NBC April 7, 2004
[Excerpt] In the hypertension study, students who meditated lowered the top and bottom numbers of their blood pressure by an average of nearly four points. Students who didn’t meditate had no significant change in their pressures. Other types of meditation and relaxation may also help. But [Dr. Gary] Kaplan says transcendental meditation has the most scientific evidence behind it. Full story

Na sequência do artigo saído na Time Europe de 28 de Outubro de 2003, sobre meditação (muito importante!), surge agora este artigo no jornal espanhol El Mundo.


TERAPIAS
La meditación sana
ANGELA BOTO
Ilustración: Ulises

La meditación se emplea desde hace más de 3.000 años. Durante mucho tiempo se consideraba una práctica reservada a los budistas, a seguidores de filosofías como el zen o incluso a personas con un cierto toque esnob. Sin embargo, la lista de adeptos ha ido creciendo en los países occidentales en los últimos años hasta alcanzar una cifra que ronda los 10 millones en EEUU.

Estas personas, lejos de tratarse de fieles religiosos, son profesionales de todo tipo agobiados por el estrés, pacientes a los que sus médicos recetan unas sesiones de exploración interior para mejorar o prevenir el dolor o individuos interesados en profundizar en sí mismos y aprender a manejar sus emociones. Los estadounidenses pueden acceder a cursos o sesiones de meditación en los colegios, los hospitales, en instituciones oficiales y prisiones. En España existen centros donde se pueden aprender diferentes técnicas, pero está todavía lejos de ser considerada una herramienta terapéutica.

El interés de los científicos por la meditación comenzó hace ya algunos años. En las décadas de los 60 y los 70 se había demostrado que el uso de estas técnicas proporcionaba una extraordinaria concentración. Un profesor de medicina de la Universidad de Harvard (EEUU), Herbert Benson, a través de sus investigaciones llegó a la conclusión de que la práctica milenaria contrarresta los mecanismos cerebrales asociados al estrés.

Sin embargo, el verdadero salto, y sobre todo su divulgación masiva, han llegado de la mano de una colaboración muy peculiar. El decimocuarto Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, ha puesto a disposición de los neurocientíficos occidentales su cerebro y el de sus monjes. De este modo, los religiosos se han visto con el cráneo repleto de electrodos de los sensibles instrumentos de que se dispone en la actualidad para fotografiar lo que ocurre en sus redes neuronales cuando practican la meditación.

EFECTOS. En esta aventura se embarcaron eminentes investigadores de numerosas instituciones. Uno de los más activos en los últimos años ha sido Richard Davidson de la Universidad de Wisconsin, en EEUU. Sus trabajos no sólo se han hecho famosos por contar con un Nobel de la Paz como sujeto de experimentación, sino porque los resultados aportan datos interesantes y sorprendentes sobre la práctica milenaria. «Nuestros resultados indican que la meditación tiene efectos biológicos. Produce cambios en el cerebro asociados a emociones más positivas y mejoras en la función inmune», dijo a SALUD el investigador. Daniel Goleman, autor de numerosos libros sobre inteligencia emocional y de 'Emociones destructivas' fruto del encuentro del Dalai Lama con los científicos, explicó a este suplemento que «lo importante es que la meditación cambia la base de las emociones» y añadió que los resultados de los experimentos «tienen importantes implicaciones para la gente a la hora de valorar sus beneficios».

Los estudios neuronales demuestran un incremento de actividad en el lóbulo frontal izquierdo, que es la residencia de las emociones positivas. Al mismo tiempo se reduce el funcionamiento de la región derecha. Probablemente se preguntará en qué cambia esta realidad cerebral la vida diaria, pues bien los neurocientíficos han observado que las personas que emplean más la zona izquierda tardan menos tiempo en eliminar las emociones negativas y la tensión que pueden provocar, por ejemplo, un atasco o una discusión con el jefe. Este desequilibrio entre los hemisferios conlleva también una reducción del miedo y la cólera.
Las investigaciones en los monjes budistas con años de experiencia en la meditación indican que éstos tienen una actividad significativamente mayor en el lóbulo izquierdo que las personas que no practican esta técnica. La duda que se planteaba en los estudios con monjes fue si sus cerebros ya eran de partida diferentes y por ello, los hallazgos resultaban tan llamativos. Para resolver el dilema, Davidson y su equipo decidieron investigar con personas de la calle sin experiencia alguna en las técnicas de meditación.

