Transcendental Meditation: Oprah And Other Celebs Who Embrace The Practice

The season premiere of Mad Men wasn’t the only newsworthy television last night. Oprah Winfrey’s “Next Chapter” also aired on her namesake network, OWN. In it, she revealed her devotion to the practice of transcendental meditation -- a type of meditation that employs the use of a mantra and is known for reducing stress and boosting feelings of well-being.

While there haven’t been sufficiently conclusive large-scale studies on the health affects of transcendental meditation, small observational studies have found several benefits, including anxiety reduction, alleviation of symptoms from post-traumatic stress disorder and improved school performance. One study at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles even found physiological gains, like reduced blood pressure, diabetes and obesity among heart disease patients. HuffPost contributor Norman E. Rosenthal, M.D., a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown Medical School has written about the practice's benefits, describing the link between psychological stress and cardiovascular disease:

Researchers have suggested at least six different ways that psychological stress can kill you, all of which involve some sort of damage to the heart or arteries.[1] Cardiovascular disease (CVD) occurs when damaged arteries impact the amount of blood reaching the heart, making it so the heart itself is not getting enough blood. One common cause of CVD is stress.

Winfrey, in conversation with Dr. Oz last year described a more spiritual than bodily fulfillment, saying that the practice of transcendental meditation was part of her overall attempt to "connect with that which is God." Other well-known practitioners have also focused on the spiritual side of TM, as it is known, as early as the 1970s when all four Beatles, Mia Farrow and Clint Eastwood began experimenting with the practice. The Beatles and Farrow even went to live and study in the ashram of TM's creator, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, in India. More recently, filmmaker David Lynch -- perhaps Hollywood's most active proponent of TM -- has focused extensively on the health and wellness benefits of the practice, using his foundation to help bring the practice's more therapeutic elements to troubled populations like at-risk school children and Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

So what benefits does Winfrey receive from her practice? And what other celebrities are on board with TM? Click on to find out.

Have you tried Transcendental Meditation?

Loading Slideshow

• Oprah Winfrey

  The media mogul spoke with Dr. Oz about her newfound practice and her visit to Fairfield, Iowa, a town of 9,500 people where an estimated third of the population has a regular meditation practice. <blockquote><strong>CORRECTION</strong>: <em>Due to a typing error, an early version of this article stated that Fairfield had a population of 95,000.</em></blockquote>

• David Lynch

  The filmmaker and founder of the David Lynch Foundation, which brings meditation training and education to underserved communities, discusses the epiphany he had upon first discovering transcendental meditation.

• Russell Brand

  Achieving fame and fortune wasn't satisfying, says Brand. Instead, he sought something more substantial than social values like commercialism and celebrity. Transcendental Meditation helped him feel a part of something greater, he reported at a recent press conference for the David Lynch foundation, adding that the practice helps him remain sober.

• Moby

  Moby says that he is drawn to TM because it isn't dogmatic and requires very little formality.

• Paul McCartney

  George Harrison's wife Patty introduced McCartney and the rest of the Beatles to Maharishi in the late 1960s. "He made it seem simple, he made it seem very attractive," says McCartney.

• Sheryl Crow

  The singer discusses how meditation helped her recover and move past her breast cancer diagnosis.

Comments

[blueskiesla]

07:39 PM on 04/23/2013

I am a meditator. A look at this rogue's gallery indicates meditation has little to do with wisdom, ethics, or class. Some have it, some don't.

[Sharalyn Pliler]

03:02 PM on 12/28/2012

Hurrah for Transcendental Meditation. Research (and personal experience) has shown that the practice of this non-religious, easy-to-learn mental technique is the key to full development of mind and body, and in these days of violent gun usage, to rehabilitation. If our government would spend even one percent of it's budget for war and criminal stuff to teaching TM to those at risk, the world would change overnight for the better. I started TM in the 70's and it stopped my going down the hippie, druggie drop-out path not because someone said these things were bad, but because it woke up my mind and body so I directly experienced them as unhealthy. Lectures are useless; direct experience is priceless. Three people in my family died of lung cancer from smoking, but TM made me aware that smoking is horrible and almost overnight made it possible for me to quit.Today,I have the blood work-ups of someone half my age. Only two of my family even graduated from high school, but I nearly completed a Ph.D.. But it is impossible to tell others about TM because they think it is just like everything else in the world. "I don't need TM; I jog" or I pray, etc. But TM is not like those things, and are not substitutes for those things. TM is the additive that eliminates the negatives and makes everything of value more valuable.

