Meditation helps with PTSD
Transcendental meditation — the practice of effortless thinking — may be as effective at treating PTSD in conflict veterans as traditional therapy, US researchers said last week, in findings that could help tens of thousands deal with their trauma.
Post-traumatic stress disorder, a debilitating condition that can lead to psychosis, bipolar disorder or suicidal and homicidal thoughts, affects an estimated 14% of US veterans who serve in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The most common treatment for PTSD is a process known as prolonged-exposure psychotherapy, which forces sufferers to re-experience traumatic events by confronting their memories of the conflict.
Researchers from three US universities decided to look into whether more everyday techniques, which help civilians lower their stress levels and increase focus and productivity, would work on traumatised veterans.
They trialled 203 former servicemen and -women with PTSD, most of whom were receiving medication for their symptoms, and randomly assigned them courses of transcendental meditation, prolonged exposure therapy or a specialised PTSD health-education class.
They found that 60% of veterans who did 20 minutes of quiet meditation every day showed significant improvement in their symptoms, and more completed the study than those given exposure therapy.
“Over the past 50 years, PTSD has expanded to become a significant public-health problem,” Sanford Nidich, of the Maharishi University of Management Research Institute, said.
“Due to the increasing need to address the PTSD public-healthcare problem in the US, UK and worldwide, there is a compelling need to implement governmental policy to include alternative therapies such as transcendental meditation as an option for treating veterans with PTSD.”
Transcendental meditation involves effortlessly thinking of an idea or mantra to produce a settled, calmer state of mind — scientists call it “restful alertness”.
Unlike exposure therapy, meditation can be practised at home, takes up relatively little time, and, researchers say, is significantly cheaper than other treatment techniques.
It also avoids forcing combat veterans to relive their trauma in a bid to get better.
“Transcendental meditation is self-empowering, and can be practised just about anywhere at any time, without the need for specialised equipment or ongoing personnel support,” said Nidich, who was the lead author of the study published in The Lancet psychiatry journal.