--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" <curtisdeltabl...@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "sparaig" <LEnglish5@> wrote: > snip: > > ME: The lone TMer practicing quietly without the full > blown belief system is a myth. > > Lawson> Not really. In situations where elderly meditators > in rest homes have been turned loose with no consitent > followup past the first few months, TM is still practiced > decades later, > > I'm willing to look at this but I have a few skeptic points > upfront. I mean I play music in rest homes and they don't > have decades left. But more importantly, this is a non > representative group. They will do anything regularly, > they kind of run on routines. In any case let me see how > many people this was and I'm willing to be proven wrong > about people in nursing homes doing it regularly. But if > one nurse in the home is a big TMer, all bets are off. Or > if they get visits by young checkers if they claim to > meditate...you know how people are in places like this > don't you? They are desperately lonely.
Of this study, David Orme-Johnson notes: "The mindfulness and mental relaxation controls condition were modeled after the Transcendental Meditation program, and they had the same contact time with the teacher, practice time, and expectation fostering features as TM. Yet they did not produce the same effects on health, mental flexibility, and longevity as the Transcendental Meditation program." > > unlike the other meditation relaxation techniques, > > even though all were taught using a format deliberately > > similar to the TM> program's. > > Hey you are the studies guy here. I'd love to read it if > you can give me a link. Alexander CN, Langer EJ, Newman RI, Chandler HM, Davies JL. Transcendental Meditation, mindfulness, and longevity: an experimental study with the elderly. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1989 57(6):950-964 I don't think the full text is on the Web anywhere. Note that the point of the experiment was longevity, not how long subjects continued to practice TM. I did read it at one point, and the authors noted, in passing, that those practicing TM kept at it while those doing the other techniques didn't (some from the other groups even asked to be switched to the TM group). One of the authors (Langer) was a leading proponent of mindfulness, BTW, not a TMer. There was a 15-year follow-up study on the same subjects, and the TM subjects beat out the others on most measures, including survival. Whether they had continued to practice TM for 15 years, I have no idea; presumably the study would tell us that: Alexander, C. N., Barnes, V. A., Schneider, R. H., Langer, E. J., Newman, R. I., & Chandler, H. M. (1996). A randomized controlled trial of stress reduction on cardiovascular and all cause mortality: A 15 year follow-up on the effects of Transcendental Meditation, mindfulness and relaxation. Circulation, 93(3),19. <snip> > Certainly, without any evidence either way, ytour concerns > are premature, > > Not exactly. I was the guy who had our center call the > 10,000 initiates in the DC center from the past decade. > I have a unique knowledge base on this issue that the > movement wants nothing to do with. Which you're extrapolating from hither and yon and using to make hugely sweeping claims. The folks you called weren't students in a school with a Quiet Time program twice a day. The results in that situation could well be significantly different.
