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Meditation reduces the risk of heart disease
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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Meditation can be an excellent preventative measure against cardiovascular diseases.
According to research by scientists from the University of Wisconsin, a group of patients who practiced transcendental meditation sessions had a 48% lower risk of heart attack, stroke and death compared to a group of patients who did not meditate.
Those who practiced meditation were able to not only improve their physiological state, lowering their blood pressure through the exercises, but also reported improvements in the emotional and mental sphere - some were able to overcome depression, stress and get rid of bouts of anger.
According to the study authors, the longer patients practiced meditation, the lower their risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
“We hypothesized that stress reduction through mind-body manipulation might improve outcomes in at-risk individuals,” says lead researcher and director of the Institute of Natural Medicine Robert Schneider. “And our hypothesis was confirmed. Transcendental meditation is a technique that reduces the release of stress hormones. It does this by lowering blood pressure and calming the sympathetic nervous system.”
201 people took part in the study.
Forty-two percent of the participants were women, with an average age of 59 years.
The volunteers were divided into two groups. During the entire period of the experiment, one of the groups took medications that lower blood pressure, as well as drugs that prevent the development of atherosclerosis. In addition, the participants in this group took a course of lectures on the principles of the cardiovascular system. And the second group, in addition to this, practiced transcendental meditation for 20 minutes daily.
As a result of the five-year study, experts were able to establish that in the group where transcendental meditation sessions were conducted, strokes, heart attacks and deaths occurred 48% less often compared to the control group.
Cholesterol -lowering drugs were able to reduce the risk of heart disease by only 30-40%, and blood pressure-lowering drugs by 25-30%.
According to scientists, the clinical outcome of the study was directly positively influenced by brain function.
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