Meditation helps school children cope with stress

Half of the world's children live under highly stressful conditions.
This is true for academically and emotionally pressured kids at our
most elite schools, and more true for kids from lower income families,
who by age six have twice the level of stress hormones in their
bloodstream than more affluent children.

According to clinical neuropsychologist Dr. William Stixrud—of the
Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., who
specializes in the assessment and treatment of children and
adolescents with learning, attention, and emotional disorders—chronic
stress significantly impairs learning, mental health and brain
development in children.

"Stress hormones actually shut down the parts of the brain that are
required to learn, pay careful attention, think and remember," says
Stixrud. "Stress also reduces flexibility and creativity. So kids that
are trying to learn under high stress are doing so at significantly
reduced mental capacity." (1)

Everyone experiences that under stress it is difficult to think as
clearly and it's harder to focus. This is because when the fight or
flight response is activated (in response to some perceived threat),
you should naturally be able to respond instinctively, you don't need
to ponder the situation.

Researchers are finding that meditation may provide a solution to
today's epidemic of stress and stress-related disease to which
children are particularly vulnerable—millions of children are
medicated for depression and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
(ADHD). (2)

The practice of the Transcendental Meditation program has been shown
to create more orderly brainwaves, faster processing speed, improved
executive functions, and better academic performance. The TM technique
has been found to be a simple and effective way for children to combat
stress and its damaging effects on health and brain development. It is
the most widely practiced, extensively researched and broadly
prescribed by doctors of any meditation technique in the world.

"Because TM produces a state of restful alertness, it's not surprising
that meditating kids turn out to be very good learners," Dr Stixrud
stated. (3)

Recently the David Lynch Foundation held a benefit concert, 'Change
Begins Within,' to raise funds to teach the TM technique to one
million at-risk children—giving them life-long tools to overcome
stress and violence. Over 140,000 students in 30 countries—in North
and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East—have learned
the Transcendental Meditation program through the generosity of the
David Lynch Foundation.

The benefit concert, held April 4th at Radio City Hall was highlighted
by the performance of Paul McCartney and Ringo Star. Known for making
Transcendental Meditation popular 40 years ago, the former Beatles
reunited in support of the cause. Stating that the TM technique was a
way to "stablize us at the end of the crazy sixties," they now wish to
make the same meditation available to today's generation of challenged
students.

1 Caine, R.N., Caine, G., 1991. Making connections: Teaching and the
Human Brain.
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Alexandria, Va.

2 Current Issues in Education; Volume 10, Number 2

3 Education 107 (1986): 49-54; Education 109 (1989): 302-304; Modern
Science and Vedic Science 1 (1987): 433-468.