The mantra for 21^st century healthcare may be ‘eat right, exercise, and say “om.”’

When you go to a doctor, you expect good old, American medicine: examination, surgery, pills, advice, that sort of thing. But, nowadays, doctors may prescribe a dose of meditation along with the medication.

Studies suggest meditation can ease pain, improve concentration and immune function, lower blood pressure, curb anxiety and insomnia, and possibly even help prevent depression.

Millions Learning the Art

A government survey in 2007 found that about one out of 11 Americans, more than 20 million, meditated in the past year, USA Today reported. And a growing number of medical centers are teaching meditation to patients for relief of pain and stress.

Some examples of meditation slipping into the mainstream of Western medicine:

•         The Veterans Administration Puget Sound Health Care System teaches meditation to veterans who are diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

A veteran of four combat tours told the Seattle Times that meditation has eased the horrific memories of war that had made it difficult to function. He enrolled in therapy at the VA hospital, where he learned the technique, called mindfulness-based stress reduction, which helps patients deal with anxiety, chronic pain, and other health issues through meditation, yoga, and deep-breathing.

•         A study indicates meditation may prove to be the ideal intervention to treat insomnia. The findings suggest that meditating patients improved sleep quality, total sleep time, total wake time, wake after sleep onset, sleep efficiency, sleep quality, and depression, the Times of India reported. Ramadevi Gourineni MD, director of the insomnia program at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Evanston, Ill., will present the study at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

•         At the University of Maryland Medical Center’s shock trauma unit, Reiki practitioners claim to heal through invisible energy fields. The anesthesia chief has a more scientific-sounding explanation, the Associated Press reported.

“It’s self-hypnosis” that can help patients relax, Richard Dutton MD, said. “If you tell yourself you have less pain, you actually do have less pain.”

Meditation Becoming Commonplace

More than 240 programs in clinics and hospitals teach meditation, Jon Kabat-Zinn Ph.D. told USA Today. Kabat-Zinn developed mindfulness-based stress reduction 30 years ago at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. Other types, such as transcendental meditation, use a mantra or repeated phrase.

Kabat-Zinn credits “a colossal shift in acceptance” to accelerating research on the benefits of meditation.

Studies suggest meditation might make your brain healthier. In a brain-scan study of long-time meditators compared with a control group that never meditated, the meditators had increased thickness in parts of the brain associated with attention and with sensitivity to internal sensations of the body, USA Today reported.

“These are people who would notice their muscles tensing when they're angry or butterflies in their stomach if they're scared,” said study leader Sara Lazar, who is a neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital.