What are the latest news stories published in the world media, involving Transcendental Meditation (TM)? Search no further — here are all the trending topics and headlines, news and events. Updated regularly.
Meditating will make you stronger and give you more energy!
“Deep relaxation, sharper thinking, more energy and positive emotions. That’s what the practice of Transcendental Meditation will give you,” writes Helle Nordgaard in the health section of the Danish magazine IN (February 13, 2017). Doctor Charlotte Bech who has been teaching the technique in Denmark for over 20 years gives a thorough overview of its scientifically proven benefits.
Stress relief, one of the major challenges in 21st century
There is a solution to the killer problem of stress that people worldwide are turning to, writes Anne M. Mozingo in Portsmouth Herald. “This solution is not the latest drug or new-age technique. It is called Transcendental Meditation, an ancient practice that originated in India. Those who commit to two 15-20 minute sessions of TM daily say it calms the mind and offers immense rewards for the body as well.” (February 06, 2017) 
Taking over the Wall Street
“Over the last three years, the David Lynch Foundation has taught TM to almost 2,500 professionals — 1,150 in 2016 alone — and roughly 55% are from Wall Street,” reports Richard Feloni in his Business Insider article (November 4, 2016).
“Around eight years ago, Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio introduced Transcendental Meditation to his 735 employees. Dalio had already established a unique, intense culture at Bridgewater that he likes to say is akin to being part of an “intellectual Navy SEALs,” and he believed that Transcendental Meditation, or TM, would work as an effective counterbalance.
“I did it because it’s the greatest gift I could give anyone — it brings about equanimity, creativity, and peace,” Dalio told the Business Insider.
The (Very Lazy) Sunday Routine of Vanessa Bayer of Saturday Night Live
“I usually meditate twice a day, Transcendental Meditation,” actress and comedian Vanessa Bayer told The New York Times. “For some reason, I always forget to meditate on Sunday, because it’s such a weird day, and I’ll remember at 5 and meditate for 20 minutes. And it’s great, because I’ll feel like I’m getting something done. Even though I am sitting on the couch.”
A funny fundraiser in New York
A funny fundraiser in New YorkOver half a million US troops suffer from PTSD, yet, according to the David Lynch Foundation’s research, only 20% will receive adequate care due for the disorder. Louis CK, Gilbert Gottfried, Vanessa Bayer and Jim Gaffigan proved at the DLF comedy benefit in New York that laugher, along with Transcendental Meditation, is the best medicine, writes Melissa Locker in The Guardian (May 2).
Teaching TM to the students at UC Berkeley
When asked how TM would improve the lives of UC Berkeley students, Sharon Loshakoff, teacher at Berkeley TM Center said:
“TM is not a stress-management technique, but rather a stress-elimination technique. It works on surface fatigue — the type of tiredness that students have. It refreshes you, and you come out of meditation feeling relaxed and energized. When I would teach, the first mediation would give me the fuel to teach throughout the day, and I’d get home and then I’d meditate and do my work. For students, it’s the same way.” Read full interview in The Daily Californian (April 29, 2016)
“Meditation changed my life”
“Suddenly there I was, coping with divorce, death and life’s other defining moments as I confronted my own fleeting mortality,” writer Chuck Otto recalls.
“I realized that my lack of a spiritual life knocked everything else off-kilter. I also recognized that I needed a way to unplug from the stresses of everyday life or run the risk of slipping into serious substance abuse, anti-social behavior and/or a hermit’s existence. Transcendental Meditation provided me with part of the solution. Not as a religious practice, because TM is a tool, not an ideology. Rather, it offered me a way to take myself offline for a few minutes each day to recharge, refresh and just exist in the present moment.” Read his full account on nextavenue.org, published on April 7.
Tailor made for on-the-go millenials
In his article “Transcendental Meditation Is Tailor Made for On-the-Go Millennials,” Ethan Jacobs looks into the rising popularity of the technique among the millennials — defined as people between the ages of 18 and 35 — and points to two important factors behind this trend.
