Meditation and Heart Disease

Scientific studies have shown our state of mind, particularly our level of stress, plays a major part in every stage of heart disease. Since it has been proven beyond doubt that meditation is one of the best tools to counter stress, it is obvious that meditation can play a major role in preventing heart disease. This has been proved by survey conducted by Dr. David Orme Johnson, which found that regular meditators are 87.3% less likely to be hospitalized due to heart disease.

Reversing or Curing Heart Disease 

However it has been two decades since Dr. Dean Ornish, a cardiologist from California, has shown that meditation can also reverse or cure heart disease. In a now well known study, 200 patients of coronary artery disease were enrolled in Dr. Ornish’s year- long ‘Program for Reversing Heart Disease’, which included mediation, yoga, and low cholesterol diet. Out of 200, 190 completed the program. 189 of them were cured, only 1 needed surgery. Dr. Ornish’s book with the same name became a best seller.

In 1996, Professors Linden, Stossel and Maurice did a Meta Analysis of 23 previous studies on effect of meditation on heart disease and found that the results were uniformly positive across studies. Adding mind-body interventions to standard treatment of cardiac disease reduces the number of deaths from heart attacks by 41% and the chance of heart attacks recurring by 46%.

In the Unites States, including meditation in the treatment plan for heart disease is now common – with health insurance companies encouraging their beneficiaries to enroll in programs such as Dr. Ornish’s. Meditation not only saves the cost of an expensive heart surgery, it also saves the cost, side effects and hassle of having to take medicine life long.

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