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pspa123
672 Posts |
 Posted - 03/09/2013 : 15:55:19
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| Unless i am using the search function wrong this doesnt seem to have been discussed much here. Thoughts or experiences? Something unique or just another form of mantra meditation? Cult? Ripofff as it is pretty pricey to learn? |
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2013 : 16:24:42
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I have not seen this specific topic discussed on this message board, but meditation in general has been discussed.
If interested, please refer to chapter 6 of Anne Harrington's "The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine," in which she discusses TM.
See also chapter 11 of the book "Integrative Cardiology," edited by Stephen Devries and James Dalen. This chapter, titled "The Integrative Approach to Hypertension," also discusses TM. They write, "TM was brought to the west in the late 1950s by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a visionary Indian sage trained in physics, who saw meditation as a means of alleviating stress in individuals and society. His emphasis on scientific research proved that the timeless practice of meditation was not just an arcane mystical activity for Himalayan recluses, but rather a mind-body method hugely relevant to and beneficial for modern society."
Norman Rosenthal's (MD) 2011 book "Transcendence: Healing and Transformation through Transcendental Meditation" is also worth looking at if you are interested in this topic. Note Dr that Rosenthal is a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown Medical School and has maintained a private practice in Washington, D.C. metropolitan area for more than thirty years. He also conducted research at the National Institute of Mental Health, as a research fellow, researcher and senior researcher for more than twenty years.
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“Nonresistance, nonjudgment, and nonattachment are the
three aspects of true freedom and enlightened living” -- Ekhart Tolle |
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plum
United Kingdom
641 Posts |
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
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alix
USA
434 Posts |
Posted - 03/10/2013 : 18:57:36
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It is just another form of mantra meditation.
I have done quite a few meditation retreats/clinics (albeit not TM) and came across TM practitioners. There was nothing so special about their practice. I talked to a guy that did TM for chronic pain for a long time and it did not help him much.
I think any form of meditation is beneficial but don't expect the practice to be the ultimate fix for chronic pain. |
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pspa123
672 Posts |
Posted - 03/10/2013 : 19:25:05
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| With the millions of people who have learned TM, it is odd that there isn't more discussion/explanation of it on the internet. They seem to have a stranglehold on people to prevent them from talking about it. My own brother who learned it won't even talk to me about it. I have always suspected it's just mantra meditation with a cult overlay. |
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 03/10/2013 : 19:28:15
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quote:
Originally posted by alix
I talked to a guy that did TM for chronic pain for a long time and it did not help him much.
I would not rely on the testimonial of one person as a reliable indicator of whether a particular practice / modality worked or not. It may be quite possible that he either did not do it correctly, which is very often the case, or did not adhere to it long enough due to impatience. There have been a number of studies conducted (see references I gave earlier) which have documented the efficacy of TM in healing and recovery, so one person's testimonial does not really mean that much as there will always be people who do not find relief even in the most effective treatment modalities. Give me a large sample of people who have really tried it and then show me what the outcome was. This will be a stronger indicator of its efficacy as opposed to the testimonial of one or two individuals. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a man of science himself, was always open to having his ideas subjected to scientific scrutiny.
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“Living up to an image that you have of yourself or that
other people have of you is inauthentic living – another unconscious role theego plays.” -- Ekhart Tolle |
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alix
USA
434 Posts |
Posted - 03/10/2013 : 20:31:24
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I am very skeptical shawn. First of all TM is practiced twice a day for 15-20 minutes only. That is a very short time and most meditation practices that specifically address chronic pain issues recommend a much longer daily practice. Also there is quite a bit of "schlock" around TM that is of no benefit to addressing chronic pain problems.
