High blood pressure is a silent killer and African-Americans are at especially high risk. Diet and exercise can help. But a new study says one type of meditation can lower blood pressure in black teens and hopefully keep them from developing hypertension as adults.
Jivan Hall has been practicing transcendental meditation and he's never suffered high blood pressure.
"People are always amazed that when I get a medical checkup that everything is completely healthy, normal," said Hall.
That doesn't prove meditation has kept Hall healthy. But a new study in the American Journal of Hypertension says black teens can lower their blood pressure with only two 15-minute sessions of transcendental meditation each day.
"There's some evidence to suggest that it is affecting the blood vessel tone itself and it probably is," said Gary Kaplan, a neurophysiologist. "It seems also to be affecting the heart rate and the amount of oxygen we're taking in and breathing out."
In the hypertension study, students who meditated lowered the top and bottom numbers of their blood pressure by an average of nearly four points. Students who didn't meditate had no significant change in their pressures.
Other types of meditation and relaxation may also help. But Kaplan says transcendental meditation has the most scientific evidence behind it.
"There are so many forms of meditation but very few of them have had the analytical scrutiny by the scientific community to see if these types of physiological effects can be produced," said Kaplan.
Math teacher Dr. Brian D'Agostino said he thinks transcendental meditation could help his students physically and psychologically.
"It's typical for them to encounter violence, drugs, a lot of pressure. They come to school, the school adds to the pressure, it becomes more academic, the need to succeed," said D'Agostino. "And the traditional academic programs are not coping effectively with stress."
Kaplan and D'Agostino say transcendental meditation is not a religion or a cult. They also say they're not paid to endorse the program. But they are part of an organization recommending New York City schools offer transcendental meditation to students, as a way of helping them deal with stress and keeping them healthy.