First, the millenials are subject to higher levels of stress than any other age group. Secondly, they value flexibility and dynamism in everything — including in possible methods of stress relief. “You may have to get creative in carving out time [to do TM twice a day], but millennials are adaptable and on-the-go people,” Jacobs writes. “Once you’ve been practicing for long enough, you can practice just about anywhere you can sit down.”
Using meditation to make a difference
To kick off the year, Mo Rocca talked with filmmaker and meditation advocate David Lynch, and calmly reported on the practice’s growing popularity, including at some California schools. First aired on January 3, 2016, by Sunday Morning / CBS News.
The Atlantic: Mantras Before Math Class
Jennie Rothenberg Gritz grew up in a family where meditation was part of the normal everyday routine just like brushing one’s teeth. Now, as a journalist reporting for The Atlantic she visited public schools where Transcendental Meditation is being used for stress-reduction and well-being.
She investigates whether and how TM can help children living in neighborhoods with highest rates of violent crime and rampant poverty thrive at school despite the appalling challenges they are forced to face. In order to answer that question she has interviewed school principals, educational administrators, students and scientists.
As Rothenberg Gritz puts it: “Struggling schools need lots of things: better food, stronger math programs, and higher-quality teachers, to name just a few. One of those needs seems to be a way to reduce stress so kids can absorb information and go into the world as well-balanced, successful people.”
Can Transcendental Meditation take care of the stress? Is the practice compatible with the requirement for schools to maintain the secular approach? Read her in-depth article!
The David Lynch Foundation benefit concert 2015
The New York Times reports on the upcoming Change Begins Within benefits concert which will take place on November 4th at Carnegie Hall.
The event will include world class performers such as Katy Perry, Sting and Jerry Seinfield with the evening’s hosts being David Lynch and George Stephanopoulos of ABC News.
Tickets for the event are on sale for $150 to $600. Proceeds from the concert will go to MEDITATE NEW YORK initiative, helping to provide Transcendental Meditation training for free to 10,000 at risk New Yorkers.
Jasmine Garnsworthy on benefits of Transcendental Meditation
Writing about her experience with TM in the lifestyle magazine StyleCaster, Garnsworthy reveals that regular Transcendental Meditation practice has resulted in her sleeping like a baby, keeping her weight from fluctuating, making her less angry and irritable and made her anxiety vanish. Here are snippets from the story:
“A weird thing’s happened since I’ve started meditating though—my weight has completely plateaued. I didn’t lose weight (sorry, this isn’t a hidden weight-loss fix), but the number on my bathroom scales has certainly stopped yo-yoing.
Although there’s not a lot of research to support my experience, I put it down to having a more balanced approach to food and exercise, a general feeling of contentment that’s been a welcome side effect of the practice, and the fact that I’m rarely tired now so don’t make silly impulse decisions when it comes to food.”
“Throughout early and mid-2014, I started experiencing panic attacks that would be set off for the strangest reasons. Although they were usually pretty mild, one episode actually ended with an ambulance visit and several more with calls to free nursing hotlines. I started meditating toward the end of the year, and I haven’t had a single panic attack since.”
Quiet Time is changing American schools
“Nearly in unison, the 25 students in class 601 at New York City’s Brooklyn Urban Garden School closed their eyes. Some put their hands over their faces, creating little bubbles of darkness. Others put their heads down, as if to fall asleep,” The Huffington Post journalist Jaweed Kaleem describes a session of the Quiet Time program.
“In a city where silence is elusive, these students begin and end the day with it. If they choose to, they can meditate.”
Developed back in the 1990s by a Washington, D.C., school principal, the Transcendental Meditation-based program for students was initially intended to be a one-off effort. But Quiet Time took off. In the last seven years especially, it has expanded, and now appears in 18 schools across the country: in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Detroit, New Haven, Connecticut, Washington, D.C., and soon also in Chicago.
Read the full article: “Reading, Writing, Required Silence: How Meditation Is Changing Schools And Students,” The Huffington Post
Can TM help make a dream come true?
