How body language can influence success
Body lingo tricks can get you what you want both at work and home.
PHOTO: FILE
It’s a revelation to many that you can significantly improve your life by working on your body language. Studies have shown that communicating right through the body and using spot-on vocal tones can positively influence your life. As compiled from the Huffington Post and Reader’s Digest, from landing a job to losing weight, here’s how body lingo tricks can get you what you want both at work and home.
1. To land a job
Instead of sitting poised in the waiting room right before an interview, run through a couple of power poses, such as raising your arms in a V or standing with your hands on your hips. Do it in the bathroom or the elevator. Research by social psychologist Amy Cuddy shows that holding these postures for just two minutes can lower stress levels, calm nerves and increase feelings of power – all the ingredients required to rock an interview.
2. To calm kids
A slow and soft voice has a comforting and soothing effect, while a loud, fast voice can stimulate anger or fear, according to a study conducted by the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Pakistani parents and many people across the globe have a habit of yelling to calm rowdy kids. Make your kids sit down and explain to them how their behaviour is unacceptable in a sentence. Then, pause for five seconds between words, while repeating the same sentence. The study shows that it’s an effective way to commune with children and discipline them.
3. To lose weight
A study published in the Journal of Consumer Research shows that dieters, who flexed their arm muscles a couple of times when being offered a choice between a candy bar and an apple, were more likely to make the healthier choice than those who didn’t clench them. Research shows this body trick helps you make the ‘right’ decision about food and fitness. Next time you’re offered gulab jamun, flex those muscles before you grab a bowl full of the sweet treats.
4. To boost creativity
Make it a point to always gesture with both hands while brainstorming. When a team of Singaporean psychologists and researchers asked subjects to come up with unique uses for a building complex, those who talked out solutions, using both hands to gesticulate, came up with more creative ideas than those who brainstormed with just one hand or didn’t utilise their hands at all.
5. To verbalise persuasively
A low-pitched voice, as opposed to a strident and commanding voice, inspires confidence from those around you, according to a study from McMaster University in Canada. You don’t have to fake it, but just relax and loosen up before speaking by keeping your lips together and repeating ‘mmm-hmm’ a few times, suggests Forbes body-language expert Carol Kinsey Goman. Nervous tension or pressure of a task can constrict your vocal cords, making your voice come out higher than usual, so keep that under control.
6. To correct a slip-up
Always mind your chin, says Greg Hartley, a former US Army interrogator and body-language expert. If you maintain your chin too high, you look indignant and sort of in a huff; keep the chin too low, and you appear weak and professionally inadequate. Always uphold your chin and keep it centred to exude confidence and compromise.
7. To influence a person
If you want to persuade someone to take on your point of view, then make sure that your feet are pointing in the direction of the person. If you’re standing, it means that you want to position yourself across from the person; it’s much harder to do this when you’re standing side by side. If you’re facing the person, but your feet are facing on an angle away from the person, then it indicates that you’re ready to walk away from the encounter.
8. To connect with your partner
If your significant other holds one of his or her wrists and raises it in front of their own body, they could be feeling hurt, depressed or simply sad. “It may appear that your partner is adjusting his watch, but it could be a sign that he’s insecure,” says body-language expert Patti Wood. Offer a few comforting words to your other half because that particular body gesture implies they require more attention than usual. Do this and watch them lower their protective shield and open up to you.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 6th, 2015.
1. To land a job
Instead of sitting poised in the waiting room right before an interview, run through a couple of power poses, such as raising your arms in a V or standing with your hands on your hips. Do it in the bathroom or the elevator. Research by social psychologist Amy Cuddy shows that holding these postures for just two minutes can lower stress levels, calm nerves and increase feelings of power – all the ingredients required to rock an interview.
2. To calm kids
A slow and soft voice has a comforting and soothing effect, while a loud, fast voice can stimulate anger or fear, according to a study conducted by the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Pakistani parents and many people across the globe have a habit of yelling to calm rowdy kids. Make your kids sit down and explain to them how their behaviour is unacceptable in a sentence. Then, pause for five seconds between words, while repeating the same sentence. The study shows that it’s an effective way to commune with children and discipline them.
3. To lose weight
A study published in the Journal of Consumer Research shows that dieters, who flexed their arm muscles a couple of times when being offered a choice between a candy bar and an apple, were more likely to make the healthier choice than those who didn’t clench them. Research shows this body trick helps you make the ‘right’ decision about food and fitness. Next time you’re offered gulab jamun, flex those muscles before you grab a bowl full of the sweet treats.
4. To boost creativity
Make it a point to always gesture with both hands while brainstorming. When a team of Singaporean psychologists and researchers asked subjects to come up with unique uses for a building complex, those who talked out solutions, using both hands to gesticulate, came up with more creative ideas than those who brainstormed with just one hand or didn’t utilise their hands at all.
5. To verbalise persuasively
A low-pitched voice, as opposed to a strident and commanding voice, inspires confidence from those around you, according to a study from McMaster University in Canada. You don’t have to fake it, but just relax and loosen up before speaking by keeping your lips together and repeating ‘mmm-hmm’ a few times, suggests Forbes body-language expert Carol Kinsey Goman. Nervous tension or pressure of a task can constrict your vocal cords, making your voice come out higher than usual, so keep that under control.
6. To correct a slip-up
Always mind your chin, says Greg Hartley, a former US Army interrogator and body-language expert. If you maintain your chin too high, you look indignant and sort of in a huff; keep the chin too low, and you appear weak and professionally inadequate. Always uphold your chin and keep it centred to exude confidence and compromise.
7. To influence a person
If you want to persuade someone to take on your point of view, then make sure that your feet are pointing in the direction of the person. If you’re standing, it means that you want to position yourself across from the person; it’s much harder to do this when you’re standing side by side. If you’re facing the person, but your feet are facing on an angle away from the person, then it indicates that you’re ready to walk away from the encounter.
8. To connect with your partner
If your significant other holds one of his or her wrists and raises it in front of their own body, they could be feeling hurt, depressed or simply sad. “It may appear that your partner is adjusting his watch, but it could be a sign that he’s insecure,” says body-language expert Patti Wood. Offer a few comforting words to your other half because that particular body gesture implies they require more attention than usual. Do this and watch them lower their protective shield and open up to you.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 6th, 2015.