There is a wonderful energy that thrums between two people that you can’t see with the naked eye. It has the power to soothe and to heal. Faced with a crisis, we often feel the need to do something to make a difference, and nowhere more so than at the bedside of the ill or dying.  But hospice worker Jeanne Denney has proven that just showing up and being fully present is enough.

Denney has been measuring coma patients heart rates (which are characteristically erratic), and monitoring the effect of a loved one coming to sit in the room. As if by magic, the heart rate of the coma patient and also the sitter synchronize and both become more peaceful. Nothing needs to be said. Just this loving invisible exchange of energy between two people.  Denney found patients responded best to people they know and love. But there was one exception, If the visitor (stranger or loved one) sat and said a silent prayer, every patient had a marked improvement.