Researchers found that meditation helps in reducing stress as well as depressive symptoms, if the therapy is constantly used for 12 months.

Transcendental Meditation became popular in the West in the late 1960s, which was based on thousand years old Indian traditions. This kind of mediation was taken up by the Fab Four and other celebrities, including Mia Farrow and Donovan.

According to this kind of meditation, followers had to sit quietly and concentrate, silently repeating a mantra to themselves in solitude. This kind of meditation has made tens of thousands of followers across the world happier and healthier. Research explained that this also helped in reducing depression.

According to the two studies, which will be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Behavioral Medicine in Seattle, patients who are only at the risk of attaining depression can derive benefit out of it.

Hector Myers, the co-author of one of the studies and professor and Director of Clinical Training in the Department of Psychology at UCLA said, “These results are encouraging and provide support for testing the efficacy of Transcendental Meditation … in the treatment of clinical depression”.

In the previous year, the researchers discovered that meditation could reduce the chances of a heart attack in patients suffering from heart disease.