Transcendental Meditation

Norman Rosenthal is a psychiatrist, for many years a researcher at the National Institute for Mental Health, who was the first to describe seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and the use of bright light to treat it. As a young man he practiced TM but gave it up due to the time demands of residency and research. Three decades later a patient described a wonderful recovery from depression after starting TM. Rosenthal researched the scientific literature on TM and resumed his own practice of this meditation technique, subsequently writing two books on the subject.

TM is a meditation technique developed more than 60 years ago by an Indian yogi. Its popularity soared when The Beatles publicly embraced it after studying with the yogi in India. Many millions have taken instruction in TM and there are TM teaching centers across the world. All TM centers teach the same formulaic approach to meditation which allows researchers to reliably look at its effects on the brain, behavior and performance.

TM teaches use of a mantra, recommending at least two daily sessions of 20 minutes each plus a few calm minutes before and after the meditations. The technique is simple and does not require extreme concentration just patience and persistence. Rosenthal feels it is a much easier technique to learn and follow than mindfulness, another very popular meditation practice.

Brain blood flow and electrical activity changes greatly during TM and in long time practitioners even when they are not meditating. Interestingly, these patterns are very different between TM and mindfulness practitioners. Long term TM'ers develop enlargement of the pre-frontal cortex, the brain's executive center. Multiple studies and anecdotes support TM's value for mood, sleep, anxiety, performance, addictions and relationships. The only negative is the cost which currently is $960 for adults which includes introductory lectures, four formal teaching sessions, and lifelong refresher courses and advice whenever you want. I think TM is a good, perhaps life changing, venture for many people.