What is Presence Practice

and who can benefit from it? Everyone!

Summary and takeaways:

- Anyone can boost their health, well-being and performance with a Presence Practice.
- The Presence Practice is an exercise to bring yourself into a state of relaxed wakefulness and awareness, by bringing your attention to the present moment via your body and breath.
- It helps you to disconnect from any limiting or negative thought patterns and emotions
- The Presence Practice activates the relaxation response and positively changes your physiological state and mental and emotional well-being.

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Do you find your thoughts are often stuck in the past or the future, filled with e.g. regret or anxiety?
Do you have difficulty concentrating, making decisions or tend to procrastinate?
Do you think life feels too busy and you feel stressed most of the time?
Do you feel tired or unmotivated when you wake up?
Do you know inside you are capable of performing better than you currently are?
Do you spend most of your conversations complaining about what is happening to you in life?
Do you lack satisfaction or inspiration, or feel you are missing something in life? You are not living the life you want?
Do you suffer from physical exhaustion or limitations, feel mentally overwhelmed or emotionally drained? You are alive but don’t really feel alive? You struggle, you don’t thrive?

You are not alone if you answered ‘yes’ to one or more of these questions. Did you know that at any moment, more than 95% of the world population has some health problems, and about 2/3 of the people have one or more chronic health condition? And did you know that most modern chronic diseases are preventable and caused by a combination of lifestyle, environmental and genetic factors, with stress being one of the biggest contributors?

If you are like most people, it means your body, heart and mind are out of balance and remain stuck for too long in the fight-or-flight response (stress response), due to a combination of either physical, emotional, mental or spiritual stress (e.g. acting not in alignment with your personal values and beliefs and with who you are, or feeling not good enough). Stress is the response to a real or perceived threat. Scientific studies have made it very clear that this chronic stress eventually results in disease and accelerated ageing, reduced well-being and low performance. Unfortunately, many people find themselves unable to cope with the stresses of daily modern life.

To counteract the negative effects of chronic stress and shift away from the fight-or-flight response, we have to train ourselves to get back to the basic state of the relaxation response (also called the rest-and-digest or relax-and-recover response. In biological terms: shifting from an overactive sympathetic nervous system back to a more active parasympathetic nervous system). This is the state where our body can restore and heal itself and where you will feel good: relaxed and calm and at the same time, you can feel energetic and joyful. You are in high spirits. You breathe correctly. You are present.

          Most of the time, most people’s minds are absent from the here and now.
          Most of the time, most people breathe incorrectly.
          Most of the time, most people don't take care of their health. They don't know how, or think they don't need or don't have the time to take a few minutes to take a deep, calming breath. Are you one of them?

Studies show that one of the fastest and most effective exercises to consciously activate the relaxation response is the Presence Practice (P.P.) with deep diaphragmatic breathing (also called abdominal breathing or belly breathing). This is an exercise to bring, at will, your mind, body and heart into a state of relaxed wakefulness and awareness, by bringing your attention to the present moment, the here and now, and to your internal state and what you are experiencing. The P.P. helps you to disconnect from any negative or limiting thought patterns, fears and emotions, feelings and sensations, and instead connect to your heart, your inner core, where you can experience inner peace, joy and silence. And the foundation of the P.P. is to bring your attention and awareness to the body and breath.
Your body exists only in the present, but our mind often wanders somewhere else. When you are being present, your mind cannot be in the past or future or thinking about another place. Instead, you are becoming the observer in the now.

So how do you perform the Presence Practice? That is the topic of my next post. First, let me emphasize more on why you too need and want to practice this daily.

Using the P.P. to activate the relaxation response and parasympathetic nervous system will positively change your physiological states, such as oxygen consumption, lung function, heart rate, blood pressure, hormone levels, immunity, muscle tension, neurotransmitters and brain waves. Over time, reactive emotions like restlessness, anger, fear and anxiety decrease and positive emotions like happiness, confidence, inspiration, empathy and courage increase. You will build up more resilience to stress, and find that shifting back to the relaxation response becomes easier and faster.
As a result of a clearer and calmer mind, creativity, finding solutions to challenges and making better decisions will become easier for you. In addition, by listening to yourself, observing yourself and taking care of yourself, you can take positive actions to become a better version of yourself and have a positive impact on other people. You won't be able to take care of others at your best if you don't take care of yourself first.

In fact, I realized that all satisfied, healthy, successful people who make a positive contribution to the world integrate some form of P.P. into their daily schedule. To get the best out of yourself, be the high performer anyone can be or be successful in achieving anything you want, you first need to be and remain (or get back) in optimal health. You cannot perform optimally when your health is compromised. Our health and well-being is something that is easily taken for granted until we lose it (I did that as well and became debilitated and had to go through a long recovery trajectory, so I would like to help you prevent making that same mistake). So, just like it is valid for any form of success and performance, we need to continuously invest: invest time and effort in our health in order to be successful in living and ageing in a healthy and fulfilled way. This requires to adopt the mindset of those high performers. Think as successful people think. You might surprise yourself (and your doctor) and even be successful in recovering from a chronic disease. Of course, that takes additional effort and actions. Yet, all successes start with a daily presence practice. I took me a long time to acknowledge this, but now I am convinced: deep breathing and the presence practice is the foundation for lasting health, well-being and performance.

If you are curious about how to do the P.P. check out the next post, or this post if you like to know more about the benefits of correct breathing. If you like to do a joint session or are interested in being coached by me, you can also contact me to book a session. I will be pleased and honoured to serve you and help you upgrade to the next level and boost your well-being, health and performance.

Peace and joy,
Rolf