Treating atherosclerosis and heart disease through the Maharishi Vedic Approach to
A comprehensive understanding of atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), a major contributing factor in heart disease, is provided by the Total Heart Health Programme —from the perspective of both modern medicine and the Maharishi Vedic Approach to Health, including Maharishi Ayurveda, the world's most ancient and complete system of natural health and holistic medicine.
The Total Heart Health approach to preventing and treating heart disease offers specific modalities to restore balance in mind, body, and environment, through re-establishing their connection with the inner intelligence of nature.
A page on the Total Heart Health website (www.totalhearthealth.info) explains, with the help of graphics, what atherosclerosis is, how it develops, and how the Maharishi Vedic Approach to Health addresses it:
Hardening of the arteries:
Atherosclerosis and heart disease from the perspective of modern medicine
Atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, is the thickening and hardening of the arteries from the build up of fatty substances and the by-products of the body's struggle to protect it from these substances.
The buildup of plaque in the arteries slowly diminishes the supply of nutrients and oxygen to the heart, eventually blocking the coronary arteries around the heart, and leading to a heart attack.
Almost all risk factors for heart disease contribute to hardening of the arteries. Conventional medicine commonly uses drugs to try to reduce these causes. Unfortunately these drugs often have health damaging side effects. Surgery is also used, but this does not cure the disease, and can cause serious side effects or death; and the condition often returns or shows up elsewhere in the body.
The Total Heart Health view of heart disease
Hardening of the arteries, or atherosclerosis, results from loss of connection of the body with its inner intelligence, due to prolonged unhealthy habits or environment. This results in a specific mind/body imbalance leading to disease.
Imbalance begins on the subtlest level of the basic principles governing all the activities and processes of the body. In the Vedic science of Ayurveda, these fundamental physiological operators are called Vata, Pitta and Kapha. Vata is the principle of movement, Pitta is the principle of metabolism, transformation or heat, and Kapha is the principle of structure. If allowed to progress, these subtle imbalances in the body eventually manifest as disease.
To restore heart health, the Total Heart Health Program uses simple techniques to restore balance at the subtle level where the imbalance began. This results in a comprehensive, natural return to health in the whole body, including the heart.
There are three main types of hardening of the arteries: Vata, Pitta and Kapha. This means one of these principles has been thrown out of balance by the mind, body or environment. For example:
· Overuse of the mind, stress, anxiety, anger, and depression.
· Poor diet or digestion, fatigue, overexertion or lack of exercise, or unhealthy routines
· Living and working in unhealthy buildings, collective stress of war, or biological rhythms
For effective heart health, the Total Heart Health Program restores balance in mind, body and environment, through re-establishing their connection with the inner intelligence of nature. This may include any or all of the following programs:
Mind:
Transcendental Meditation. This is an important part of the Maharishi Vedic Approach to Health. Extensive research throughout the world has proven its superiority in increasing health and well-being in all areas of life, including society. Research studies show outstanding and unprecedented reversals in heart disease and its risk factors.
Body:
After determining the specific mind-body imbalance, THH prescribes diet, herbal supplements, exercise programs, and daily and seasonal routines helpful for that person's mind-body imbalance.
Environment: THH includes an analysis of the buildings where one lives and works, and how to make them more natural and supportive of health. It suggests remedial and preventive measures working with natural cycles and rhythms. The use of sound therapy is advised for advanced or chronic imbalance.
'Total Heart Health' refers both to the programme, and to a book about it, written by Robert Schneider, MD, FACC, and co-author Jeremy Fields, PhD.*
* Robert H. Schneider, M.D., F.A.C.C., is a physician, scientist, educator, and one of the world's leading authorities on natural medicine and its scientific use in the prevention and treatment of heart disease. Over the past twenty years, he has directed nearly $20 million in research grants from the National Institutes of Health for his pioneering research on natural approaches to heart disease.
Jeremy Z. Fields, Ph.D. (pharmacology) has more than 30 years of experience in biomedical research and in the field of evidence-based natural medicine. In addition, Dr. Fields is an experienced professional science writer and editor. He has held faculty positions at Chicago Medical School and Loyola Medical School-Chicago and was a senior scientist in the research service of the Veterans Administration hospital system.
NB. Transcendental Meditation is an effortless mental technique which can be easily learned by anyone under the guidance of a qualified instructor. It is practised sitting comfortably with eyes closed for 20 minutes each morning and evening. During the technique, mind and body experience a unique state of deep rest in which brain activity becomes orderly and accumulated stress is naturally resolved.
A New Zealand Doctor's Advice
The most definitive examination of the alleviation of hypertension through Transcendental Meditation is found in the book, Perfect Blood Pressure Naturally, by Dr David Lovell-Smith of Christchurch, New Zealand.
Dr Lovell-Smith has worked as a GP for many years and recommends TM as a general health measure to all ... “it is especially valuable for people who suffer from tension headaches, migraine, insomnia, high blood pressure - in fact anything caused or complicated by stress”.
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