Transcendental meditation (TM) programs can help healthcare workers (HCWs) deal with burnout, anxiety, and insomnia, a study shows. In another trial, patients with knee osteoarthritis had improved physical function but not pain relief while walking with use of an unsupervised online yoga program.
In JAMA Open Network, a “randomized clinical trial of 80 HCWs showed that TM practice over 3 months reduced psychological distress scores (primary outcome) on the Global Severity Index by 5.6 points, but this decrease was not significantly different from the reduction of 3.8 points observed in the control group. The practice of TM reduced burnout scores (a secondary outcome) by 5.4 points, representing a statistically significant reduction compared with usual treatment.”
The knee osteoarthritis findings come from the Annals of Internal Medicine, where authors reported improved knee stiffness, quality of life, and arthritis self-efficacy after 12 weeks of use of prerecorded “My Joint Yoga” videos (1 video per week, with each session performed 3 times per week). Adherence to the yoga program declined after 12 weeks. By 24 weeks, many of the benefits of the intervention were no longer significantly different from an online education control intervention.