You are probably aware of the author of "headache in the pelvis", Dr.Wise that recovered from pelvic pain with meditation. The truth is that it took him 12 years of daily meditation practice to become pain free. It is worth mentioning that he is single and independently wealthy, so he was able to focus 100% on his recovery --and yet 12 years is not exactly a quick recovery. |
Edited by - alix on 03/11/2013 00:55:11 |
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Ace1
USA
1040 Posts |
Posted - 03/11/2013 : 05:01:21
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| As you guys can see, I do not recommend mediation at all. That is something done for a period if time, then the person goes back to their old habits. I don't see how it can be helpful. I found, for example, the mindful exercises in unlearn your pain not helpful. I do want you to be mindful of only your inner reactions, I don't care if you are mindful of touching this or that, that can be done but yet you can still have an urge to just get that over with also. You are ineffect breaking strained habits that are so natural for you which is why you must be mindful at all times of your inner reactions and you must change your habits to ones of peace. I hope this makes sense. |
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 03/11/2013 : 06:12:14
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To be honest Alix, I don't meditate often but only mentioned that some people find benefit from the practice. It is interesting the point Ace makes about people who meditate but go back to their old habits as I was thinking about this very topic when I got up this morning. Many people recover from their symptoms and then experience a relapse, and the traditional explanation has been that this is due to some still unresolved issues resident in their unconscious minf. But I have a different take on why these relapses take place.
In an earlier post, Ace wrote the following: "I also met with his (Dr Sarno's) psychologist Arlene Feinblatt and I mentioned to her that Dr Sarno said nothing in someone's life has to be changed. She told me that this was wrong and that I would have to change in order to cure myself."
People are under the mistaken assumption that they can think and act the same as before and still expect to be cured. But it was their old way of thinking and acting which caused them to have TMS in the first place. If one wants to be cured they MUST change the way they think and act or they will not recover, and this has to be a permanent change otherwise they will relapse. People do indeed begin to feel better and then resort to their old ways and before long they are back where they started.
Take home message: Either you fundamentally change they way you think and act or you will not recover. This message has to be repeated over and over and over again until it sinks in. Those who have recovered but have not made these changes will experience TMS again and again.
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“Living up to an image that you have of yourself or that
other people have of you is inauthentic living – another unconscious role theego plays.” -- Ekhart Tolle |
Edited by - shawnsmith on 03/11/2013 06:15:02 |
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All1Spirit
USA
149 Posts |
Posted - 03/11/2013 : 07:27:15
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I was trained in TM over 35 years ago by a friend who lived with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi for over 10 years. It is simply a mantra meditation with a ritual at the time you are given your mantra.
This is one point I definitely disagree with Ace. There are several methods person can use to calm and return the nervous system into the lower states of arousal. While it is not often discussed here even the food you eat in as little as 2% dehydration can have a major effect on the tone of the nervous system.
Our brain is a learning machine, it also uses a disproportionately high amount of energy in the body. One way it reduces energy is by consolidating activities into a process. If where it is today is working in that the organism is still alive it considers that to be appropriate. Some researchers call this a set point, a brain lock, or an altered homeostatic level.
So simply, the brain has come to consider a higher level of sympathetic activity to be normal and maintains it. Working with thoughts, beliefs, and perceptions will help prevent further arousal and will help calm the nervous system. In some people this is not sufficient to bring the homeostatic level back down to comfort zone and heal TMS.
This may require a multifaceted approach. Diet, exercise, proper hydration, reduction in stress promoting behaviors and skilled relaxation are a few. Meditation comes under the heading of skilled relaxation. Skilled relaxation and meditation puts the patient into parasympathetic dominance, this shuts down or reduces sympathetic arousal and allows the brain to see this as the preferred state.
Proper meditation teaches us to begin to breathe in what is called low and slow. Breathing with only the diaphragm and not with the gut or the chest is called low. Slow means that you'll eventually lower the respiration rate down to 4 to 6 cycles per minute. This preserves carbon dioxide which dilates the blood vessels in the entire body allowing more oxygen to profuse the tissues. Proper amounts of carbon dioxide also reduce the sensitivity of every neuron the body allowing the entire nervous system to calm.
This technique is been around for thousands of years has been highly proved as an effective way to calm the nervous system. In fact Dr. Andrew Weil has said that breathing is the most effective technique he teaches every patient for healing.
I am most comfortable with a clinician that looks at a health problem from several vantage points and uses all evidence-based techniques for healing. I am very uncomfortable with anyone that is a one trick pony, clinicians can become so myopic about their “Discovered”protocol it becomes dogma and they lose the ability to see the whole picture.
