Page 587 - Total War on PTSD

You will learn this meditation from a professionally trained teacher in a one-on-one session and he or she will provide you with your own mantra — a word or sound that has no meaning associated with it — and will teach you how to think it properly, which means easily, effortlessly, and silently. You will learn that you don’t need to push away thoughts, watch your breath, monitor bodily sensations, or visualize anything. You won’t have to sit in any particular position either. The morning session wakes up your brain and gives you energy and resilience and the afternoon session gives you a reset...basically a way to start the next part of your day fresh.
The U.S. National Institutes of Health has provided tens of millions of dollars to study TM’s effects on stress and heart health, while the U.S. Department of Defense has awarded several million dollars to study its impact on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among Veterans returning from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The change has taken time, but the TM technique is now recognized as a powerful treatment and preventative measure for so many of the stress-based disorders of our time — as well as an immensely practical tool to markedly improve health and performance. In the same way that we now recognize the importance of exercise and eating healthy, the world has come a long way with regard to understanding the critical importance of meditation in general and TM in particular.
I have taught Veterans with PTSD who have not slept more than one or two hours a night for several months because of terrible nightmares and sweats, but after their first or second day of meditating, they went home and slept through the night. Weeks later, they reported that sleeping through the night has become a new normal.
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