Los resultados confirmaron que no es necesario ser un consumado meditador para disfrutar sus beneficios y que el cerebro de los monjes no era la causa de las observaciones. Los individuos que practicaban regularmente habían desarrollado, al igual que los religiosos, mayor actividad en el lado izquierdo del lóbulo frontal. Sin embargo, las excelencias de la meditación no se quedaron ahí porque los científicos comprobaron también en este grupo de voluntarios que el sistema inmune de aquellos que se habían entregado a la exploración interior era más potente que el de sus compañeros.

Las posibilidades de la meditación están todavía por explorar. Davidson y su equipo tiene en marcha un trabajo con pacientes depresivos, «del que aún no tenemos resultados». Sin embargo, John Teasdale de la Unidad de Ciencias Cognitivas y del Cerebro en Cambridge (Reino Unido) ya dispone de datos. Este investigador ha encontrado que la combinación de meditación introspectiva con terapia cognitiva reduce a la mitad las recaídas de los pacientes depresivos crónicos.

En el Centro Clínico Essen-Mitte, en Alemania, los médicos han empleado durante cinco años un programa de meditación introspectiva antiestrés diseñado por Jon Kabat-Zinn, un investigador de la Universidad de Massachussetts y autor de numerosos libros sobre este tema, en casi 3.000 pacientes con todo tipo de patologías entre las que se incluye el cáncer. La experiencia no se planteó como un ensayo clínico, de modo que no existen datos objetivos de los resultados, pero los facultativos observaron que la mayoría de los individuos experimentaba mejorías significativas en su enfermedad.

Hasta aquí algunos de los potenciales usos terapéuticos o preventivos de la meditación. Sin embargo, tanto el planteamiento budista como el de otras tendencias orientales en las que se emplea regularmente esta práctica va más allá. Su uso está asociado a un cambio de percepción de la realidad y a estimular los procesos de conciencia, algo que también interesa extraordinariamente a los científicos y que Goleman define como «conocimiento» de la existencia.

Uno de los personajes que parece aprovechar este aspecto de la meditación para sus creaciones es David Lynch, el famoso director de la serie Twin Peaks o de películas como Terciopelo azul confiesa que consagra 90 minutos diarios a meditar desde 1973 y según recoge la revista Time añade: «Consigo más ideas en niveles de conciencia más y más profundos y además, tienen más claridad y poder».

Lo que parece evidente es que este tipo de investigaciones se encuadran de lleno en la tendencia actual de lo que se denomina medicina integral o en un contexto más amplio, el estudio de la interacción mente-cuerpo. Después de siglos de divorcio entre estos dos aspectos que describen al ser humano, «los nuevos datos que proporcionan las neurociencias están matando el dualismo cartesiano», afirma Goleman. «El cerebro junta las emociones y los pensamientos. Los mismos circuitos que nos permiten pensar, nos permiten sentir», añade. Aunque explica que «el Dalai Lama insiste en que los científicos pueden saber todo sobre el cerebro, pero algunos niveles de conciencia no están limitados a este órgano». Quizá en las próximas décadas la neurociencia tendrá que traspasar los límites del cráneo.

Gráfico en pdf para imprimir: Los efectos cerebrales de la meditación

La mística de la red neuronal

Los cambios cerebrales que produce la práctica habitual de la meditación tienen algunos puntos en común con los que se observan en el estado de iluminación o éxtasis místico. Lo cual no es extraño puesto que una de las vías para alcanzar el más alto nivel de abstracción es la meditación, como fue el caso de Buda, pero no es ni mucho menos el único.

En Oriente y en Occidente. Desde las tribus africanas con sus danzas hasta Santa Teresa de Jesús entregada a la oración, pasando por el ascetismo de los yoguis y por los chamanes indios bajo los efectos del peyote , todos buscan alcanzar el éxtasis y con él entrar en contacto con su dimensión espiritual.
En su libro La Conexión divina, Francisco J. Rubia, catedrático de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, repasa todas las investigaciones realizadas al abrigo de una nueva disciplina denominada neuroteología, cuyo objetivo es desvelar los mecanismos neurobiológicos de las experiencias místicas.

