In honor of World Meditation Day, we’ve got a second post on the impacts of meditation on health issues that often plague women with PCOS. The study discussed here (Paul-Labrador et al. 2006) considers transcendental meditation, a different kind of meditation than the walking meditation discussed in the previous post.

Transcendental meditation is an ancient form of meditation that has been taught internationally since 1957. Some forms of meditation include focused awareness where the meditator focuses on an anchor like the breath or their footsteps, or open awareness where the meditator maintains an awareness of their present moment while letting thoughts flow through. In contrast, transcendental meditation does not have a point of focus, and instead, uses a sound or mantra to quiet the mind into silence.

I will admit that I have limited experience with this form of meditation. I learned it on a meditation retreat back in 2019 and have not returned to it since then, preferring other forms of meditation. However, it is a popular form of meditation, with documented health benefits, so you should consider giving it a try!

Study design

This study recruited 103 patients with documented coronary heart disease, including past heart attacks, coronary artery bypass surgery, coronary angiography, and/or angioplasty, while excluding those patients with heart attacks that occurred within the past 3 months, those with unstable coronary syndromes, or those in renal failure. They also excluded potential participants who had experience with meditation or other stress management practices.

Once recruited, participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups:

1. Transcendental Meditation (TM) group

2. Health Education (HE) group

The TM group attended several introductory sessions to provide instruction on meditation and then attended twice weekly 1.5-hour sessions for the first 4 weeks of the study, followed by only a single weekly 1.5-hour session for the remaining 12 weeks of the study. The group was also asked to practice at home between meetings. Unfortunately, the paper does not provide details on time or duration of the practice nor the participants’ compliance.

The health education group attended the same number of hours of sessions as the TM group, but instead heard lectures and discussions on heart disease risk factors and the impacts of things like diet, stress, and exercise on heart disease. They received assignments to do at home to correspond with the TM group’s home practice time.

Meditation improved health outcomes!

As you probably expected, the TM group experienced improvements in health not experienced by the HE group.

The TM group experienced a 2% reduction in systolic blood pressure (the top number in a blood pressure reading), which might seem small, but the HE group actually experienced a 2.5% increase in systolic blood pressure, so the TM group experienced the opposite trend. Neither group experienced changes in diastolic blood pressure.

Neither group experienced changes in cholesterol, triglycerides, or measures of inflammation.

Perhaps most strikingly, the two groups experienced markedly different trends in their insulin resistance. The TM group saw a 25% decrease in HOMA-IR, while the HE group saw a 26% increase in this measure. Similarly, the TM group experienced about a 22% decrease in fasting insulin levels, while the HE group experienced a 36% increase in fasting insulin levels.

This study did not measure cortisol levels, but I suspect that the differential effects were driven by a reduction in cortisol levels among the TM group.

TM vs. walking meditation

It is unfair to compare across two different study populations, but I wanted to discuss the different impacts and suggest hypotheses for why these two studies found different magnitudes of effects.

First, in terms of blood pressure, the walking meditation study found significantly larger impacts. From my experience with both forms of meditation, I think walking meditation is much easier to pick up. I struggled substantially with TM when I tried it, and often just felt frustrated, hence why I did not continue with it. I suspect this potential frustration, at least among some participants, might have lessened some of the potential impacts on blood pressure when looking at the aggregated data in the TM study. Those participants who more easily grasped TM likely experienced larger impacts that are masked within the aggregated results.

The walking meditation also involved physical activity with cardiovascular benefits, which might enhance the impact of stress reduction on blood pressure control.

Second, in terms of insulin resistance, the metric used in the walking meditation study, HbA1c, is a measure of blood sugar control over the previous 3 months. As such, this metric will not move as quickly as HOMA-IR which uses your fasting blood glucose and fasting insulin levels, two metrics that can vary from day-to-day. Comparing the two forms of meditation with the same measure of insulin resistance would shed more light on whether or not one form is actually more effective at addressing insulin resistance than the other.

Take home points

Transcendental meditation may improve blood pressure and insulin resistance, particularly for those who have coronary heart disease.

Transcendental meditation is a form of meditation that can be done by anyone, regardless of physical abilities.

More research is necessary to compare the impacts of transcendental meditation with walking meditation.

References

Paul-Labrador M, Polk D, Dwyer JH, Velasquez I, Nidich S, Rainforth M, Schneider R, Bairey Merz CN, 2006. Effects of a Randomized Controlled Trial of Transcendental Meditation on Components of the Metabolic Syndrome in Subjects With Coronary Heart Disease. Archives of Internal Medicine , 166:1218-1224.

Disclaimer: This post is not intended to diagnose or treat any medical issues. It is intended for informational purposes only. I am not a medical practitioner. Always consult a trusted healthcare provider with any questions you may have about a medical condition or treatment and before starting any new health care regimen.