{"id":285,"date":"2007-03-06T15:45:13","date_gmt":"2007-03-06T15:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/2007\/03\/serenity-now.html"},"modified":"2011-12-15T18:57:20","modified_gmt":"2011-12-15T18:57:20","slug":"serenity_now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/2007\/03\/serenity_now.html","title":{"rendered":"Serenity now!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You probably know that pondering the universe and its mysterious ways can soothe a broken heart. Apparently, it can also physically heal the heart.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ishib.org\/journal\/17-1\/ethn-17-01-72ab.pdf\">reporting<\/a> in the journal <em>Ethnicity &amp; Disease <\/em>that practicing transcendental meditation improves the heart&#8217;s functioning (as measured by a six-minute walk test), helps relieve depression and generally improves the quality of life in people with congestive heart failure.<\/p>\n<p>The randomized study has a small sample size: 23 African American men and women with the average age of 64, who had all been hospitalized for heart failure, abd observed for three and six months.<\/p>\n<p>But this strikes me as one of those win-win strategies. Even if the physical improvement is small, I buy the lifestyle effect. I&#8217;m one of those New Yorkers who can never fully shut down, but I bet meditating every day would make me more er, serene, and indirectly more healthy.<\/p>\n<p>(And for those of you who&#8217;re Seinfeld fans, yes, that&#8217;s a shout out to the show.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You probably know that pondering the universe and its mysterious ways can soothe a broken heart. Apparently, it can also physically heal the heart.&nbsp; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/2007\/03\/serenity_now.html#wpn-more-285\" class=\"more-link\">Read more<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/2007\/03\/serenity_now.html\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":249,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-odds-and-ends"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/249"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/spoonful\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}