«La conexión divina se encuentra en ciertas áreas del lóbulo temporal», afirma Rubia. Al igual que ocurre con la meditación, esta región está desactivada en el momento del éxtasis. La consecuencia es la pérdida del sentido de unicidad y el sentimiento de unión con el resto de universo. Además, la estimulación del lóbulo temporal deja vía libre al mundo de las emociones y de la sensorialidad. Al mismo tiempo, se desconectan todos los circuitos cerebrales situados en los lóbulos parietales que limitan y clasifican todo lo que viene del exterior. Así, el individuo entra en un estado en el que percibe con extraordinaria intensidad y riqueza todo lo que le rodea. Se pierde el sentido del espacio y del tiempo y es frecuente que se visualicen imágenes extraordinariamente luminosas.

Comparado con la meditación «la iluminación es un salto cualitativo», asegura Rubia y añade que se ha visto que la cualidad del éxtasis es un cambio de comportamiento inmediato en la persona que lo experimenta. «Se vuelve más compasiva», añade. Curiosamente ésta es una de las cualidades que destacan Davidson y Goleman de los budistas con los que han trabajado.

En principio cualquier persona tiene la capacidad de vivir este tipo de experiencias espirituales profundas. Sin embargo, tal como señala Rubia, parece que la gran importancia que se ha dado, fundamentalmente en Occidente, al pensamiento racional y analítico ha adormecido los centros neuronales que sirven de enlace con esa otra realidad. Otras culturas, por el contrario, han dado un gran valor a esta capacidad y la han cultivado.
El método para la abstracción

Existen numerosos métodos para meditar, algunos de ellos procedentes directamente de las antiguas tradiciones y otros de creación más reciente surgidos de los anteriores. En general, se establecen dos grandes grupos de técnicas.
Por un lado, las que emplean un objeto en el que fijar la concentración. Éste puede ser una palabra, un texto, la propia respiración o incluso,algo externo, como una vela. De este modo, se detiene el bullicio mental que normalmente nos acompaña y se logra un estado de calma y relajación.

Un ejemplo de este tipo de métodos es la meditación trascendental. Cuando una persona aprende la técnica, el instructor le proporciona una palabra que se denomina mantra que será el objeto de la concentración. Otra forma diferente es la meditación mientras se camina. En ella, la atención se centra en cada paso, en el más mínimo movimiento y en las sensaciones que se experimentan.

Por otro lado, se encuentra la meditación introspectiva. En este caso, el objetivo no es detener la mente sino que se dejan discurrirr libremente los pensamientos, pero sin detenerse en ellos y sin juzgar su contenido. El meditante es un simple espectador. De este modo, la atención se centra en el momento presente y desaparecen las preocupaciones por el futuro. En este grupo se incluyen técnicas como Vipassana, cuyo origen se atribuye a Buda, que ha sido el método elegido para los experimentos de Davidson y el único del que, según él mismo, existen datos científicos. Una técnica similar, pero surgida en Japón de la mano de la filosofía Zen es el ZaZen.

Estos son algunos métodos tradicionales accesibles para cualquier persona sin necesidad de tener que convertirse o profesar ninguna creencia. Es más, Michael Hyland, un profesor de salud psicológica de la Universidad de Plymouth, en Reino Unido, explicaba a la revista Time que «si te quedas mirando a un punto en el otro lado de la habitación y dejas de hablar y de pensar, estarás meditando».

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The University’s MS in Computer Science (MSCS) Cooperative Program — also known as the Computer Professionals Program — set a new one-month record in October when 18 students were placed with technology companies in high-paying practical training positions. In the past six months, more than 70 companies have hired our students, which is also a new record.

Since the program’s inception in 1996, the University has placed its MSCS students with 268 companies, including Microsoft, IBM, Sun, Oracle, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T and Citicorp."

-----Original Message-----
From: Yves Pace [mailto:yves.pace@wanadoo.fr]
Sent: sábado, 8 de Novembro de 2003 10:18
To: amis4@wanadoo.fr
Subject: SAGA magazine November 2003 MIND THE GAPS

Saga is a national magazine in the United Kingdon with a massive
circulation in their over 50 population.
Here is a link to the Web version of the article, and the text of the
article:

SAGA magazine November 2003 MIND THE GAPS
http://tinyurl.com/spr9 -----------------------------------

SAGA magazine November 2003

MIND THE GAPS

Fifteen years ago, Maureen Cleave decided to attend an introductory
class on transcendental meditation - and went away with her own mantra
and a new approach to tackling life's problems. Roughly five million
practise TM - but does it work?
How many thoughts do we have each day? Some conscientious wag has
counted and come up with a figure of 60,000. Of these, 58,000 are
apparently the same thoughts we had yesterday. No wonder we are bored
with our own company.

However, clever people - and in particular creative people - have gaps
between thoughts, which is why they come up with new ideas. Simply put,
this seems to me what transcendental meditation does: it transcends - or
goes beyond - thought, providing these gaps and allowing the mind to
programme itself afresh. You do it for 20 minutes, morning and evening.

I learnt about it 15 years ago. A friend I met on a train had just
taken it up and I was curious. I don't know what I was expecting but
certainly not what happened, which was that after two months I could
climb the stairs without taking a puff of my inhaler. I had suffered
from asthma since the age of six. They said six puffs of the inhaler a
day would fix it, but I was having about 20. After coping with the
stairs, I left the inhaler behind when I went out. Then I went away for
the weekend without it. Then I forgot about it altogether and haven't
used it for years. I learnt that during meditation our oxygen intake
drops by 16 per cent.

Transcendental meditation, or TM, is a technique you learn, like
driving a car. You don't have to believe in it; indeed you can think
it's a load of old rope but if you do it, it will work. You don't have
to sit in the full lotus position with a soppy smile on your face. You
can meditate in an armchair, on trains and in aircraft.

You must have a qualified TM teacher. First there's an introductory
talk, which is free. It's a good idea to take along the person you live
with, so he or she doesn't think you're up to anything creepy. After the
talk, you need never return. All six of us did: my daughter and I, a
schoolboy, a middle-aged woman from South America, a deep-sea diver and
a student. Our teacher was using the ocean as a simile for the mind: the
ocean was rough and choppy on the surface, she said, but silent and
still at its vast depths. The deep-sea diver was happy to confirm this.

If you decide to learn, you pay ?1,280, which is expensive, but you've
got it for life. In a little private ceremony, usually in your teacher's
house, you are given a mantra, a meaningless Sanskrit word suited to
your physiology, and taught how to meditate. It's a grave mistake to
pass the mantra on to anyone else whose physiology it might not suit.
Its purpose is to charm the mind away from thought. After all, thinking
"I must rid my mind of this thought," is just another thought. The
hardest thing is learning not to try.

Then you all meditate together, after which the teacher asks you what
it was like. The diver had experienced exciting fizzing sensations in
his forehead, the student seemed euphoric, and the woman from Latin
America couldn't remember much about it, though she said the 20 minutes
had gone in a flash.
The schoolboy pronounced it "good fun", my daughter thought she might
have dozed off, and my hands had become pleasantly warm. All these
reactions were fine, our teacher said; stress was being released. Over
the next three months we returned four times for group sessions and to
have our meditating practice checked. The teaching of TM has been
handed down over thousands of years by word of mouth. The practice was
brought to the West in the late Fifties by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a man
with a degree in physics from the University of Allahabad. He lived in
an ashram in the high Himalayas with his teacher Brahmananda Saraswati,
to whom he always refers as Guru Dev. (In the Sixties the Beatles, with
attendant publicity, all went to India to learn TM from the Maharishi).
There are about five million people practising TM in the world, 300,000
of them in Britain.

The concept of "stress" - commonplace today - was first put forward
in the Thirties by Hans Seyle, a Canadian doctor. In the Seventies he
turned his attention to TM and discovered that meditators recovered from
stress and shock much more quickly than others, since when there have
been hundreds of scientific studies that indicate its efficacy in
treating high blood pressure, heart disease and addiction of all kinds,
even heroin. Several studies have been done on ageing: the hormone DHEA
that runs down with age remains at a higher level in meditators, as does
sharpness of hearing and vision. In 1982 the International Journal of
Neuroscience published a study of older people which showed that those
who had been meditating for over three years were 11 years "younger"
than their real age.

