How to Elicit the Relaxation Response

The topic of Monday's Oprah was "turning back the clock". One of the guests, Evonne, was a woman who looked like she was in her forties but was actually in her seventies. Even Oprah was shocked. When asked about her secrets to looking so youthful, Evonne credited Transcendental Meditation with giving her the energy and passion to live a healthy life.

The relaxation response is a mind/body technique based on the principles of Transcendental Meditation. Cardiologist Herbert Benson, M.D., coined the term after encountering practitioners of Transcendental Meditation in the 1970s, who claimed they could lower their blood pressure with daily meditation.

Upon studying them, he found they could slow their breathing by 25 percent, decrease their oxygen consumption by 17 percent, lower their blood pressure, and slow their heart rate.

In order to make the practice more accessible and scientific, Benson removed the Eastern religious component and distilled the basic technique of Transcendental Meditation, which he says is a component of every major religious tradition or meditative practice—the repetition of a word, sound, prayer, or phrase to the exclusion of other thoughts. Learn How to Elicit the Relaxation Response.

Related Articles:

• Mindfulness Meditation
  
• How Should I Sit During Meditation?
  
• How Long Should I Meditate?

photo credit: © Jupiter Images