"Most doctors say meditation cant hurt you but now theres reassuring evidence that it may help you as well when it comes to warding off disease. Previous studies have linked better health outcomes among heart patients http who practiced meditation compared to those who did not but none of those trials could definitively credit the brainfocusing program with the better health results. In the latest trial to address those limitations however meditation does appear to have an effect on reducing heart attack stroke httptopics.time.comstroke and even early death from heart disease httptopics.time.comheartdisease at least among AfricanAmericans. MORE Losing Focus Studies Say Meditation May Help http The main finding of our research is that added on top of usual medical care intervention with a mindbody technique  transcendental meditation  can have a major effect on cardiovascular events says Robert Schneider lead author on the study published in Circulation Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes and a professor at the Maharishi University of Management http an institution in Iowa that was founded by the creator of transcendental meditation. He and his colleagues followed  African American men and women who are at higher risk of heart disease than whites but who also had addition reason to worry about heart attacks and strokes since they were also diagnosed with coronary heart disease. The participants were randomly assigned to participate in either a health education class about heartfriendly diet and exercise or to attend a transcendental meditation program. Transcendental meditation involves shutting out the outside world and focusing thoughts inward or resting while remaining alert. All of the participants continued to receive their normal medical care as well including appropriate medication. MORE Medical Meditation Say Om Before Surgery http After roughly five years of followup the researchers found a  reduction in the overall risk of heart attack stroke and death from any cause among members of the meditation group compared to those from the health education group. The meditating group enjoyed an average drop of . mm Hg in systolic blood pressure compared to the control group and also reported less stress httptopics.time.comstress and less anger. Its like discovering a whole new class of medications Schneider says of the power of meditation in improving the patients health. But while the magnitude of those results is remarkable the study involved a relatively small number of participants and did not reveal how meditation may be lowering heart disease risk. On the surface its intuitively obvious that stress management can affect heart health for the better anxiety and stress cause blood pressure to shoot up and leave us on edge triggering spikes in heartharming stress hormones like cortisol. But many experts are skeptical of the alleged benefits of techniques such as transcendental meditation that claim to reduce stress by a substantial amount. In the past these benefits have been hard to test scientifically largely because study participants who volunteered for meditation programs may have been biased to see them succeed. Practitioners have also made strong and essentially unsubstantiated claims about the powers of meditation leading heart experts and scientists to be especially skeptical. In fact in  more than  brain researchers signed a petition http albeit an unsuccessful one to protest a scheduled lecture on the neuroscience of meditation by the Buddhist spiritual icon the Dalai Lama at a major conference organized by the Society for Neuroscience. MORE Mind Over Matter Can Zen Meditation Help You Forget About Pain httphealthland.time.commindovermattercanzenmeditationhelpyouforgetaboutpain The great lengths to which the researchers of the Circulation study went to make their trial scientifically rigorous however should reinforce the results in the eyes of some skeptics. The scientists adjusted for the effects of weight smoking behavior and diet all of which can influence heart attack stroke and early heart death rates. And while the participants in both groups exercised more and cut back on alcohol during the study they did so at similar rates making these changes unlikely to be responsible for the differences in health outcomes either. While the findings arent likely to resolve questions over whether meditation should become a standard part of heart disease care the results should give more doctors confidence in discussing the practice with their patients and giving them some scientifically based information thats an improvement over the advice that it cant hurt to try."