Transcendental Meditation may reduce PTSD symptoms, medication use in active-duty personnel

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-01/mcog-tmm011116.php

Public Release: 11-Jan-2016
Transcendental Meditation may reduce PTSD symptoms, medication use in active-duty personnel
Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University

Regular practice of Transcendental Meditation enables some active duty service members battling post-traumatic stress disorder to reduce or even eliminate their psychotropic medication and get better control of their often-debilitating symptoms, researchers report in the journal Military Medicine.

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Half the service members voluntarily practiced Transcendental Meditation regularly in addition to their other therapy; half did not. At one month, 83.7 percent of the meditators had stabilized, reduced or stopped their use of psychotropic drugs to treat their conditions while 10.9 percent had increased their medication dosage.

Of those who did not meditate, 59.4 percent had stabilized, reduced or stopped taking psychotropic drugs while 40.5 percent were taking more medication. Similar percentages held up in the following months and by six months, non-meditators had experienced about a 20 percent increase in their symptoms compared with those using the meditation practice.

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