I am sometimes asked about the practicalities of meditation. People
listen and then say comfortably, "Oh, I couldn't sit still and
concentrate for 20 minutes," or "I have too many thoughts." Sometimes
they say, "Oh, I learnt but it didn't do anything for me" - and you find
they tried it for just a fortnight.

The Born Agains will say, "You're emptying the mind, the Devil will
rush in." You could ask them what the Devil gets up to when they're
asleep.
Indeed, the mind is curiously alert during meditation: you are far more
likely to hear the first cuckoo or the death watch beetle in the attic.
The Born Agains will tell you there's no meditation in the Bible, but
the Bible is full of it: "Be still then and know that I am God," says
the psalmist. It is the peace of God that passes all understanding. As
my friend on the train said, "Now I know what the Holy Ghost has been up
to all these years."

The Maharishi talks less about what happens during meditation than its
effects on everyday life. He illustrates this by the simile of the bow
and arrow: the further back the bow is stretched, the further and faster
the arrow carries. I like to think that after 15 years and having done
my "A-levels" - the yogic flying course - my work has improved and that
I am indeed the sunshine of our home. Little knots of worry loosen: a
fear of sleeping in the house alone, a fear of death, grudges borne over
years, stabs of guilt about the past. You think of these things and come
to realise that they've gone. One is surprised by new insights.

I now realise not only what the Holy Ghost has been up to but what
poets are writing about. Then there is bliss. This is an irrational
happiness that floods the system - my system all too rarely, but enough
to know what it's like. And when you feel it, you realise you had it as
a child. When you have this feeling on the London Underground in the
middle of the rush-hour, you know you're really getting somewhere.

Copyright 2003, SAGA magazine

Lynch goes from Twin Peaks to world peace

Gothic director wants to build 100 meditation palaces

Paul Harris in New York
Sunday October 26, 2003
The Observer

For decades director David Lynch has been the guardian of American Gothic. His films have been lauded by critics and fans for exposing the dark underbelly of popular culture. He has been dubbed the 'Tsar of the Bizarre'.

But now Lynch, whose masterpieces include Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet, is surprising people with a different kind of mission. He wants to save the world. Literally.

Wearing trademark black suit, white shirt and black tie, Lynch was deadly serious about his plans to bring about world peace. 'Peace could be on this Earth this year. It could be a whole new world,' he told The Observer.

The answer, says Lynch, is simple: Transcendental Meditation. Once sought out by the Beatles, it is the hottest Hollywood spiritualism of the moment. Other practitioners include actress Heather Graham, recently pictured meditating on the front of Time magazine, which devoted a cover story to the craze. But for Lynch it is no passing fad.

He became last week the public face of the practice, which originated in India with the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. At a press conference in New York's plush Plaza hotel, Lynch launched a $1 billion fundraising campaign to build 100 'peace palaces' across America, part of a plan for 3,000 buildings across the globe, one in each major city. Inside the palaces up to 300 devotees will spend their time meditating and 'yogic flying', which practitioners say is a form of levitation. Once the peace palaces are up and running - the theory goes - war, violence and crime will come to an end.

Lynch, a man who has defined weirdness through his films, is not joking. He has been practising TM since 1973, after being introduced to it by his sister. Lynch said the experience changed his life. 'I had an anger in me before I started meditating, and I took it out on my first wife. But two weeks after meditating, that anger had left. Since then each day has been better than the day before.'

Lynch practises meditation every day and has also tried yogic flying, where devotees appear to hop off the ground in a state they describe as 'bubbling bliss'. His inner tranquillity will come as a shock to his fans. Lynch's reputation is founded on his films' ability to shock with sex, violence and grotesquery. Blue Velvet is famed for its sadistic scenes involving Dennis Hopper and Isabella Rossellini, who later became Lynch's girlfriend. Twin Peaks told the surreal story of how a brutal murder shocked a small town. Lynch's first film was Eraserhead, a dystopian vision of the future that ends with its main character's head ground into pencil erasers.

The weirdness has frequently spilt into his personal life. On his office desk in Los Angeles, Lynch keeps a jar of formaldehyde. Inside is the uterus of a friend's daughter who had it surgically removed. His artistic projects have included making human heads out of cheese and letting ants eat them.

