Consciousness-Based Education - Maharishi University of ...

preventing disasters and distressAlthough there are many factors which play a causative role in disasters,the major contri bution of human stress to disasters and the role ofstress reduction in preventing disasters have not been sufficiently investigated.Psychosocial and environmental stress hampers not only therecovery and amelioration phases of a disaster but in many cases directlycreates the disaster. This is particularly clear in disasters that are obviouslyman-made, such as major accidents, escalating crime, wars, andterrorist activities. We further hypothesize that collective human stresscould also play a causative role in natural disasters. But first we willconsider the more usual realm of disasters caused by human behavior.The central role of stress can be seen in a diagram of the “vicious”cycle characterizing dis asters (Figure 1). Psychosocial stress, includingfear, anger, tension, fatigue and confusion, can contribute to humanerror or negative behavior, potentially precipitating a disastrous event.The disaster in turn produces panic and other forms of emotional distressleading to post-traumatic stress disorder or other long-lastingfunctional abnormalities in survivors. These conditions fur ther contributeto the total stress in society, increasing the probability of new mistakesleading to new disasters, in a self-perpetuating cycle. Althoughdisasters are typically defined as sud den, calamitous events causinggreat damage or hardship, from our perspective, chronic societal problemssuch as violent crime can be considered “extended disasters” towhich society unfor tunately has become habituated.Figure 1. Vicious Cycle for Disasters. Psychosocial stress contributes to humanerror, which can lead to disastrous events and their negative consequences.The Transcendental Meditation (TM) and TM-Sidhi program representsa totally unique civil defense strategy, an “antidote” to stress,501