Working hard and taking almost no time to relax, Italian singer Giada Valenti got a scare of her life three years ago. One day she suddenly found herself at a New York hospital, down with a life-threatening condition.
She now writes in The Huffington Post how learning Transcendental Meditation not only allowed her to bounce back from the illness, but realize the dreams of her life:
“I learned that to dive within ourselves during TM was better than the best sleep we ever had. And when we come out of we feel refreshed, filled with energy and enthusiasm for life.
“In seven months I was able to raise more than a half million dollars that I needed to film my television special.
“I strongly believe that all happened thanks to TM. I’m always looking forward to do TM. I get new energy and great ideas, solutions. It looks like the time is not lost meditating, but just gives extra time that we loose struggling and getting nervous,“ Valenti concludes.
Actress Jessica Alba becoming ‘intrigued’ by TM
The Fantastic Four beauty reveals she has started to use the technique to help ease her mind during busy days and she is keen to explore the practice further to help her unwind.
“I’m really intrigued by Transcendental Meditation,” Alba told the latest issue of Shape Magazine. “Everyone I know who does TM has this inner peace and a glow. I want that.”
A life-changing practice
“At the end of my first meditation I felt much lighter; I felt the benefit immediately and I love my mantra and I like the fact that I promise not to tell anyone… it feels special.” That is how Paola Varvaro describes her first TM session.
In her article “How Transcendental Meditation Changed My Life” (The Huffington Post) she continues: “In the deep silence I found my peace, a softer me and the anger and despair melts away. I drive back to Santa Monica and even the terrible LA traffic seems to soften, the street open up in front of me… I’m not hallucinating on the contrary I’m totally present and alert!”
A comeback, with the aim of giving back
“TM has been having a renaissance in recent years: Celebrities, businesspeople, and regular folk are practicing it in record numbers,” begins a long and thorough article published in Forbes Magazine.
What has especially impressed its author, Alice G. Walton, is the ‘pressing focus’ of the David Lynch Foundation “to give psychological support in the form of TM, at low or no cost, to those who need it most: Veterans, schoolchildren, prison inmates, and women and children who have survived domestic abuse. /—/ And that’s not a bad goal to have.”
The secret weapon for career women
“It turns out that the number one career tip many successful women practice is just taking the time to chill out,” writes Emily Laurence, the deputy features editor at Metro Magazine.
To illustrate her point, she sketches the life stories of four undoubtedly successful women who are all meditating daily: Arianna Huffington, President and Editor-in-Chief of Huffington Post Media; Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, Lenox Hill Hospital heart specialist and host of Focus on Health; Robin Roberts, “Good Morning America” news anchor; Lesley Jane Seymour, Editor-in-Chief of More Magazine.
All these women took part of the recent Women in the Media luncheon organized by the David Lynch Foundation and benefitting abused women and children.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiOMtwtQPGk
24 hours of happiness
“Which kind of happiness should you be focusing on?” asks the best-selling author Ann Purcell in her latest article in The Huffington Post.
After describing the three kinds of happiness outlined by the academic Martin Seligman, Purcell points to something different altogether.
“There is a field of happiness within everyone in the experience of transcendental consciousness — the most silent level of our mind. By regularly contacting this field, we spontaneously develop and stabilize a state of happiness that is independent of the outer ups and downs of life.
Transcendental Meditation is a direct means to experience this transcendental consciousness, and research on Transcendental Meditation shows a growth in positivity in all aspects of life.”
Jeffrey Abramson, a CEO with a vision
“Not all real estate executives meditate. But Jeffrey Abramson has never been one to worry about what others are doing,” writes Steve Roberts in his article “Seeing Things Differently”, published in Bethesda Magazine.
“Abramson is not a man of small ambitions. He believes that buildings designed “in accord with natural law” can profoundly improve the mood and mindset of their tenants. And he says he wants his firm to “become a catalyst to transform the entire real estate industry.”