His commitment to peaceful meditation is a world away from the darkness that inhabits most of his films. He says he has met the Maharishi several times, including during a month-long course which he recently took at the guru's Netherlands base. 'I can't really talk about what I learnt there,' he said apologetically.

But, in the course of an hour's conversation, Lynch's speech is peppered with lessons from the Maharishi. Transcendental Meditation teaches that all living things are connected at a fundamental level of consciousness, he said. This can be reached via meditation and can also be used to affect society as a whole: say, to promote peace and lessen war and crime. The movement estimates that it needs just 8,000 meditators working together in one place - such as a planned University of Peace in Los Angeles - to bring about a fundamental change in the world.

Lynch has no doubts, nor does he care what the sceptics think. 'If we get enough people to do this, it doesn't really matter what other people believe. It will work anyway. It is a beautiful revolution.'

Lynch is now just the latest Hollywood star to reveal high-profile spiritual beliefs that can bemuse or shock the movie-going public. Mel Gibson's strict Catholicism has been the inspiration for his coming film about the Crucifixion. The film has been made entirely in Latin and Aramaic, and has also been accused of being anti-Jewish, which the director denies.

Lynch told The Observer he had no plans to alter his own directorial style to reflect his new crusade. He won't be producing a Blue Velvet sequel where the brutality is stopped by the power of meditation. 'If you want to send a message,' Lynch quipped, 'don't send it in a film. Send a telegram.'

Maharishi University of Management
Fairfield, Iowa
52557 USA
800-369-6480
www.mum.edu


Foi atribuído um subsídio de 2 milhões de dólares aos investigadores médicos do Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention, que faz parte do College of Maharishi Vedic Medicine da nossa Universidade. Desde 1988, já foram atribuídos mais de 20 milhões de dólares de fundos federais destinados a subsidiar investigação na área médica.

Este apoio destina-se ao estudo sobre como a técnica de Meditação Transcendental e os programas de saúde Maharishi baseados na consciência são úteis, tanto na prevenção como no tratamento das doenças do coração e outras desordens crónicas em americanos de origem africana. Este apoio vem do National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Faça um copy paste do endereço abaixo para ver

http://mail.sapo.pt/imp/message.php?index=51


A $2 million grant has been awarded to medical researchers at our University’s Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention, a part of the College of Maharishi Vedic Medicine. The University has been awarded more than $20 million in federal funds for medical research since 1988.

This grant will study how the Transcendental Meditation® technique and Maharishi’s Consciousness-BasedSM health programs are useful for both prevention and treatment of heart disease and other chronic disorders in African-Americans. The grant is from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Atenção, capa e artigo na Time Europe de 27 de Outubro sobre meditação.
No endereço abaixo poderá encontrar a edição online com várias informações, incluíndo referência à Meditação Transcendental de Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030804/

Citizens of Denver will vote
on a proposal this fall that
would seek to reduce
stress in the city through
techniques like meditation.
(PhotoDisc)



Stress Busters
Companies and Communities Try New
Ways to Deal With Growing Stress

By Catherine Valenti


Sept. 15— At one law firm in Buffalo,
N.Y., Mondays are a time for peace
and quiet, reflection and relaxation.


But it's not because the lawyers at Renda, Pares & Pfalzgraf don't
have enough work to do. They begin their weekly meeting at noon
on Mondays by meditating.

"It's our universal experience here that much more can be
accomplished in the practice of law if we are doing it in a thoughtful
and quiet manner rather than in a frantic manner," says David
Pfalzgraf, a partner at the firm.

Pfalzgraf's firm has been meditating for five years, but more
recently, many companies have started using methods such as
meditation, massage, mind-body exercises like yoga or Qigong
and other relaxation techniques to soothe the frazzled nerves of its
workers.

And outside of the workplace, some communities and schools are
trying to alleviate mounting stress and tension with new programs.
This November, residents of Denver will vote on a controversial
initiative that would allow the city to provide stress-relieving
activities such as group meditation to alleviate society-wide stress.

Blamed for everything from physical illness to psychological
problems, depression and growing health-care costs, stress has
been a growing problem for decades. Now more organizations are
turning to alternatives to try to get people to relax — and save
money at the same time.