This group is about ostensibly calming the nervous system to reduce the body tension and TMS symptoms. Let me give you one example of a critical issue that's omitted here and in Sarno’s work. Dehydration: I wont go into all the biological aspects, you can learn this if you want to Google it. But I will tell you is that when the brain senses even a slight amount of dehydration it goes into a fight or flight stress response releasing a cascade of tension producing chemicals in the body to ensure that it will have proper hydration even if other organs are severely affected.
You can talk to yourself positively forwards and backwards, but if you're causing a biological disruption that affects the nervous system you might as well be bailing the ocean with a teacup.
"Around and Around the Circle We Go....
The Answer Sits In The Middle and Knows..." |
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RageSootheRatio
Canada
430 Posts |
Posted - 03/11/2013 : 07:30:53
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Shawn, I have to agree with All1Spirit's frustration (from a previous thread as I recall) as to the differences in opinion on TMS, especially when you say this so forcefully:
quote:
Either you fundamentally change they way you think and act or you will not recover. This message has to be repeated over and over and over again until it sinks in. Those who have recovered but have not made these changes will experience TMS again and again.
... while Dr Sarno, who has seen and treated more people with TMS than anyone else in the world (even Ace1) says this, in Healing Back Pain:
People ask: 'How do I change my personality and how do I stop generating anxiety and anger?'
If these were prerequisites for recovery my cure rate would be zero. It is not changing one's emotions; it is recognizing that they exist and that the brain is trying to keep one from being aware of their existence through the mechanism of the pain syndrome. That is the key point in understanding why the knowledge is the effective cure.
So you write: "People are under the mistaken assumption that they can think and act the same as before and still expect to be cured" BUT it seems that is exactly what Dr Sarno was leading people to believe!
Having said this, I guess just "the knowledge" wasn't enough for me to be "effectively and permanently cured" (not that I was an actual Dr Sarno patient so I didn't have the benefit of seeing him personally) and maybe I would have been in the group he would have referred to Arlene Feinblatt who obviously didn't agree w/ Dr Sarno in his above quote, as reported by Ace!
[argh] No one gets to this site by "accident" but it sure is a jungle out here.
RSR
PS BTW Dr Sarno also didn't recommend meditation. In Healing Back Pain, he writes: "There is considerable fuzziness about this subject in the area of pain relief. There is no question that a calm, relaxed person will experience less pain, but again we are engaged in symptomatic treatment. The basic disorder is not being treated. And how much time can be devoted each day to the relaxing exercises? I advise my patients that meditation and relaxation exercises can't hurt but one cannot depend on them for definitive relief of pain."
(p 124)
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All1Spirit
USA
149 Posts |
Posted - 03/11/2013 : 07:33:23
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It was mentioned in an earlier post that Dr. David Wise required 12 years of meditation to heal his pelvic pain. I know David personally and I worked in the area pelvic pain syndromes and this is not true. This appears to be a way to discredit meditation as having a positive effect on TMS.
It took David a long time to discover what pelvic pain syndrome was and some additional time to develop a meditation technique that healed him. If you take the time to read his book you'll see that cognitive work was also an important part of his healing. The length of time the actual meditation practice took him start having recovery was not years, he was working in uncharted territory were doctors did not believe in the mind-body effect on the pelvic floor so he pursued all the standard allopathic treatments.
"Around and Around the Circle We Go....
The Answer Sits In The Middle and Knows..." |
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 03/11/2013 : 07:50:21
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RSR
As was stated previously, Arlene Feinblatt, Sarno's TMS psychologist who he himself recommends, disagrees with Sarno on this point and it is her clinical experience that people who recover must make changes in their lives. She told this directly to Ace who met with her personally. How can one possibly expect to continue to live and act in such a strained and stressful manner and expect that they will recover when it was this way of acting and thinking which brought about the TMS in the first place? I just don't get how people can feed themselves this delusion and expect that they will recover without ever having a relapse. If you think you can keep living and thinking the way you are without changing and expect to recover, then I will be very surprised to hear it.
