Why Do Celebs Love Transcendental Meditation So Much?
Toward the end of my interview with Will Ahmed a few months ago, I asked the Whoop CEO what he was doing to keep his head screwed on straight during the pandemic. He mentioned family, sleep, cutting back on drinking. Then he talked at length about his secret weapon: Transcendental Meditation. Ahmeds been at the practice for seven years. Heres his quote in full:  I got to a point of crisis. I was strung-out. I was an ineffective entrepreneur, I felt. This was around 2014. The company was 20 or 25 people. I raised millions of dollars but I didnt feel like I was doing a good job. I felt anxious and stressed. I needed to find something to be more in control. This led me down this rabbit hole to Transcendental Meditation. I took a four-day course, and Ive been doing it every single day since. It changed my life.  That final line looked familiar. Its one Ive seen constantly for years now, and generally from we might describe as highly successful entrepreneurs and entertainers. TM is the preferred meditation style of people named Marc Benioff, Hugh Jackman, Oprah, Jeff Weiner, Ellen DeGeneres, Ray Dalio, Jerry Seinfeld and  perhaps most famously  David Lynch. These people often credit TM with changing their lives, and because their lives seem pretty damn good, its only natural to assume that practicing TM is closely linked to success. And yet, at the very same time, TM feels distinctly goopian. Scientology Lite. Spoiler alert: there isnt an obvious answer here. But the first step toward unpacking that familiar line  Transcendental Meditation changed my life  may well be in recognizing that TM doesnt need to have anything to do with success. It cant shake its association with the rich and famous, but there are 10 million people around the globe (9,999,999 of them without the last name Seinfeld) who have learned the practice. More Like This How to Achieve Mindfulness Without Having to Actually Meditate  The backstory is simple enough: in the 1970s, a young man named Bob Roth went on a tour of Spain. He met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi  as in one-time spiritual guru to The Beatles Maharishi. Roth studied The Maharishis meditative form, TM, for six months until he mastered it. Roth then helped bring the practice the United States, and is now CEO of the David Lynch Foundation, which teaches TM to all sorts of people we dont normally associate with the trendy world of mindfulness, yet could desperately use some: children below the poverty line, survivors of sexual abuse, veterans grappling with PTSD. Its learning to process and accept the thoughts that seem determined to destabilize ones entire existence. Think of TM as adding bowling alley bumpers to either end of each day. Theyre there  in the form of two daily, 20-minute meditation sessions  to inject awareness, to fill the rest of the morning, afternoon or evening with a sense of calm and direction aligned with your personal needs, desires and goals. Director David Lynch oversees a nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading the gospel of TM. Photo by Sergii Kharchenko/NurPhoto via Getty Images  JF Benoist, a therapist, founder of a holistic treatment center and author of a bestselling mindfulness book, says: Transcendental Meditation is a form where youre taught to repeat a mantra in your head while you sit quietly. As you meditate, you shift into a state of witnessing. You witness many things: the tension in your stomach, that thought that keeps reminding you to call your mom, your heart beating. When you meditate and repeat your mantra in your head, youre giving yourself the experience that you are not these things youre witnessing. Youre not that feeling or sensation or thought. You are the person that is witnessing these things.  Part of the appeal of the it changed my life claim is that most of us dont know what TM is. The whole operation is shrouded in just enough mystery to entice a steady stream of new acolytes. Those who arent recipients of the practice through the David Lynch Foundation can only learn it by attending a four-day course, which costs just under a grand. Devotees insist that you must be taught TM  crucially, the mantra you repeat is not a boilerplate Om. TM teachers conduct interviews to deliver a secret, personal mantra that only you know. And unlike other meditative practices, which insist that trainees stay mentally on task (dont let your brain wander), TM is accommodating to this reality. It doesnt see it as a shortcoming. That personalized, hang-in-there approach is what reels people in. But what makes them giddy about the practice at dinner parties is the relaxed, euphoric sensation they get from doing it consistently. Catalin Zorzini, the founder of a mindfulness app, says, From what Ive seen, all practitioners who continue to practice see the benefits of TM manifest in their daily lives. It providing the practitioner with more mental clarity and ability to avoid mental blocks and hindrances. Most people who practice TM find that they are able to be far more productive throughout the day.  Productivity is relative, as are paychecks. But any habit that steers someone away from negative thoughts is pretty clearly a successful endeavor, whether society would consider the person doing it highly successful or not. Theres the legitimate physical benefit, too: Dr. Madathupalayam Madhankumar points out that Regular meditation reduces chronic pain, anxiety, high blood pressure and cholesterol, while improving quality of life.  Thats the real goal. Or at least, it should be. According to Dr. Nereida Gonzalez-Berrios, a board-certified psychiatrist, TM is not a method to chase and manage success. The primary purpose of TM is to increase mental well-being, thereby improving efficiency and improving the overall quality of life.  Ultimately, for those intrigued by TM, its just important to explain to yourself why you want to give it a try. Mantra meditation is a deeply personal communion with your brain; you probably dont want to enter into that sort of vulnerable self-examination simply to test out a trend. Youll end up sitting there thinking about sports cars. If you end up getting a pay raise or finally finishing some project as an indirect result of practicing TM, fantastic. But if youre actually committed to it, theres a better prize at stake: quieter mornings, a deeper sense of self, a full 40 minutes a day where you dont read an email. Itll take some time, but lowering your risk of heart disease is life-changing  and thats no celebrity hyperbole.