Original Paper
Vedic Meditation as Treatment for Trauma-Related Mental Health Conditions – Perspectives for Individual and Collective Psychological Rehabilitation and the Establishment of Sustainable Peace
Katharina S. Freytag and Mykola L. Didukh
Meditation can be understood as a mind-body practice which not only calms the mind, but also induces deep physiological relaxation by means of regulating the autonomic nervous system. This renders meditation an effective treatment for trauma-related mental health conditions such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression which are characterized by chronic autonomic and neurochemical dysregulation. An application of this approach is presented which used the Transcendental Meditation (TM) program from the Vedic Yoga tradition to alleviate PTSD and depression in Ukrainian war refugees in Germany. The article ends with an outlook that this meditation technique, in a world so ridden with conflict that whole societies are burdened with the aftermaths of violence and displacement, has the potential to play a crucial role in healing individual and collective trauma, and contribute to the promotion of peace.
Meditative and contemplative techniques look back at a history of thousands of years and can be found in all cultures and spiritual traditions. Originally they were developed within specific cultural and religious contexts (Walsh & Shapiro, 2006) and practiced in order to calm, cultivate, or control the mind with the goal to attain certain spiritual states and experiences. Nowadays, meditation techniques from different traditions are widely practiced also in a secular environment to alleviate stress and enhance health and wellbeing (Goyal et al., 2014). In addition, these ancient techniques have come into use as lifestyle interventions adjuvant to conventional treatment of physiological ailments such as cardiovascular and neurological diseases (Levine et al., 2017, Wahbeh et al., 2008) and in the treatment of mental illness (Kim et al., 2022). Meditation can thus be considered a mind- body practice in which the mind is intentionally used in such a way that it impacts the functioning of the body (Kim et al., 2013).
One of the most well-researched meditation techniques is Transcendental Meditation (TM) which originates in the Vedic Yoga tradition and has been made known in the world by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1967). TM works according to the principle of automatic self-transcending and enables the mind to effortlessly leave behind its own activity (Travis & Shear, 2010). The transcendental state is characterized by the absence of mental activity and content, and experienced as stillness, stability, rest, and disappearance of mental boundaries (Barnes & Orme-Johnson, 2012). On the physiological level, it is accompanied by a „wakeful hypometabolic integrated response“ (Jevning et al., 1992) marked by both deep relaxation and wakefulness.
An explanation for these changes in mind-body state can be found in the neurophysiological and neurochemical effects of TM. TM practice reduces the activity of the sympathetic nervous system and activates the parasympathetic nervous system, and leads to significant decreases in cortisol and noradrenaline levels along with increased concentrations of plasma dopamine and serotonine (Mosini et al., 2019). In the EEG, TM practice is associated with frontal and parietal interhemispheric coherence as well as frontal power in the alpha1 (7.5–10 Hz) frequency band, which is generally linked to relaxation but might also indicate inner focus and wakefulness (Travis et al., 2009). TM thus helps to regulate the autonomic nervous system and promotes the reduction of stress and anxiety, it induces a state of deep relaxation and brings about a range of physiological and psychological effects, such as reduction in blood pressure and heart rate, changes in respiratory frequency and gastrointestinal functioning, and improvements in memory and wellbeing (Mosini et al., 2019). Long- term TM practice may lead to the prevention or even reversal of stress effects harmful to health, as it has been associated with better immune function (Infante et al., 2014) and downregulation of gene expression related to inflammation (Wenuganen et al., 2021).
