Meditation and Blood Pressure: What the Heart Association Said

A reader's guide to the American Heart Association's 2013 statement on nondrug ways to lower blood pressure, and how it rated meditation.

In April 2013 the American Heart Association published a scientific statement on ways to lower blood pressure without drugs or diet changes. It appeared in the association’s journal Hypertension, in the June 2013 issue, written by a panel led by Dr. Robert D. Brook. It is a document often cited when Transcendental Meditation is linked to blood pressure, including on the old site on this domain. This page explains what it said, using the statement’s own summary.

What the panel reviewed

The panel looked at what it called alternative approaches: treatments that are neither medication nor diet. They fell into three groups. Behavioral therapies included TM, other meditation, yoga, other relaxation methods and biofeedback. Procedures and devices included device-guided breathing and acupuncture. Exercise included aerobic training, resistance training and isometric handgrip exercises. The panel noted that these approaches had generally been tested in fewer and weaker trials than drugs.

How the ratings work

The association grades each treatment on two scales. The class says how strongly it recommends the treatment. Class I means it should be used. Class IIa means it is reasonable. Class IIb means it may be considered. Class III means no benefit was shown. The level of evidence says how solid the research is, from A, based on several randomized trials, down to C, based on very limited data or expert opinion.

How meditation was rated

TM was rated Class IIb, Level of Evidence B. That means the panel judged it may be considered, on the basis of a limited number of trials. Other meditation techniques were rated Class III, Level of Evidence C. Yoga was also Class III. The panel said the behavioral therapies as a whole had modest, mixed or no consistent evidence behind them.

For comparison, aerobic exercise received the strongest rating in the statement, Class I, Level of Evidence A. Device-guided breathing and dynamic resistance training were rated Class IIa.

What the panel advised

The writing group agreed that it is reasonable for anyone with blood pressure above 120/80 to consider trying these approaches as an addition to their care, when that is clinically appropriate. It offered a way for doctors to decide which to try first, based on the evidence, the risk, any other health benefits and how practical each one is.

What it did not say

The statement did not say that TM lowers blood pressure for everyone, or that it works as well as medicine. The old evidence page on this site made that second claim, citing a 2008 study; the Heart Association’s rating does not support it. The statement also dates from 2013. Later guidance on high blood pressure exists, and this page does not cover it. Hypertension printed several letters responding to the statement in the months after it appeared.

Two trials in the background

Two trials often cited alongside the statement show what the evidence looked like. A 2009 trial of 298 university students, in the American Journal of Hypertension, found no significant change in blood pressure across the whole group after three months, but a fall in a subgroup at risk of high blood pressure. A 2012 trial of 201 heart patients, in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, reported systolic pressure 4.9 points lower in the TM group. Both were run by researchers at Maharishi University of Management, a school linked to the TM movement. Our page on the research gives the details and the limits of each.

This page is general information, not medical advice. The Manhattan Business Review is not affiliated with the David Lynch Foundation or any Transcendental Meditation organization, and it does not sell courses. Transcendental Meditation and TM are trademarks of their owners.