Half of the world's children live under highly stressful conditions. This is true for academically and emotionally pressured kids at our most elite schools, and more true for kids from lower income families, who by age six have twice the level of stress hormones in their bloodstream than more affluent children.

According to clinical neuropsychologist Dr. William Stixrud—of the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., who specializes in the assessment and treatment of children and adolescents with learning, attention, and emotional disorders—chronic stress significantly impairs learning, mental health and brain development in children.

"Stress hormones actually shut down the parts of the brain that are required to learn, pay careful attention, think and remember," says Stixrud. "Stress also reduces flexibility and creativity. So kids that are trying to learn under high stress are doing so at significantly reduced mental capacity." (1)

Everyone experiences that under stress it is difficult to think as clearly and it’s harder to focus. This is because when the fight or flight response is activated (in response to some perceived threat), you should naturally be able to respond instinctively, you don’t need to ponder the situation.

Researchers are finding that meditation may provide a solution to today's epidemic of stress and stress-related disease to which children are particularly vulnerable—millions of children are medicated for depression and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). (2)

The practice of the Transcendental Meditation program has been shown to create more orderly brainwaves, faster processing speed, improved executive functions, and better academic performance. The TM technique has been found to be a simple and effective way for children to combat stress and its damaging effects on health and brain development. It is the most widely practiced, extensively researched and broadly prescribed by doctors of any meditation technique in the world.

"Because TM produces a state of restful alertness, it's not surprising that meditating kids turn out to be very good learners," Dr Stixrud stated. (3)

Recently the David Lynch Foundation held a benefit concert, 'Change Begins Within,' to raise funds to teach the TM technique to one million at-risk children—giving them life-long tools to overcome stress and violence. Over 140,000 students in 30 countries—in North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East—have learned the Transcendental Meditation program through the generosity of the David Lynch Foundation.

The benefit concert, held April 4th at Radio City Hall was highlighted by the performance of Paul McCartney and Ringo Star. Known for making Transcendental Meditation popular 40 years ago, the former Beatles reunited in support of the cause. Stating that the TM technique was a way to "stablize us at the end of the crazy sixties," they now wish to make the same meditation available to today’s generation of challenged students.

1 Caine, R.N., Caine, G., 1991. Making connections: Teaching and the Human Brain. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Alexandria, Va.

2 Current Issues in Education; Volume 10, Number 2

3 Education 107 (1986): 49–54; Education 109 (1989): 302–304; Modern Science and Vedic Science 1 (1987): 433–468.