This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related letters  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Statistics and Research Methods  • Metabolic Diseases  • Complementary and Alternative Medicine  • Psychiatry  • Alert me on articles by topic

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Paul-Labrador and colleagues reported that the use of TM for 16 weeks in patients with CHD improved blood pressure and insulin resistance, as well as other components of the metabolic syndrome, compared with a control group receiving health education.¹ But was there something specific about TM that brought about these remarkable beneficial changes in physiological responses to stress and CHD risk factors?

A wide variety of different meditation and relaxation techniques converge on achieving generalized muscular relaxation and focused attention, so perhaps these are the specific aspects of TM that were helpful, but they do not require TM to be attained.^2-3

A recent survey of the literature even points out that many of the widespread physiological effects of meditation are indistinguishable from simple "resting," according to recent investigations.⁴ This review also indicates that there has been a recent paucity of studies comparing resting with meditation to probe whether in fact . . . [Full Text of this Article]

AUTHOR INFORMATION
Raj Dhwarka Persaud, FRCPsych

RELATED LETTERS

Transcendental Meditation and Components of the Metabolic Syndrome: Methodological Issues
Chittaranjan Andrade
Arch Intern Med. 2006;166(22):2553.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Why Meditate When You Could Just Rest?—Reply
Maura Paul-Labrador and C. Noel Bairey Merz
Arch Intern Med. 2006;166(22):2554.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT