Meditation for Veterans

teacher at Hamilton's Township High School in Columbus, Ohio. Every day he would stand in front of his class and explain the basics of the physical sciences and biology. Then he would go home to help his own five kids with their homework. Every day for twelve years, he did his best to show up as a husband, a father, and a teacher, but the truth was he was going through the motions in eyed his life was a living hell. Corey O'Brien is an Iraq war vett. Military service runs

in Corey's family. His grandfather was a B seventeen bomber pilot during World War Two in Korea. His father was a marine veteran during Vietnam, Corey spent nine years with the U. S. Army and the Ohio National Guard, and he did two deployments to the Middle East. But Corey came home from his last deployment in two thousand and five with post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury or tb I. He struggled in silence, feeling like he let down a lot of people. I didn't come back

a hero, Corey says, I just did my job. I took an oath, and I followed orders. Corey tried hard to make it work. When he got home, he was surrounded by the love and support of family and friends, but he just couldn't figure out how to function, much less survive. Corey's family took the brunt of it. He became, in his own words, a monster. My temper was so bad that at times I scared myself. Looking back, there were times I was lucky I didn't end up in jail.

The local v A hospital offered Corey antidepressant medications, which he turned down. Like a lot of veterans do. I learned certain skills in the military that kept me alive, like hypersensitivity and hyper alertness. He says, I didn't want to take a magic pill and have all that disappear. PTSD runs in Corey's family. His grandfather had it, his father has it, and Corey knows he has it. But making things worse, Corey also has traumatic brain injury. Things

kept going downhill. Whatever help he was getting from the v A just wasn't enough. If Corey wanted to survive, He realized he would have to find his own way. That's when his luck finally turned. Three years ago, Corey met doctor Chrisanne Gordon, founder and chairwoman of the Resurrecting

Lives Foundation in Dublin, Ohio. Her foundation provides cognitive retraining to veterans through a team of tb I experts, including physical medicine specialists, speech pathologists, occupational and physical therapists, job coaches, and social workers. Dr Gordon met Corey and right away she knew he needed to meditate. She introduced Corey to David Kidd, a Vietnam veteran himself and a teacher of transcendental meditation in the Columbus area. Corey jumped at the

opportunity and learned from David. What surprised Corey was how easy it was to meditate, and how the results were so immediate. Right from the start, I felt so much more rested, and I slept so much better, he says. Over time, I've become a better father and a better husband. I've also become a better teacher. In fact, Corey felt so much better that he told his father, the marine about the meditation, and he learned too. Now his dad

is off three different types of medications. Reflecting back on the fifteen years since he returned from his deployment, Corey says, I'm convinced that TM will give veterans their lives back. I know it brought me back from the dead. I was resurrected. I've become a human again. My health tip for the day is actually more of an awareness tip. T b I does not only afflict veterans like Corey,

it can afflict any of us. A traumatic brain injury can come from a blow to the head or a penetrating head injury, which disrupts normal function of the brain. Nearly three million people sustained a traumatic brain injury in the United States every year. If you think that you or someone you know may be living with t b I, please go online and contact the Brain Injury Association of America and get help. All right, let's end this time together doing something that I think should be a feature

of our everyday life, and that's appreciation and gratitude. So let's take thirty seconds of quiet, thirty seconds to take a break, just take a moment. It turns out when we do that, it's good for our health as well. I'll be right back, all right. Thank you for joining me today. I hope you heard something that inspires, that uplifts you and that you can incorporate into your own life. This is Bob Roth. Stay calm, hey, all of you

out there. I'd love to hear from you. You can send me your stories, your questions, or anything else on your mind. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram at meditation Bob. You can also send me an email at meditation Bob Roth at gmail dot com. I look forward to hearing from you.