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“Living up to an image that you have of yourself or that
other people have of you is inauthentic living – another unconscious role theego plays.” -- Ekhart Tolle |
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pspa123
672 Posts |
Posted - 03/11/2013 : 07:51:58
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As the great Sly and the Family Stone song goes
Differemt strokes for differemt folks
And so on and so on and scooby dooby doo
As the not so great John Lennon song goes
Whatever gets you through the night
Its alright
Its alright
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Ace1
USA
1040 Posts |
Posted - 03/11/2013 : 07:53:01
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| Hi RSR, remember Dr. Sarno only looked at the pain syndrome and it is unclear on how long he followed them out once they got better. I suspect that many of them (and he does say this in his book) are not that severe. You can kind of think that they are right on the edge of where they would develop symtpoms and thus the knowledge is enough to reverse it because they find out that there is really nothing wrong with them and they learn not to fear their symptoms. Note this, the majority of the severe TMS'ers in this forum, usually experience some degree of improvement by reading Dr. Sarno's book alone, this is why they stick with it. Imagine if it wasnt that bad or wasnt there all the time, I could see that curing them or making them better. Remember I told you when I wen to see him I was only 80% cured, I told him that and yet he introduced me to one of his patients as being cured by his methods. Arelene saw the worst of the worst, which is probably like most on this forum. So, if you are on this forum, you most likely need to change. You even said it yourself RSR, you are not were you want to be health wise, why would that be the case if all you needed was the knowledge? |
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 03/11/2013 : 07:55:43
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I have read Dr. David Wise's book also and have spoken with him personally over the phone. Prostatitus was one of my earlier manifestations of TMS, but I am thankfully cured of that now. He knows of Dr. Sarno's work but I am not certain he agrees with Sarno regarding the origins of prostatitus. I do know Dr Wise recommends a lot of physical exercises in his book, which I followed quite faithfully, with a view to loosening up the pelvic area.
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“Living up to an image that you have of yourself or that
other people have of you is inauthentic living – another unconscious role theego plays.” -- Ekhart Tolle |
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balto
839 Posts |
Posted - 03/11/2013 : 08:03:50
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I don't use meditation much but I have witnessed with my own eyes many many people have healed completely from MB illness using only meditation. And many of them were able to "cured" in weeks or months, not years.
Often the types of meditation that are popular in the West are the quick, simple, Americanize, commercialize, "fast food" type of meditations. Most of us in the West think of meditation as a quick fix, an "instant noodle" type of tool to deal with MB ills. This is I think only good for general relaxation and will help lessen some of the everyday type stress we have, but to heal from MBS we need more than that.
Meditation is a way of life. It a whole belief system and it will make big changes in our thinking, our body, and our outlook. Many "pro" practioner were able to raise or lower their body temperature. There are practioners able to reduce their body's requirement of food and liquid. Science have done test and were able to show positive chemical and hormone changes in the body of those practioners. changes in their brain waves, blood pressure, immune responses, ... not short term results but long lasting effects.
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No, I don't know everything. I'm just here to share my experience. |
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shawnsmith
Czech Republic
2048 Posts |
Posted - 03/11/2013 : 08:10:53
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balto
I am more interested in knowing your thoughts on whether a person has to make changes in their life in order to recovery from TMS / MBS?
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“Living up to an image that you have of yourself or that
other people have of you is inauthentic living – another unconscious role theego plays.” -- Ekhart Tolle |
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Ace1
USA
1040 Posts |
Posted - 03/11/2013 : 08:13:53
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| Yes the kind of mediatation Balto speaks of is a way of life and what I mean is what is needed. You might not even call it mediatation, but a relaxed way of life. One more point, when I visted with Dr. Sarno, I cant remember the details but there was something that I told him you dont want to let that get you upset. His response to me was it really takes a whole lot to get me upset. As if he had learned acceptance for himself. |
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Ace1
USA
1040 Posts |
Posted - 03/11/2013 : 08:15:50
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| If Im not mistaken, I think balto said once before that his MB symptoms kept coming back until he changed the way he approached life. He didnt let the kids in his neighborhood bother him etc. Ill let him comment though. |
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Transcendental meditation