[Huffy108]

07:01 PM on 10/16/2012

I've been practicing TM since 1971 as have my parents and siblings. It's improved our lives in every possible way.

The author's statement that, "...there hasn't been conclusive, large-scale research on the health effects of transcendental meditation" is totally false. The are some 700 scientific studies validating the benefits of TM, a majority of which have been independently conducts and published in peer-reviewed journals.

Please do your research before writing such stuff.

You could start with these 3 sites:
TM.org
DoctorsOnTM.org
TruthAboutTM.org

[margaritearnold]

03:52 AM on 08/13/2012

TM claims that its mantras are "meaningless sounds" that create a peaceful vibration and help you connect with the Infinite within. In fact, they are names of Hindu gods, and advanced TM practices add the Sanskrit word "namah" (meaning "I bow down") to the name of the god. I know, because I was a teacher of TM for seventeen years. We were sworn to secrecy about the mantras, told that ordinary people can't handle/process all the information, and that it's for their own good that they aren't told all the truth. It's one thing if you CHOOSE to bow down to Hindu gods, but to be tricked into doing it, twenty minutes twice a day using a "take me over" mantra in your mind? It's deception, pure and simple. And how pure can a spiritual practice be when the guru who founded it was sleeping with his teenage girl disciples? TM is nothing but a gigantic scam, and I rue the day I ever became trapped in its lying teachings. What a shame that Oprah fell for this.

[Carla Brown]

08:30 AM on 08/22/2012

This is one person's twisted and incorrect take on the mantras, transcendental Meditation, and Maharishi. I have been teaching the TM technique for 40 years. It is sad that this person didn't understand what she was teaching.

[LeaderofMen]

07:58 PM on 11/04/2012

I've been doing TM since 1974 and was given a mantra at that time, of course. About 15 years later, I decided I didn't like that sound anymore and found a different one that suited me perfectly fine. Then, about 15 years after that, I found another sound that felt 'right'. You can use any sound you feel like. It's called the relaxation response. TM is just the Maharishi's brand of meditation. I ignored every single word the Maharishi ever said about TM. Instead, I listened to Dr. Herbert Benson, who did all the research one could possible hope to garner about this practice.

If you are who you claim to be, you know like I know that there are no Hindu gods and there's no 'bowing down' to anyone while one meditates. TM is **not** a spiritual practice. It is a mental and physiological practice. It is NOT deception. Meditation has been thoroughly researched. The medical evidence is all there. Clearly, you've ignored it.

So, I'm betting you're a Christian who is deceiving us, because that's what fundies do. They DECEIVE..

[dave surge]

05:39 AM on 07/27/2012

Some of us do not have the financial resources that many celebrities have. There are some sites

that offer free meditation advice such as: meditation information network, tm-free blog, and

www.suggestibility.com

[Carla Brown]

08:32 AM on 08/22/2012

It is too bad when people settle for something without the results that TM has because they don't have resources. The TM organization is offering grants to people without resources. In some locations, donors are stepping up to cover costs of instruction.

[joe morales]

12:20 AM on 06/26/2012

By the way, Natural Stress Relief is the latest version of TM at a great discount!

[joe morales]

12:14 AM on 06/26/2012

If I can not beat them I join them! The TM corporation is financially successful. It owns several hotels
& real estate here & there. How can I get a piece of the action?

[Carla Brown]

08:33 AM on 08/22/2012

The organization that teaches TM works very had to continue to be viable, but it is a myth that it is a money-making organization with loads of investments.

