David Lynch Foundation

The David Lynch Foundation (“DLF” or the “Foundation”) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that was founded in 2005 to address the epidemic of trauma and toxic stress among underserved populations through the implementation of the evidence-based Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique. DLF delivers this program in Washington, DC, through The Trauma Project. DLF has earned broad public interest and support for its work to bring this simple, evidence-based meditation intervention to its core target populations: veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress and their families, healthcare workers on the frontlines of the COVID pandemic, domestic violence survivors, those suffering from opioid and alcohol use disorder and young people in high crime, high need areas.  

DLF has three regional offices: its operational headquarters in New York City (where there is also a significant programmatic presence), its government locus in Washington, DC, and a programmatic hub in Los Angeles.

One of the Foundation’s primary long-term objectives is to make TM widely accessible to all who will benefit from it – with cost to the individual not being a barrier. To accomplish these goals, DLF is pursuing a series of gold-standard, Phase 3 randomized controlled trials on the effects of TM on three intractable and costly chronic health disorders. The first three such large-scale research studies will study TM’s effect on:

1. Trauma, which afflicts 8 million Americans in any given year (8% of the entire population will have PTSD at some point in their lives, and this includes over 1 million veterans);

2. Heart disease and hypertension, which afflicts 103 million Americans; and

3. Anxiety, depression, burnout, and resilience which afflicts 60 million Americans and has an immensely personal, societal, and corporate cost.