Implications of Trauma-Related Mental Disorders for the Individual and for SocietyExposure to traumatic events or prolongued periods of stress can lead to severe mental disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and trauma-related major depression (Brady et al., 2000, Radell et al., 2020). These disorders are characterized by alterations in arousal and reactivity, cognition, and mood, and have been attributed to underlying changes in brain physiology and neurobiology, chronic dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system, abnormalities in
hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis regulation, and increased allostatic load on the body for maintaining homeostatis (Almeida et al., 2021, Bremner & Wittbrodt, 2020, McEwen, 2000, Ressler et al., 2022). In major depression, the main symptoms are consistently low mood, loss of joy and interests, and avolition, while PTSD is defined by re-experiencing of the traumatic event, avoidance behavior, hyperarousal and restlessness, and experience of negative emotions (American Psychiatric Association, 2013, World Health Organization, 1992).
Trauma-related mental disorders and particularly PTSD are prone to chronification when left untreated, causing substantial impairments of health and quality of life for the individual as well as burdening the social environment and society as a whole (Kessler, 2006). Trauma can be passed on to subsequent generations not only by influencing parents‘ behavior towards their children, but also by mechanisms of epigenetic inheritance such as regulation of gene expression (Svorcova, 2023), and therefore cause negative effects for a long time, even beyond the life span of the indivual who originally experienced the trauma.
If an entire society is affected by a traumatic event like war, genocide, colonization, or displacement, the resulting collective trauma transforms into collective memory and shapes the ways the group constructs its identity and creates meaning (Hirschberger, 2018). In the victim group, this can culminate in a collective identity which is based on the trauma, elevates existential threat, and prevents the group members from leaving the past behind. In the perpetrator group, the memory of the inflicted violence and severe moral transgressions causes a threat to its collective identity and often results in the denial of history, an altered narrative of the events, and the refusal of acknowledging responsibility. By destabilizing the existing system of meaning, collective trauma can even facilitate political manipulation of people’s experiences and emotions, opening the door for the continuation of violence (Storozhuk et al., 2022). In conclusion, the healing of trauma on the level of the individual as well as the collective, in the victim of group as well as in the perpetrator group, is essential in order to end the cycle of suffering and to establish sustainable peace.
The treatment of trauma is challenging, however. Conventional care treatment with the strongest evidence of effect are cognitive behavioral therapy with a trauma focus, particularly Cognitive Processing Therapy, Cognitive Therapy, and Prolongued Exposure, next to Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) (Lewis et al., 2020). However, these therapies are time- intensive and can only be performed in one-on-one settings by trained therapists, and they put a substantial psychological burden onto the client, as the trauma needs to be re-experienced and worked through until the trauma reactions decrease.
A much gentler option in the treatment of PTSD that is feasible also with considerably less financial, personal, and temporal resources is the Transcendental Meditation (TM) program, which has been shown to successfully alleviate trauma symptoms across various samples with different kinds of traumatization and different cultural backgrounds (Bandy et al., 2020, Barnes et al., 2013, Barnes et al., 2016, Bellehsen et al., 2021, Herron & Rees, 2018, Kang et al., 2018, Nidich et al., 2016, Nidich et al., 2017, Nidich et al., 2018, Rees et al., 2013, Rees et al., 2014, Rosenthal et al., 2011, Yoshimura et al., 2015). Its effectiveness is comparable to Prolonged Exposure therapy (Nidich et al., 2018) and since it is non-confrontational, it is also applicable with clients who are not able to live through their traumatic experiences again.
A successful recent application of this approach has been done in the city of Lübeck in Northern Germany on occasion of the war in Ukraine, which caused millions of Ukrainians to flee from the war and seek refuge in other European countries, including German
The War in Ukraine and Its Consequences for the Ukrainian PeopleThe war in Ukraine started in 2014 with the Russian annexion of the Crimea peninsula against international law and the fighting in the Donbass region, and reached a new dimension when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Repeated war crimes against the Ukrainian population, deportations of civilians and abductions of Ukrainian children, and the intentional destruction of civilian infrastructure can be seen as evidence that the Russian aggression not only aims at annexing the neighboring country’s territory, but also at extinguishing the very identity of its people as an independent and unique nation and culture. In this way, the war in Ukraine does also pose a threat to European identity as a whole, which is based on the variety and diversity of cultures located on the European continent. Moreover, Ukraine plays a crucial role in European history and cultural identity inasmuch as the area in which the acts of war are taking place today belongs to the Pontic-Caspian steppe region that, based on linguistic, archaeological, and genetic evidence, can likely be assumed to be the homelands of the Proto-Indo-European people and the origin of the Indo-European migrations into Europe and Asia between 4000 and 1000 BCE (Mallory & Adams, 1997).