[ecotea]

01:25 PM on 04/05/2012

Oprah and David Lynch should hang out. Very cool, Oprah talking about David's TM movement.

[soma77]

08:27 PM on 04/02/2012

The student yelled across the river to a Holy Man how do I get across the river. The Holy Man replied you are across the river. We are already there, but we are not aware of it. The technique doesn't matter, what matters is the awareness. If I wake up with an alarm clock or the light it doesn't matter once I am awake.

The human mentality seems to naturally get stuck with the thoughts developed in religion and forgets the Divinity within or consciousness without. TM if it makes you more aware great, if it disturbs you don't read articles about it and if it doesn't do anything find another way.

[tommckinleyball]

03:46 PM on 04/25/2012

"We are already there, but not aware of it." Here's another perspective, if I may. That statement sounds nice and in a way it's true, yet reality is different in different states of consciousness. If a person is dreaming, nothing they read or hear about in their dream can teach them anything of the world of waking state. Everything they hear will be absorbed into the reality of dreaming. Similarly, if one is not in the state of consciousness that is awake to the full range of life, then telling oneself that one is already there, amounts to self deception. A thought of freedom is not freedom. A man in jail can imagine and tell himself he's free, but that doesn't release him. The full awakening of human consciousness is not an intellectual exercise or a mood that one can summon by saying "Be here now, be here now." One is not enlightened because one tells oneself "I am already enlightened." Enlightenment is the result of full development of mind and body -- the nervous system must be refined and purified and the brain functioning must become highly coherent to support that experience. This is what TM practice does—it enlivens and stabilizes transcendental consciousness. When you fully realize the Self, then you know you were always that timeless unbounded reality, but until that time comes, the thought of it is a nice thought but, I'm sure you'll agree, it's not the reality.

[soma77]

06:04 PM on 04/25/2012

Rumi Poem

"One went to the door of the Beloved and
knocked. A voice asked, "Who is there?'
He answered, "It is I."

The voice said, "There is no room for Me and Thee."
The door was shut.

After a year of solitude and deprivation he returned and knocked.
A voice from within asked. "Who is there?"
The man said, "It is Thee."
The door was opened for him.

--Jelaluddin Rumi

http://thinkunity.com

[Jimmy Goodman]

08:38 AM on 04/01/2012

>>>>> besides being wrong about the compelling body of research confirming TM's "health affects," the Huffpost writer misspelled "effects."

[Glory Dog]

09:36 AM on 03/29/2012

TO HUFFINGTON POST EDITORS: I suggest you reconsider your statement that there are only "small observational studies" on TM.

TM has been more researched than any other form of meditation, and has larger studies and more clinical trials than any non-pharmaceutical intervention ever researched. Please review the studies and talk to some scientists familiar with meditation research methodology.

Small observational studies would mean, someone followed 10-15 meditators over a month or two and found their blood pressure went down some and the guy wrote a paper on it. What you have instead is scores of the largest, peer-reviewed controlled trails and meta-analyses ever done on non-drug mind-body interventions, with individual studies involving several hundred subjects and more than 30,000 subjects collectively over 40 years.

One can't expect many single, 10-million-dollar studies on meditation with 1000 subjects or more, as only the drug companies can afford, but there are other ways that researchers have of controlling for variables and placebo in meditation studies with 50-100-800 subjects.

The NIH has granted over $26M to scientists the past 20 years to further study TM, and they do this only because there is such solid, promising, well-controlled research demonstrating a very wide range of positive effects. All the major findings have been replicated many times over.

[Jimmy Goodman]

08:12 AM on 04/01/2012

true!! -- and to say "there are no conclusive, large-scale studies" is someone's subjective editorial opinion and seems out of place in a statement about the research. How big do studies on meditation have to be, and how many do their need to be, before one can conclude that the benefits have been scientifically confirmed? When there are over 600 studies on Transcendental Meditation, hundreds of them published in peer-reviewed journals and among them more than 50 controlled clinical trials, it is unrealistic to assert that there are have not been sufficiently conclusive large-scale studies. Anyone who knows research is impressed by not only the quantity and quality of the body of research, but also by the very wide range of studies. The truth is that there is nothing known to health science that has been shown to have the range of benefits associated with TM. Nothing comes close.

