IMAGES IN MEDICINE
Transcendental meditation and hypertension
Cardiovascular Risk Clinic, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, UK
Correspondence to:
Dr J Dear, Cardiovascular Risk Clinic, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, UK; james.dear@ed.ac.uk
| The first 100% of the full text of this article appears below. |
A 58-year-old woman was referred to our clinic for advice on the management of hypertension. As part of her pre-clinic assessment a 24 h ambulatory blood pressure measurement was performed (fig 1). This revealed a striking dip in blood pressure at around 17:00 with her systolic and diastolic measurements both being lower than when she was asleep. On review in clinic it transpired that this dip corresponded to the patient practising transcendental meditation. There is some evidence to suggest that regular transcendental meditation may reduce blood pressure in hypertensive patients, although at around 5/3 mm Hg,1 this is considerably less than the striking, acute reduction in blood pressure seen in our patient.
Figure 1 24 h ambulatory blood pressure measurement.
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Competing interests: None.
Patient consent: Obtained.
- Anderson JW, Liu C, Kryscio RJ. Blood pressure response to transcendental meditation: a meta-analysis. Am J Hypertens 2008;21:310–6.[CrossRef][Medline]
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