Mind and Body in Medicine and Transcendental Meditation

Abstract

There is a growing body of literature on the effect of mental states on health. Anxiety, depression, anger, hostility, aggression, and introversion are the characteristics of the disease prone personality. Coronary heart disease, asthma, and ulcers are some of the diseases that have been linked to them (Friedman & Booth-Kewley, 1987). Many different treatments have been utilized to change these undesirable personality characteristics. In a review of 375 studies Ferguson (1981) found the Transcendental Meditation (TM) program to be especially effective in producing improvements in self-esteem and decreases in anxiety. This is one of the ways that TM influences health. By removing depression (Bloomfield, 1975), anxiety, anger and hostility (Subrahmanyam & Porkodi, 1980) and the negative characteristics of introversion (Wood, 1981) TM can remove the source of some of the problems that may damage health.