The ongoing acts of war are not the only threat to the Ukrainian people and culture, however. In the background lurks the menace of collective trauma. Currently more than 14 million Ukrainians are displaced, equalling almost one third of the pre-war population, with more than 6 millions being refugees within Ukraine and more than 8 millions having fled to other European countries (UNHCR, 2023). Understandably, the demand for humanitarian aid has had priority so far, but it should not be overlooked that the refugees need help beyond that. A large part of them suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder (Ben Ezra et al., 2023) and depression which not only burden their present lives but will also overshadow the future of the Ukrainian people if no measures are taken. In order to support Ukrainians to rebuild their lives and become a healthy and flourishing nation in the future, it is essential that these people receive help to improve their mental health.
In light of these conditions, it is crucial to provide therapeutic support for Ukrainian refugees as quickly as possible and on a large scale. However, this proves difficult due to limited capacities as well as language barriers. TM can thus serve as an alternative intervention which is more feasible to provide to a large number of people, compared to psychotherapy, and also gentler in its approach
In the first phase of the project „Peaceful Europe“ for Ukrainian refugees in Germany, a scientifically monitored psychological rehabilitation program by means of the TM technique for Ukrainians with PTSD and depressive symptoms was conducted in the city of Lübeck, with 50 Ukrainian refugees participating in the TM group and another 50 forming the control group. TM group members were instructed by trained German TM teachers with the support of a Ukrainian translator, and meditated twice a day for 15 to 20 minutes, according to the instructions. Control group members did not learn the TM program, but were offered to be instructed in TM after the end of the study.
Posttraumatic stress and depression were measured with clinical questionnaires in Ukrainian language, the Posttraumatic Stress Checklist in the version for DSM-V (PCL-5, Weathers et al., 2013), the Impact of Event Scale in the revised edition (IES-R, Weiss & Marmar, 1996), and the Beck Depression Inventory in the second edition (BDI-II, Beck et al, 1996). All participants rated the questionnaires three times in total: at the beginning of the study (which was directly before instruction in the TM program for participants in the TM group), after 30 days, and after 60 days. The data were statistically evaluated and interpreted according to scientific standards by an independent German psychologist and researcher (the main author of this article).
In result, participants in the TM group showed a clinically and statistically significant reduction in both PTSD and depressive symptoms after 30 days of TM practice, which continued until day 60. While 60% of participants in the TM group had scored above the clinical cutoff for probable PTSD diagnosis on the PCL-5 scale in the first assessment, none of them scored even close to the cutoff anymore after 60 days. All participants in the TM group were mentally stable at the end of the study, able to develop a positive perspective on the future, and could start to rebuild their lives. In the control group, PTSD scores remained unchanged during the same time period, and depression scores even got worse. By now, most of the control group participants have also learned the TM technique and were able to improve their mental health condition.
The figures below show the results plotted as bar graphs for PTSD symptoms (measured with the PCL- 5 scale) and depressive symptoms (measured with the BDI-II scale). Since the IES-R scale for PTSD gave very similar results to the PCL-5 scale, only the PCL-5 scores are included.
After the positive results of the pilot study, the project has entered the second phase in 2023, with the goal to instruct several thousands of Ukrainian refugees all over Germany in the TM program. The next information presentations and instructions in TM are planned in Cologne, Bonn, Berlin, and Lübeck. The second phase will again be scientifically monitored for an extended study which will not only include measures for PTSD and depression, but also for generalized anxiety disorder as well as different health-related measures, in order to assess the effects of the TM program on health and wellbeing.
