How to Be Present in the Moment, at Work and in Conversation

In 2010, Harvard psychologists Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert used an iPhone web app to ping 2,250 adults at random moments and ask two things: what are you doing, and what are you thinking about? Across roughly 250,000 answers, people's minds were somewhere other than the task in front of them 46.9% of the time. Working out how to be present in the moment means winning back part of that 46.9%. The methods below all give your attention one concrete thing to land on, and most of them fit inside a working day.

Where your mind goes when it wanders

The study ran in the journal Science in November 2010. It tracked 22 everyday activities, from walking and eating to shopping and watching television, and minds wandered at least 30% of the time in every one of them except sex. Wandering also lined up with mood. Whether someone's mind was on the task explained 10.8% of the differences in how happy they felt from moment to moment, while the activity itself explained 4.6%.

The authors put it in one line: "A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind." Drifting off is the default setting. Presence is something you bring back on purpose, many times a day, and each return counts.

How to be present in the moment, fast

Run the 5-4-3-2-1 senses check

Name five things you can see, four you can touch, three you can hear, two you can smell and one you can taste. Abigail Brenner, M.D., lists using your senses to ground you as one of her seven ways to practice presence in Psychology Today, and this countdown is the version most therapists hand out. Each sense you check moves attention away from the story in your head and onto something happening in the room. Taste comes last and is the hardest one to find at a desk. It comes up again further down.

Do one thing at a time

Stanford researchers Eyal Ophir, Clifford Nass and Anthony Wagner surveyed 262 students on their media habits in 2009, then tested the 19 heaviest multitaskers against the 22 lightest. The heavy multitaskers did worse on a task-switching test, and the team traced it to a weaker ability to filter out what wasn't relevant (published in PNAS). Single-tasking at work looks like this:

• One window open on the screen, at full size.
• Notifications off until the task is finished.
• Close one email before you open the next.
• When you catch yourself drifting, say the task under your breath and go back to it.

Take the phone off the table

Shalini Misra and colleagues watched 100 pairs of people hold 10-minute conversations in cafés around Washington, DC, for a 2014 paper in Environment and Behavior. When a phone sat on the table or in someone's hand, people rated the talk lower for connection (5.05 against 5.36 on a 7-point scale) and lower for empathy toward their partner (5.51 against 5.85). The gap was biggest between people who were close. Put the phone in a bag or another room before a conversation you care about.

How to be present in a conversation

A Harvard team led by Karen Huang, with Alison Wood Brooks and Francesca Gino, studied live one-on-one conversations for a 2017 paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. People who asked more questions, follow-up questions above all, were better liked by the person they were talking to. In speed-dating transcripts, daters who asked more follow-ups got more second dates. Most participants didn't expect asking questions to make any difference.

A follow-up question only works if you heard the last thing the other person said, so it forces presence. In a meeting or a pitch, try this:

• Let the other person finish the sentence before you start building your reply.
• Ask about the last specific thing they said. "Tell me more about that" works, and so does repeating their last few words as a question, a tip that comes up again and again in Reddit threads on the topic.
• Keep your eyes on the speaker and your notes short.

Reddit's other common advice for people stuck in their head mid-conversation is to stop trying to say the right thing and stay curious about the other person instead. Curiosity keeps your attention on them.

How to be present with yourself

Being present with yourself is the same skill with nobody else in the room. Brenner's list ends with a daily reflection: before bed, ask whether you were present and what you'd change tomorrow. She also suggests personal rituals that mark a break from ordinary time, and changing small habits, like your route to work or what you eat for breakfast, so autopilot has less to run on. If what pulls you away is a loop of thoughts you can't switch off, our post on how to get out of your head goes into that.

A 10-second ritual for people who can't meditate

Brenner's first suggestion is to sit for 15 to 20 minutes once or twice a day and follow your breath. Plenty of people try it and spend the 15 minutes planning the afternoon. A strong sensation gets there quicker, because it is loud enough to pull your attention into your body by itself.

Dragon Breath is our chilcuague mouth spray. Chilcuague (Heliopsis longipes), also called golden root, is a root from Central Mexico, wild-harvested from growth zones the Mara team selects with the help of local elders, then dual-extracted. The root contains affinin, also called spilanthol, measured at 6.9 to 8.5 mg per gram of root. One spray and for about 10 seconds a bright electric buzz runs across your tongue and mouth. It tastes earthy and a little peppery for a second, then the tingle takes over and your mouth floods. A clean, fresh feeling lingers after. You come out of it switched on and present, in the zone. It is like meditation for people who can't meditate.

One customer, filming a reaction video on their first spray, said it out loud: "Oh wow, the saliva flow."

It also fills the hardest step in the 5-4-3-2-1 check, the taste, in one spray. People keep it as a ritual before the moments they want to be fully inside: walking into a meeting, the minute before a pitch, a conversation that matters. It lives in your pocket, a bottle holds 250+ sprays, and the extract stays sealed in Miron violet glass, away from air and light, unlike loose root or powder. Start with one spray, and go up to five once you know the feeling. For the root's history in Mexican ethnobotany and how it's made, read our guide to chilcuague.

Dragon Breath – Chilcuague Extract

50 ml mouth spray. Wild-harvested chilcuague root, dual-extracted. 250+ sprays.

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Questions people ask

What does being present feel like?

Your attention sits on what's in front of you, the voice of the person talking or the work on the screen, and you notice details you'd usually miss. Time tends to feel fuller.

Why can't I stay present?

Wandering is normal. Killingsworth and Gilbert found minds drift 46.9% of waking hours, so the skill is noticing the drift and coming back through a sense or a single task.

Can you learn how to be present?

Yes, with practice. Brenner recommends a short daily sit plus doing ordinary tasks, like walking or washing dishes, with full attention.

How long does one spray of Dragon Breath last?

The bright buzz runs across the tongue and mouth for about 10 seconds while the mouth waters fast. A clean, fresh feeling lingers after it.