David Lynch Gives $1M To Teach Vets Meditation

CBS News:

(CBS/AP)  LOS ANGELES -- Academy Award-nominated director David Lynch - a longtime advocate of Transcendental Meditation - wants soldiers and veterans to experience the stress-reducing benefits of TM.

Read the whole story: CBS News

Comments

[Sheriff J W Pepper]

09:27 PM on 12/06/2011

I'm betting all the porty heads at big pharma
are sh*tting in their pants at this point.

[Sheriff J W Pepper]

09:23 PM on 12/06/2011

Putting your money where you mouth is an example here.

[Steven Barnes]

11:29 AM on 12/06/2011

Wonderful. TM works, as do many other forms of mindfulness and stress-reduction exercise. The cultural trappings matter not a damn--there are very real benefits from calming the mind and slowing the breathing, working to turn off the sympathetic nervous system response to mortal peril. Well done!

www.diamondhour.com

[OverseasVet]

09:49 AM on 12/06/2011

Great, lets expose battle scarred soldiers to psychological nonsense in the hope we can confuse them to health. Thanks Mr Lynch but these soldiers need real help not some 1960's Beatles inspired pseudoreligion.

[Sheriff J W Pepper]

09:24 PM on 12/06/2011

or just give them weed when they get back

[tlc-ji]

03:06 PM on 12/05/2011

Awesome article. I love what David Lynch is creating with Operation Warrior Wellness. All vets need as much support as possible and TM is not only scientifically proven to help lower stress and PTSD symptoms (read the book Transcendence) but I've been practicing it for 9 years and it totally is the best stress relief technique I've ever used.

[Sheriff J W Pepper]

09:26 PM on 12/06/2011

We need to stop "creating" this machine.

[Aslan06]

10:30 AM on 12/05/2011

I heard from a friend who attended the Lynch event that it was really impressive, especially the talks by veterans describing how TM literally saved their lives.

[douttfire]

07:11 PM on 12/04/2011

In a time where people choose to forget about our troops, change the channel to ignore what's going on, use our soldiers for their political rhetoric, here is someone who saw a need and saw a possible solution to a very large problem. We see someone with a leg missing, we can see their injury. PTSD doesn't necessarily have a physical appearance. But the injury is just a debilitating. Thank you, Mr. Lynch. Thank you for choosing to do something.

[douttfire]

07:04 PM on 12/04/2011

Thank You, Mr. Lynch. Well done.

[Tulka2]

06:58 PM on 12/04/2011

It's very kind and smart of him. Personally, something called "insight meditation" might be more effective in turning traumatized humans back right-side out again, but T.M. is better than okay. It will do them a lot of good.

[darlenebonny]

01:08 PM on 12/04/2011

I'm sure good old Dave was meditating on nice tax brake. Hollywood people will do anything to make sure they look good in the press.

[Mary Karius]

03:11 PM on 12/04/2011

happy holidays! stop being so dam cynical!

[darlenebonny]

08:49 PM on 12/04/2011

Happy holidays to you Mary.

[Tulka2]

06:54 PM on 12/04/2011

????? ....or he could have giving it all to Mitt Romeny's campaign.  Give a man credit where credit is due.

[darlenebonny]

08:42 PM on 12/04/2011

Credit or a free ride?

[rkeeeballs]

12:13 PM on 12/04/2011

Hope it works...nice gesture...The 1% rock'in the world !..I throw up now !..piss away $ 1 million and take a tax write-off !...must be a republican.....Now I go meditate Hmmmmmmmmmm...Hmmm..

[dopamineboy]

04:26 PM on 12/05/2011

Have u ever meditated?

Compared the efficacy of a 3-mo transcendental meditation (TM) program with 3 mo of psychotherapy (PT) in the treatment of post-Vietnam adjustment. 10 male Vietnam veterans completed the TM program, and 8 veterans completed the PT program. Results indicate that, following the programs, TM Ss reported significant reductions in depression, anxiety, emotional numbness, alcohol consumption, family problems, difficulty in getting a job, insomnia, and overall symptoms of PTSD. PT Ss showed no significant improvement on any measure. Findings indicate that the TM program is a useful therapeutic modality for the treatment of post-Vietnam adjustment problems. PsycINFO Database Record

[OverseasVet]

10:26 AM on 12/06/2011

"The claim that TM has a specific and cumulative effect on cognitive function is not supported by the evidence from randomised controlled trials." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14743579

[robertste998]

10:36 AM on 12/04/2011

This is what the 1% do with their money? EST-holes may believe their wacky vodo is better than established medical treatment but why should they get a tax writeoff to do it. I may think watching football has improved my quality of life but should that give me the right to not pay taxes on football tickets for my friends of favorite target group? Couldn't that million have provided a down payment on a house for a few hundred vets? His meditation group is just an unoffical wackjob religion that doesn't qualify for contributions and this is his (an many others) way of getting an undeserved tax break ... scr_w the 99% in other words.

[Saijanai]

11:42 AM on 12/04/2011

The TM organization has gone to court many times to prevent people from categorizing it as a religion.

[dopamineboy]

04:23 PM on 12/05/2011

It's curious that all the grumps read the healthy living section.

[Neil Evansan]

02:16 AM on 12/04/2011

Mahalo Mr Lynch! A brilliant first-level contribution to serve those who have served.

Whats really cool about this gift? Of those 10,000 Vets, more than a handful will take this into their homes and communities. These 50 Instructors and 10,000 Students could easily reach 100,000 in the next couple years, exactly when our world needs complementary simple solutions!

[taylorndncar]

01:56 AM on 12/04/2011

Perhaps, it's just me,...but I did the meditational thing when I was in college and for several years it worked; but, like an untreated ailment, the meditation only postponed the inevitable PTSD. I knew what I was facing because PTSD takes years to fester and show symptoms. The mind is only one aspect of any trauma and what the mind forgets, the body remembers...! To this very day, I have traces of PTSD and the older I get, the more physical the manifestations become...! Thank you anyway, Mr. Lynch; any help is better than no help...! I hope, it's just me...!!!

[Saijanai]

03:50 AM on 12/04/2011

I'm assuming that you didn't learn TM. If you did, you should go back and get your meditation checked (its part of the lifetime free followup).

Unlike other forms of meditation, the anti-stress aspects of TM practice accumulate over the months and years of practice, as can be shown by how the brain wave patterns outside of the TM period start to resemble the relaxed coherent alpha found during practice more and more over the months and years of practice. Other meditation practices can also show accumulative effects, such as compassion meditation, but they show accumulative effects in the pattern and areas associated with feeling compassion, not with the pattern and areas associated with being low-stress.

[sparklingstar]

05:33 AM on 12/04/2011

I appreciate you sharing your experience and hope that you are able to find more relief. A couple of thoughts: Was it the Transcendental Meditation technique which you practiced for several years in college? The reason I ask is that independently published research shows the TM technique is very different than other forms of meditation and it definitely has very concrete, immediate benefits on the body. That's why David Lynch is so supportive of TM for Vets and the research so far on PTSD is so promising. You might want to give TM a try and if you already learned TM then a teacher near you would be happy to check your meditation for free to make sure the practice is effortless. For people who learn TM there is a lifetime of free follow-up available if they want it. In any case, all the best to you!

[racetoinfinity]

11:11 PM on 12/03/2011

Kudos to David Lynch!! This will help heal them inside - a great gift.