Future Outlook: The Potential of the Transcendental Meditation and TM Sidhi Programs to Establish Sustainable Peace in EuropeGiven the effectiveness of the TM program to alleviate trauma-related mental health conditions, which has been validated by scientific research including our own study, it can be stated that the TM program has the potential to dissolve the negative consequences of trauma not only on the level of the individual, but also the collective, if the TM technique can be made accessible for many people on a large scale. It may thus also help to avert the future threats of collective trauma and contribute to a peaceful communal life and intercultural understanding.
The positive effects of TM practice for the meditators and their social surroundings may be amplified by the power of the TM program, and particularly the advanced TM Sidhi program, to induce a field effect of consciousness when performed as group practice. This so-called Maharishi Effect (Aron & Aron, 1986) is based on the assumption that every individual with his or her respective stress level contributes to the collective consciousness of society, which in turn affects the life and wellbeing of the indivual – for the better or worse, depending on the stress contained in collective consciousness. When the group performing the TM and TM Sidhi programs reaches a size larger than √1% of the total population, the resulting coherence in collective consciousness may be paralleled by a significant and meaningful reduction in indicators of collective stress in the overall population, such as homicide, rape, aggravated assault, robbery, infant mortality, drug-related deaths, and fatalities due to motor vehicle accidents and injuries (Orme-Johnson et al., 2022).
For Europe with its total population of approximately 752 million people, the required group size to unleash this effect is 2742 people. Thus, the future goal of the Peaceful Europe project is to establish a settlement for a permant group of 3000 people or more, made up of Ukrainian refugees in Germany as well as people from Germany and other nations, who regularly practice the TM and TM Sidhi programs together and thus foster a healthy social climate and peace in Europe. The geographical
location of Germany in the center of Europe is an ideal position for a peace group, from which the coherence effect could evenly spread across all Europe. At the same time, such a settlement would provide new homes for Ukrainians who cannot return to their country as they have fled from regions which are now under Russian occupation, and could be an example of harmonious cohabitation of Ukrainians and Germans. In the future, another peace group located in Ukraine could further distribute the effect to Russia, Central Asia, the Caucasus region, and the Middle East. Together, such groups in Germany and Ukraine could make a noticeable contribution to sustainable peace within and among nations in Europe and beyond, for the good of the whole world.
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Author Contributions: Conceptualization – K.F., manuscript writing – K.F., review and edition – K.F. and M.D., study planning – M.D., data evaluation and interpretation – K.F. Both authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Financing: The project is financed by private donors.
Acknowledgements: The project is run with the support of official TM teachers and a Ukrainian promoter. We thank all private donors and other supporters of the project, as well as the people who provide lodging in other cities for members of the project team.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest. Neither the Maharishi International University nor its faculty has financial ties to the Sozialpsychologische Geflüchteten-Selbsthilfe e.V., the nonprofit association running and overseeing the presented project and research. Data evaluation and interpretation were done according to scientific standards by an independent researcher who is not involved in the TM movement.
Katharina S. Freytag, Dipl.-Psych., holds an undergraduate degree in cultural studies from the Leuphana University of Lüneburg and a graduate degree in psychology from the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, Germany. She is a researcher, scientific writer, and psychotherapist in training.
Mykola L. Didukh, DSc, holds a graduatue degree and a doctor’s degree in psychology from the National Taras Shevtchenko University in Kyiv, Ukraine. He is a psychotherapist, university professor, and teacher of the TM program.
Website of the association: https://sopsygsh.de/
Website of the project: http://peaceful-europe.org/en_index.html
E-mail contact: katharina.freytag@sopsygsh.de
Recipient: Social-Psychological Refugee Self Help Association
IBAN: DE31 2305 0101 0160 6259 35
Reference: Peaceful Europe