Thanks for either or point. Anne Wilson Schaef whose specialty is addiction teaches that either or thinking is at the very core of addiction, indeed of all the problems of Western culture.
________________________________ From: sparaig <lengli...@cox.net> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 9:13 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: TM's biggest problem? That same conclusion applies to virtually the entire body of research reviewed by the AHRQ. Everyone studies their own favorite form of meditation. and it wasn't merely TM-afiliated people complaining. As the info I already linked shows, there were quite a few non-TMers miffed at how their research was evaluated. Harald Walach, for example, has published on mindfulness as well as TM. http://www.mum.edu/inmp/walach.html http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Walach%20H%5BAuthor%5D BTW, have you ever noticed that the way that asanas are taught in TM is a mild form of mindfulness practice and that the more formal course is even more mindfulness oriented? It is only in your own mind that it is an either/or thing. L. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj <vajradhatu@...> wrote: > > > On Jul 18, 2012, at 3:55 AM, sparaig wrote: > > > Any review that big is bound to have issues. I believe I already > > linked to some of them. > > > IIRC the ONLY people who had any problem, was the TMO. In fact, they > were so miffed at having their inadequacies exposed, they had TMO- > affiliated statisticians forward a desperate response in the form of > their own review. Now THAT'S desperate. When your sinking ship is > only being held up by Oprah and Russell Brand, it's time to abandon > ship! > > It's pretty well known in Integrative circles that meditation is not > the best intervention for BP issues, so much so that my physician > prescribes yoga for moderately elevated BP. > > The fact is, it was already well known that Transcendental Meditation > blood pressure research was of poor quality, and that research was > published in the Journal of Hypertension itself (!): > > Insufficient evidence to conclude whether or not Transcendental > Meditation decreases > blood pressure: results of a systematic review of randomized clinical > trials. > > META-ANALYSIS > > Journal of Hypertension. 22(11):2049-2054, November 2004. > > Canter, Peter H; Ernst, Edzard > > Abstract: > > Objective: To carry out an independent, systematic review of > randomized clinical trials of > Transcendental Meditation (TM) for cumulative effects on blood pressure. > Method: Searches were made of electronic databases and the collected > papers and official web > sites of the TM organization. We included only randomized clinical > trials, without confounding > co-interventions, which measured the cumulative effects of TM on > blood pressure. > > Results: Six trials met the inclusion criteria but one, reported only > in abstract form, could not be > evaluated. Procedures for establishing baseline blood pressure were > adequate in only one trial. > Only one of the trials included a follow-on assessment and only one > of the evaluable trials > tested the effect of TM in hypertensive individuals. Three of the > five evaluable trials reported > statistically significant differences between intervention groups > favouring TM and two found no > significant differences between intervention groups. None of the five > studies was conducted by > independent authors without any affiliation to the TM organization. > > Conclusion: All the randomized clinical trials of TM for the control > of blood pressure published > to date have important methodological weaknesses and are potentially > biased by the affiliation > of authors to the TM organization. There is at present insufficient > good-quality evidence to > conclude whether or not TM has a cumulative positive effect on blood > pressure. >