Norman Rosenthal spent 20 years as a senior researcher at the NIH, and oversees large-scale pharmaceutical trials. After extensive review of the research on TM, he wrote in his book: "If TM were a new drug, conferring this many benefits, it would be the biggest, multi-million-dollar blockbuster drug on the market." I think that puts the articles misstatement in perspective.

[Norcal2]

11:58 AM on 04/16/2012

Proof is in the pudding for me....I had serious migraines before I started meditating and it has helped me immensely...

What is the impact of a technique assisting me in living a life almost free from migraines?
100% impact for the better.

[Heirloom]

01:23 AM on 03/29/2012

I guess it's fine if celebrities inspire people to learn Transcendental Meditation. At the same time it's good for people to realize that hundreds top independent, peer-reviewed scientific journals have published many hundreds of studies showing the profound benefits of TM for every aspect of a person's life, school, work, family, creative expression, etc. It's common for people to want to think that all meditations are the same or similar, but this is not what the research shows. The research shows TM is unique in it's methodology (super easy to learn and practice) and in the clinical and statistical significance of the results it produces.

[Henry Jumkins]

11:56 AM on 03/28/2012

the thing is there seems to be this branding involved with transcendental meditation. The reality is, meditation can be done in so many ways, you don't need to buy into a product that seems developed. Mantras help to keep your mind on one steady thought or idea to help your mind toward a purpose or a feeling or an intention. Guided meditation can help you think abstractly, solve a problem, or simply relax. Focusing strictly on your breathing will increase circulation to the brain which leads to less stress, and a more mindful way of perceiving and acting. Chakra work will help you to bring certain aspects of your life and certain physical parts of yourself back into balance and harmony with the others. Many define meditation as the practice of ridding yourself of thoughts, which, ironically, leads to a higher awareness. All of these practices are essentially interrelated, and meditation is something I believe should be a process unique to everyone, and many people even seek to name it something different to add more meaningful, positive connotations to it. Whatever you do, do some research and figure out what works for you. You don't need to pay someone to learn how to do this, people have been doing it for ages without really knowing how or why, and that's sort of the point.

[Glory Dog]

09:15 AM on 03/29/2012

Transcendental Meditation is not so much a brand as a specific type of meditation. It has its own name to distinguish it. Otherwise there'd be even more confusion than there already is about meditation practices and their differences. All these different practices engage the mind differently and don't produce the same effects.

TM is easier than any other form of meditation I've ever studied. It's effortless. It's not just focusing on your breath or observing your thoughts. It's a completely different process. Instead of giving you something to *do* during meditation (like concentration, contemplation or techniques that urge you to keep focusing on something), TM allows you to automatically transcend to the deepest level of the mind beyond thoughts and sensations, to the state of pure consciousness or restful alertness. This gives deepest rest and powerfully rejuvenates.

You can't learn it from a book or on your own. It requires a trained, certified teacher who knows what they're doing and can pass the technique on in it's original effectiveness. It's easy to learn but takes a series of classes and some follow-up. Most of us aren't used to being that effortless in meditation. The teachers guide you through it and make sure you've got it. There's a tuition because it's time intensive for the teachers and requires a proper setting to learn in, a teaching center. The lifetime follow-up is free. There are grants and scholarships for those who need help with tuition.

[Norcal2]

11:54 AM on 03/28/2012

I would recommend it to anyone....what a positive change it has made in my life. I've been practicing on/off for 18 years.

When I stop meditating for a period on time and get back to practicing...I remember why I started in the first place...it really makes a difference in the way I feel.

[JoAnnCr]

11:35 AM on 03/28/2012

I've heard some people do something they think is meditating calling it a type of prayer. They choose a word they like. They may be causing themselves more strain than they realize. A certified TM Teacher could explain why.