Susan Pierce remembers a stifling Fourth of July 10 years ago when she and her husband, Don, took their small boat out, hoping to escape the summer heat and the pain and stress of a tragic time in their lives.

The Brewer couple spent the afternoon sitting beside a harbor under a poplar tree. “It had fallen over but it was still alive, and the leaves were flipping around in the breeze,” she remembered recently. “It was the first time since our son got sick that I felt at peace. I said, `We need to do more of this.”‘

Now retired and sailing whenever they can, the Pierces named their boat Mantra because it represented a way to transcend their 18-year-old’s death from leukemia. A mantra is a sound, word or phrase repeated to oneself in some kinds of meditation.

This summer, husband and wife are practicing internal transcendence as well as the kind that involves casting off over cold water. The Pierces have been meditating for 20 minutes twice a day for about two months, and both say the ancient practice offers real benefits.

Susan, 57, already had blood pressure in the normal range before she started meditation, but found it dropped from 135/80 to 120/80 in the first few weeks. She also has noticed the absence of a vague tension that was once a constant knotted presence.

Both husband and wife say they are calmer, more focused, less likely to fly off the handle about minor details. Each has an elderly parent in a nursing home, an anxiety source that moves them to carry a phone wherever they go.

Meditation is “like being on the boat on a perfect day, looking out at the world and it’s peaceful,” said Don, 63, a longtime air traffic supervisor at Bangor International Airport who already was known for his calm demeanor.

What is surprising about the Pierces isn’t their decision to meditate, but how mainstream their new routine seems on the cusp of the 21st century. They have several friends and relatives who meditate, and those who don’t have expressed no surprise at their decision.

When she first heard about meditation back in the 1960s, Susan’s interest was piqued, but she associated the discipline strictly with “flower children.”

Thirty years later, bookstores prominently display best sellers such as Deepak Chopra’s “Exploring the Frontiers of Mind-Body Medicine” and “Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life” by Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.

Alternative medicine of all kinds is gaining momentum. In the Bangor area, some doctors are prescribing meditation for stress, depression and chronic pain. Nurse and licensed counselor Sandy Smith started teaching mindfulness-based meditation in Brewer less than a year ago, targeting physician-referred participants with physical illnesses, stress, anxiety and depression.

But acceptance has come slowly, said Dr. Jeff Fuson, a family doctor from Farmington who spoke about transcendental meditation in Bangor recently with his wife, Lisl, a meditation instructor. They are hosts of the talks regularly at the Bangor Ramada Inn.

Fuson began meditating as a medical student at Yale University in the 1970s. Since then, he said, research has produced an “increasing mound of evidence” to back up claims of related health benefits. Studies have looked at meditation as everything from a potential anti-aging agent to a sort of transcendental charm school for surly teen-agers.

“If the benefits were embraced by the scientific establishment, nothing short of a revolution would occur,” he said.

Fuson said meditation is effective for stress-related digestion problems, insomnia, anxiety, asthma and ulcers. It lowers blood pressure, decreases the breath rate, and boosts resistance to disease, he said.

“If there was an active ingredient, pharmaceutical companies would jump on it,” said Lisl Fuson. “The nice thing is that there are no side effects.”

Transcendental meditation, the technique she teaches, is one of several kinds of meditation. Introduced by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who claims it promotes world peace, TM is not a religion, the Fusons said.

It is, however, a significant financial investment. Lisl Fuson offers instruction for $575, a cost that covers a short personal interview, a two-hour meditation lesson and several follow-up checks to address any problems.

Susan and Don Pierce said they balked at the price before signing up as Fuson’s students. But they considered the fee an investment.

“When you set out in life there are tons of challenges to stretch you and make you a better person,” said Susan, who studied hotel administration at Cornell University and enjoyed a 19-year career with the University of Maine’s dining services.

“We’ve done all the conferences, the philosophies on management,” she said. “We’re looking for ways to improve our quality of life.”

The Pierces say meditation is easy to learn. Other sources agree. A quick trip to the Internet yields multiple sources of information, including a “How to Meditate” site with simple, specific instructions.

The basic recipe is sitting quietly and comfortably, eyes closed, concentrating on breathing and “being in the moment.” A goal is to eliminate other thoughts that wander in. Some people feel deeply rested and relaxed after meditation, which is typically done for 20 minutes at each sitting.

Lisl Fuson compares the feeling to “the fourth or fifth day of vacation, when the day seems to unfold like a red carpet before you.”

Dr. Charlie Burger of Bangor has an on-site expert at his office who teaches meditation to patients with chronic pain, stress, high blood pressure, muscular or skeletal problems in two sessions. Burger also distributes cassette tapes with instructions.

“There’s no question it’s effective for many chronic diseases,” he said. “It’s a good practice with many health benefits. … But it’s rare the person who stays with it.”

The family physician sees meditation not as a cure-all but as one part of a healthy lifestyle, working side by side with a healthy diet and exercise. Stress keeps some hormones at high levels, and over time the body’s ability to deal with the overload decreases. Meditation helps bring the levels back down, explained Burger.

He said the discipline required to carve out quiet time daily is the single biggest barrier for his patients, who are largely open-minded about the idea of meditating.

“It’s probably symptomatic of the people who need it most that they don’t have a lot of time,” he said. “People who do it make rather large system changes in their lives.”

Sandy Smith, the Brewer nurse and counselor, established her local stress reduction program after training that included an internship at the Massachusetts clinic begun by Kabat-Zinn. She offers an eight-week program designed to teach students how to be in the present moment.

“As soon as we get still, the mind wants to fill with busy thoughts,” she said. “We work on bringing the attention back to the breaths.”

By learning to quiet themselves, meditators can evoke the “relaxation response” and, over time, reduce the physiological impact of stress. “The constant taking in of information puts us on alert, without means to discharge,” she said. “Beyond a point, the body just gets weary.”

The stress reduction class has been offered three times, producing 12 graduates, who have seen benefits ranging from lower blood pressure to a dramatic loss of anxiety linked to a medical condition.

Smith has been visiting doctors’ offices in the area to share information about meditation. She said two physicians already have referred patients, and with the help of their success stories, word is getting out slowly.

An hourlong drop-in session at 5:15 p.m. every Monday at her 12 Acme Road office is a chance for anyone interested in meditation to learn more and ask questions.

“I want people to understand that acknowledging stress is not admitting to being overanxious,” she said.

Smith and other proponents of meditation recognize that it can be hard to get started, just as it’s hard to start eating right or exercising.

“It’s a commitment to exploring something new, and changing,” she said. “Sometimes it’s easier just to wish things were different.”