According to a study by US researchers, carried out by the Medical College in Wisconsin and Iowa's Maharishi University, patients with coronary heart disease who practice Transcendental Meditation for some minutes everyday significantly reduce their chances of dying from the condition. The findings were shared at a recent American Heart Association meeting.

For the sake of study, researchers assigned 201 African Americans, randomly selected, to meditate or make some similar lifestyle changes for at least 20 minutes, twice everyday. After a follow-up of 9 years, the meditating group reportedly had a 47% reduction in death, cardiovascular attacks and strokes.

The group of 201 subjects included both men and women, with an average age of 59, and they all had been affected with narrowing of arteries. While the meditation group was just meditating twice everyday, the lifestyle changes group received classes on how they can reduce risks via traditional methods of exercise and healthy eating. Not only was there a reduction in rate of heart attacks, strokes and deaths, the meditation group also recorded lower blood pressure.

"This is the first controlled clinical trial to show that long-term practice of this particular stress reduction program reduces the incidence of clinical cardiovascular events, that is heart attacks, strokes and mortality", said Robert Schneider, lead author and Director of the Centre for Natural Medicine and Prevention at the Maharishi University.

The study received a grant worth ?2.3 Million from the National Institutes of Health and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.