Twenty minutes of daily meditation helped middle schoolers lower their blood pressure and heart rate, a new study from the state of Georgia concludes.
Students who used a simple concentration-based breathing mediation technique significantly reduced their resting and "active" blood pressure, according to Frank A. Treiber, Ph.D., and colleagues at the Medical College of Georgia. Their findings appear in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.
The amount of reduction in blood pressure, if maintained over time, "would translate into an approximate 12.5 percent lower predicted risk of stroke or coronary mortality in adulthood," Treiber says.
Treiber and colleagues say the incidence of high blood pressure "has risen dramatically in recent years among youth," including a nearly sevenfold increase in high blood pressure among some minority youth.
The study included 73 Augusta, Ga. middle school students who were randomly assigned to participate in the meditation task or a regular health education class. All of the students in the study had normal blood pressure and all wore monitors during the study to gauge their blood pressure and heart rate throughout the day.
Students in the meditation group participated in two 10-minute meditation sessions each day, once in class and once after school, for three months. More than 85 percent of the students attended the school sessions and said they completed the after-class meditation.
The researchers believe meditation may reduce the body's responses to stress, which would be beneficial for blood pressure and heart rate.