 to .17 for systolic BP, P = .01 for diastolic BP). In addition the TM group demonstrated reduced use of antihypertensive medication relative to increases for PMR (P = .001) and HE (P = .09) groups. Group analysis by gender showed that women practicing TM had decreased BP (-7.3/-6.9 mm Hg) significantly more than women practicing PMR (0.7/-2.7 mm Hg) or HE (-.07/-3.0 mm Hg) (P .01 to .03). The change in men praticing TM (0.2 /-4.7 mm Hg) was greater than men practicing HE (-0.9/-2.0 mm Hg) for diastolic BP only (P = .09,) and not different from PMR men (-2.0/-3.1). A selected stress reduction approach, the Transcendental Meditation program, may be useful as an adjunct in the long-term treatment of hypertension in African Americans.

Standard ambulatory night sleep electroencephalograph (EEG) of 11 long-term practitioners of the Transcendental Meditation (TM)® program reporting “higher states of consciousness” during sleep (the experimental group) was compared to that of nine short-term practitioners and 11 non-practitioners. EEG tracings during stages 3 and 4 sleep showed the experimental group to have: 1) theta-alpha activity simultaneously with delta activity and 2) decreased chin electromyograph (EMG) during deep sleep (p = 0.002) compared to short-term practitioners. Spectral analysis fast Fourier transform (FFT) data of the first three cycles showed that: 3) the experimental subjects had significantly greater theta2 (6–8 Hz)-alphal (8–10 Hz) relative power during stages 3 and 4 than the combined control groups [t(30) = 5.5, p = 0.0000008] with no difference in time in delta; 4) there was a graded difference across groups during stages 3 and 4 in theta2-alphal power, with experimentais having greater power than short-term practitioners, who in turn had greater power than non-practitioners [t(30) = 5.08, p = 0.00002]; and 5) experimentais also had increased rapid eye movement (REM) density during REM periods compared to short-term practitioners (p = 0.04). Previous studies have found increased theta-alpha EEG activity during reported periods of “transcendental consciousness” during the TM technique. In the Vedic tradition, as described by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, transcendental consciousness is the first of a sequence of higher states. The maintenance of transcendental consciousness along with deep sleep is said to be a distinctive criterion of further, stabilized higher states of consciousness. The findings of this study are interpreted as physiological support for this model.

Males (n = 12, M age 25.6 yrs) with clear experiences (CE) of both “pure consciousness” (unbounded inner awareness without thoughts) and the TM-Sidhi techniques (mental procedures derived from Vedic Science to enhance cognitive, perceptual and other abilities) were compared with unclear experience (UE) males (n = 10, M age 25.5 yrs) on creativity (ideational fluency, Torrance, Novel Uses, Verbal) and EEG coherence, a measure of phase stability derived from Fourier series analysis. Multivariate analysis of variance of coherence between four pairs of EEG derivations (F3F4, F3C3, F4C4, C3C4) and a t-test on the creativity variable showed that CE subjects had higher alpha (8-12 Hz) coherence (p = 0.052) and higher creativity (p = 0.011) than UE subjects. Several of the alpha coherence variables were positively correlated with creativity: Bilateral Frontal (F3F4), r = 0.65, p = 0.001; Homolateral Right, r = 0.50, p = 0.011; mean of the four alpha variables, r = 0.66, p = 0.001; Dominant Alpha (area of highest alpha coherence for each subject) r = 0.64, p = 0.001. It is concluded that: (1) information processing, at least to the extent measured by ideational fluency, is enhanced in those with clear experiences of pure consciousness and the TM-Sidhi techniques, (2) that EEG coherence is a psychophysiological correlate of this subject variable and (3) that the results may be generalizable to the field of information processing and “peak experiences” described in Humanistic psychology.