The example he’s trying to set is clearly evident at company headquarters. In the building awash with light, space is set aside for meditation. Abramson says many employees like to spend time there before plunging into the region’s hellish traffic. After meditation, “they’re not so tired,” he says, so they “come home richer” and readier to enjoy their families.”
The 200% life
“The regular practice of TM develops a deep connection to the “Self”. If the “Self” is fulfilled, and worldly goods aren’t needed to fill a gap, it puts one in a position to enjoy all the world has to offer with an exuberance from within – whether it be a movie, a beautiful pair of shoes, a gorgeous home or a lakeside holiday.
Once we learn to be quiet and truly listen and connect to our inner selves, there is no reason that the abundance of the world – which represent the second 100% of life – can’t be enjoyed as well. It doesn’t have to be an “either or” situation,” writes Health24.com, South Africa’s biggest health portal.
Jerry Seinfeld’s insight on good parenting
“In family living, there are what Harry Truman would call ‘borderline moments’ — where you get close to the borderline of snapping,” the stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld told The Huffington Post (“Jerry Seinfeld’s Secret For Not Snapping At His Kids”, by Sasha Bronner).
Seinfeld, who has been a practitioner of the Transcendental Meditation technique for more than 40 years, then shared his invaluable advice on how to avoid ending up on the wrong side of the borderline. “The practice of meditation gives you those crucial extra few seconds to gather yourself. It’s an actual physical change in the brain. Instead of a reflexive moment of anger, you might be able to go, ‘well let me not do that right now. Let me not scream right now.’”
“My sadness evaporated like smoke”
Janice Brown, a senior partner at Brown Law Group, writes in The Huffington Post how learning TM helped her leave behind a period of intense depression and sadness.
“One day, after meditating, I felt that I had gotten to my soul and the sadness was an imposter trying to quash my true self. Once, I got under the sadness, I was able to let it go. Frankly, letting go has been the best thing that has happened with meditation.”
MUM, a ‘model for the future’
“Fairfield, Iowa — a sustainable microcosm centered around a university founded in the 70s by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and offering an academic alternative to this day. A paradise for the American counter-culture, visited by Oprah Winfrey, David Lynch, Jim Carrey, and Moby. A model city for the present and especially for the future.”
So begins a feature story “L’università della trascendenza, l’altra faccia dell’America” (“The University of Transcendence. The Other Side of America”) published in the Italian newspaper, La Repubblica.
“An integral part of the curriculum [at MUM] is the teaching and practice of Transcendental Meditation, the only technique of meditation which has been scientifically proven to reduce stress,” writes the Italian paper.
“On the university campus, nestled amidst greenery, the buildings were constructed according to the principles of Vedic architecture, with eastward facing doorways and without the use of any harmful materials. The canteen serves only organic food, vegetarian and locally grown.
“The pride of the university is a degree in Computer Engineering, and one in Environmental Sustainability — the first in America which includes courses on permaculture and biodynamics.” — Read full article (in Italian)
Meditation on college campuses
“The “student experience,” which often includes binge drinking and raucous parties for undergrads, is for many students as important as getting good grades and a degree.” Menachem Wecker’s article in Deseret News, however, goes on to portray some notable exceptions to this rule.
“The Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa,” Wecker writes, “might as well be on another planet. Its “consciousness-based education” involves daily transcendental meditation for its 1,200-something students, organic vegetarian meals, and four hours a week of required physical activity. Its “ideal routine” stresses rest as the “basis of activity,” including a “strongly” encouraged 10 p.m. curfew.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger talks about TM
In an interview with best-selling author Tim Ferriss, the former bodybuilder, actor and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger tells how he learned the TM technique in 1977 to overcome stress and anxiety. After a year of daily practice, Schwarzenegger’s anxiety had subsided, and he no longer felt as if he needed to keep up his habit of meditating.
But the former Governor of California readily admits that this year of intense daily meditation fundamentally changed the way he approached life. “Even today, I still benefit from [the year of TM] because I don’t merge and bring things together and see everything as one big problem,” Schwarzenegger says.