Rising Cost of Stress

Job stress is estimated to cost American industry alone $300
billion a year from factors like absenteeism and job turnover,
according to the American Institute of Stress, a Yonkers,
N.Y.-based nonprofit organization that serves as a clearinghouse
for information on stress.

More than half of the 550 million working days lost annually in the
United States from absenteeism are stress-related, according to
the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work. Unanticipated
absenteeism is estimated to cost American companies $602 a
worker per year, and health-care costs are nearly 50 percent higher
for workers who report high stress levels, according to surveys
cited by the AIS.

These daunting statistics have made many employers take notice.

"It wasn't until the cost of health insurance premiums got high that
the pressure got on them," says Dr. Bruce Rabin, medical director
of the Healthy Lifestyles Program for the University of Pittsburgh
Medical Center. The program develops innovative approaches to
wellness and disease management.

Jeff Peckman, the author of Denver's upcoming "Safety Through
Peace" initiative, says his program could save the city millions of
dollars a year by reducing the amount of crime, drug abuse and
traffic in the city. Peckman's plan does not propose any specific
methods for reducing the city's stress level, but he has mentioned
group meditation and offering healthier food in the city's schools as
possible techniques.

"It has to work and it has to save the city money," Peckman says of
the potential stress-reduction methods.

Meditating for Nonviolence

While skeptics are dubious, proponents of stress reduction hail the
transformative power of techniques like transcendental meditation,
yoga and other relaxation techniques.

One study showed that the levels of homicides, rapes and assaults
dropped 23 percent in Washington, D.C., during an almost
eight-week project in which about 4,000 people gathered to do
transcendental meditation in different locations around the city.

"The phenomenon is amplified when people meditate in groups,"
says physics professor John Hagelin, director of the Institute of
Science, Technology and Public Policy at the Maharishi University
School of Management in Fairfield, Iowa. Hagelin, a regular
transcendental meditator, co-authored the study.

Many companies do not track the cost benefits of their stress-relief
programs because they are so new and the savings are difficult to
quantify objectively. But those that do offer the programs say their
workers appreciate the offerings.

Wilmington, Del.-based pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca
began offering Qigong, a Chinese exercise that combines
movement and meditation, to its workers in its fitness center in the
spring. The company also offers Qigong sessions as a way to
open or close meetings or in lieu of a coffee break.

"They want to incorporate it [into meetings] to help refresh people,"
says AstraZeneca spokeswoman Lorraine Ryan.

So that it can better retain its nurses, two of the University Hospitals
of Cleveland have been offering 15-minute breaks to nurses for
aromatherapy, music therapy and Reiki massage, a form of
massage that is said to increase a person's energy. The hospital,
which began offering the massage breaks eight months ago, is
currently studying the impact the program has had on retaining
nurses.

"It's been very well-received by the staff," says Ron Dziedzicki, the
hospital's chief nursing officer. "They told me they'd be very upset
with us if we got rid of the program."

No Panaceas

Despite the rejuvenating effects of these techniques, not everyone
is a believer.

Even health-care experts who praise the benefits of transcendental
meditation say the technique is difficult to learn and is not for
everybody since it requires people to sit still to try to clear their
minds.

"It's wonderful if it works," says Rabin, of the Healthy Lifestyles
Program in Pittsburgh. "But it's not the answer because very few
people are able to do it."

Many proponents say most people should choose which kind of
stress reduction technique they want to participate in, since what is
relaxing to one person could be excruciating to another.

"The program has to be tailor-made to the audience you're
targeting," says Dr. Paul Rosch, president of the American Institute
of Stress and professor of medicine and psychiatry at New York
Medical College. "There is no stress reduction technique that is a
panacea."

For his part, Peckman says his proposal for the city of Denver
would not force anyone to participate in anything they didn't want to
do, and any stress-relieving technique offered would be purely
optional.

Many "are wrongly thinking that somehow the government is going
to become their personal stress manager," says Peckman.

Still, not everyone is a fan. Denver City Council member Charlie
Brown, who opposes the initiative, describes Peckman's proposal
as "horrible public policy."

"We've got budget issues like every major city in this country," says
Brown. "We've got unemployed people. If you want to reduce
stress, you got to find these people work."


--- Jeff Peckman
--- biglions@earthlink.net
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