Can meditation prevent (or heal) burnouts?

New research from a government institution says “yes”, but not just any meditation.

1. How burnouts come about, and how transcending can prevent/heal them.
2. Research leaves no doubt: It works
3. Meditation as it should be: easy to learn, enjoyable to practice, and effective
4. Free introlecture: Do you have 90 minutes to discover how everything can change?

How burnouts come about, and how transcending can prevent/heal them.

Stress is like a backpack full of rocks. Every experience we go through leaves an impression that is stored somewhere in the body. If the experience is very intense we can feel this clearly, for example: that feeling of a knot around your heart after you have had a fight with someone. If you collect too many rocks like this, sooner or later the weight of stress will start to disrupt the normal functioning of your nervous system; resulting in health problems, anxiety, depression, sleep problems, and – if the weight really gets too much – burnouts.

Fortunately we have a way to remove these rocks again. We don’t even have to do anything. The body will do so automatically, when it is at rest. Rest is the antidote to stress. When we sleep during the night, the body will remove all the rocks we accumulate during the day, so the next day we can start afresh… in theory.

The problem is: the rest during sleep is not enough. Have you ever felt how that knot around the heart may hurt a bit less after a good night sleep, but it hasn’t gone completely? The sleep was not deep enough to remove it. This will probably become a rock that you’ll have to carry with you for the rest of your life.

Transcending…a profound state of rest that can be measured. Transcending is a state where the mind spontaneously reaches a state of complete inner silence while remaining fully alert (see more below). Research from Harvard Medical School showed that during Transcendental Meditation practice the body reaches a deep state of rest far more quickly than during sleep. Ref.Science 27 Vol. 167 no. 3926 pp. 1751-1754 1970

More than 30 researches over the past 40 years have confirmed this deep state of rest during TM practice, far deeper than ordinary relaxation.Ref.American Psychologist, 1987, 42: 879-881.

This deep rest allows the body to effectively remove our rocks. It works, even with those who have to carry a bigger backpack than just about anyone else.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD) with war veterans are generally considered incurable. Over the last 15 years more soldiers have died from suicide at home than on the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan. They just didn’t see any other way out. Yet a recent study with Iraq War veterans showed a 50% reduction in PTSD and depression after only 8 weeks of TM practice.Ref.Military Medicine, june 2011 The results were so impressive that CNN did a feature on it (Watch the CNN video) and the US army is now actively supporting the TM technique for its soldiers. Ref.http://www.army.mil/article/139778/

In a similar earlier study with Vietnam war veterans the TM group saw such significant improvements on a wide variety of mental problems that after only 3 months of practice 70% of the war veterans required no further treatment. In contrast, the control group that received standard psychotherapy showed no improvement.Ref.Journal of Counseling and Development 64: 212–215, 1985

These studies show that we are actually far more powerful to heal ourselves than we can imagine, we only have to learn how to activate the healing process. If even war veterans can heal their PTSD through TM – where all other approaches failed – it can probably help just about anyone.

“The amazing thing about Transcendental Meditation is the very well established research showing the technique impacts things that we didn’t think were changeable.”
Dr. Oz

The research leaves no doubt: It works

“No other ‘stress management technique’ has anywhere close to TM’s amount of hard data in support of its claims to reduce stress.”
Norman Rosenthal, MD, U.S. National Institutes of Mental Health

The above studies were only 2 of more than 150 researches that have confirmed the profound benefits of Transcendental Meditation practice on stress and stress related disorders. Over the past 40 years almost all the most prestigious universities and research institutes in the world have participated in TM research and have confirmed its effectiveness, (see list of universities) including the U.S. National Institutes of Health, who over the past 25 years spent more than $24 Million to confirm the effects of TM on hypertension, diabetes, heart disease and depression.

Recently the Education department in San Francisco (San Francisco Unified School District, SFUSD) conducted a study to specifically measure the effects of TM on burnouts with teachers in schools in the poorest and most violent areas in the city. In some of these schools, each year over 50% of teachers left because they couldn’t deal with the stress.

The study was a randomized controlled trial (the highest quality of research design) involving 78 teachers. It showed a significant decrease in burnouts to the point that the teacher turnover rate was reduced to almost zero. It also showed a decrease in fatigue and perceived stress, and an increase in stress resilience.

As part of the research teachers were asked to rank Transcendental Meditation in comparison with other professional development programs, on a scale from -4 (much less valuable) to +4 (much more valuable). The average score was +3.54, with more than half the teachers giving a score of +4. Some added comments to their ratings included “off the chart” and “the most valuable by far.”

Here is a video that shows the transformation of both teachers and students after implementing the TM program, with a passionate speech from the head of the San Francisco Unified School District about the project.

Similar results were shown in another randomized controlled burnout study which was published by Permanente Journal. The participants in this study were teachers in a school for students with behavioural problems. Read the full publication here.

Meditation as it should be: easy to learn, enjoyable to practice, and effective from the first few sittings

“I have tried meditations but I could not do it. I concluded that I’m apparently incapable of meditating… when I learned TM it was exactly what I needed! The thing that blew me away the most about it was that it was the easiest thing I’ve ever done… I got my entire family to learn.”
Cameron Diaz. 

Transcendental Meditation is the most practiced (6 million practitioners), most widely researched (600 studies), and, according to the research, the most effective meditation technique in the world.

Because it is easy.

Most people understand “meditation” to be some form of controlling the mind, usually through some kind of concentration (on a sound, the breath, or “being in the now”), with the aim of getting some relaxation. Concentration usually takes a lot of disciplined training, is not all that enjoyable, and actually seems to involve more effort than relaxation.

The Transcendental Meditation technique was rediscovered 60 years ago when a young Indian scientist, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, discovered that true meditation is not about controlling the mind at all. He developed a way to train people to activate a completely effortless and natural process where the mind will go to a state of inner silence by itself. “Transcending” means going beyond the finest stages of thought and reach a state of complete inner silence while remaining completely alert. This state can only be reached in a natural and effortless way. You can’t try to control the mind to be silent: the more you try, the more you keep it active.

How exactly this natural process works will be explained in more detail in the free TM info seminar.

“The thing that really won me over with TM was its effectiveness. No other meditation I tried was as effective at quieting my mind and helping me to come to a very calm, centered place. One of the things that makes it so effective is that you don’t really have to do all that much, and as a profoundly lazy person I really appreciate that.”
Moby, Musician

How can I learn?

The mind is already genetically programmed to transcend. All we have to do is learn to activate this programming. Anyone can learn this. Even people who think they’ll never be able to quieten their minds usually feel the effects from the first few sittings.

The Transcendental Meditation technique is individually taught by a professionally trained teacher during a 1-hour personal instruction session, with 4 follow up sessions of 2-3 hours in a small group of course participants. This is followed by a detailed follow-up program over the next six months to ensure the correct practice and refine the experience and understanding of the TM technique.

The first step, however, is to attend a free info seminar. You can attend this seminar without any obligation to take the rest of the TM course.

Do you have 90 minutes to discover how everything can change?

Fill out the form below to sign up for one of the free info seminars that are organized around the country. During the seminar you will be able to:

• Meet the certified TM teacher in your area.
• Learn all the benefits 20 minutes twice a day of TM practice can bring, and understand how and why TM works
• Ask any question you may have
• Discuss all the practical elements of learning TM, and, if you decide to learn, register for a TM course.