Staying a step ahead of stress
Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum shares her tips and advice on how to overtake stress before it overtakes you. She writes on The Dr. Oz Blog:
“Transcendental meditation (TM) is an effective way of moving the nervous system from overstimulated to calm. Incorporating 20 minutes twice a day into your life can help reduce cholesterol, blood pressure and decrease the incidence of heart disease and stroke.
Its benefits extend well beyond the 20 minutes of time dedicated to the practice.”
New radio channel: SiriusXM Insight
SiriusXM, one of the biggest internet radio stations based in the U.S. announced it will launch SiriusXM Insight, an all-new information and entertainment radio channel offering listeners inspiring ideas and intelligent conversation with an edge. SiriusXM Insight will feature an array of fresh, diverse voices, including comics, political commentators and popularizers of science. Bob Roth from the David Lynch Foundation will be on air every month to continue hosting his popular show on how meditation helps individuals and society. “Success without Stress”, last Friday of every month, 6pm ET.
A meditation session at David Lynch’s house
Hannah Mescon, a long-time fan of David Lynch’s work, was offered a chance to participate in a meditation session at the director’s LA house. And as in so many Lynch’s movies, the line of separation between the ordinary and the extraordinary was suddenly transcended.
“There aren’t a great many secrets to tell about the meditation itself, as TM is a pretty quiet practice,” Hannah writes in Thought Catalog.
“There’s no talking. You sit peacefully and meditate. And in that way it was like any other group meditation. But a cousin of mine who practices TM once told me that a meditation can be enhanced if the fellow meditators are “transcending”—basically, if they’ve cleared their minds. If they’ve abandoned pretense, let go, and committed to the moment. And that was what happened for 20 really groovy minutes.”
These celebrities really make a difference!
Not only does celebs’ “day job” impact our lives, but they also strive to make a difference with considerable donations to charities that benefit society as a whole.
NewsZoom has listed ten public figures who have consistently devoted a huge portion of their lives to giving back.Three of those ten — Paul McCartney, Ellen DeGeneres, and Oprah — are practitioners of TM.
Coincidence?
Or a natural deepening of compassion and generosity?
TM is in vogue: Making time for yourself
In the latest issue of Vogue, Mackenzie Wagoner writes about being constantly busy. ““I’m so busy,” is delivered as a simultaneous lament and brag—one to be interpreted as both “I wish I could cut back” and “I’m in high demand.””
How to escape this never-ending game of stress?
“You need to undo the doing,” says Bob Roth, the executive director of the David Lynch Foundation. You have to consider the payoff and make decisive cuts.
“TM is more restful than sleep,” he says. Research suggests that the practice, when repeated over time, reverses the harmful effects of chronic stress—the kind of stress that stockpiles when you’re running at top speed through a self-imposed calendar of appointments.
“I would never think of missing meditation for 20 minutes of sleep. Transcendental Meditation is profoundly restful—the next eight to ten hours of my day, my energy levels will be clear, focused, and coherent,” says Roth. “If I don’t have the energy to put ideas into place, what do I have?”
VIDEO: How to dedicate 20 minutes a day to TM
Like many of us, Tamron Hall of NBC’s TODAY Show is starting the year off with an intention to get serious about meditation. She currently practices a focus meditation, but to “take it up a notch” she’s decided to learn the Transcendental Meditation technique. To share her journey with her viewers, she brought certified TM teacher John Butler on her morning show.
Why George Stephanopoulos wakes up at 2:15 every morning
When George Stephanopoulos greets viewers each weekday morning on ABC’s Good Morning America at 7 a.m., he’s been awake for a full five hours, the New York Times reports.
There are plenty of studies that suggest that mediation activates parts of the brain related to stress relief, attention span, and memory processing.
It was this scientific evidence that convinced Stephanopoulos to give meditation a shot, specifically Transcendental Meditation. Now he can’t live without it.
“It’s the equivalent of a couple hours more sleep,” Stephanopoulos says. “I feel more space in my life even when it’s not there.”
