The Truth About Body Language and How It Affects You
An effective tool, but you’re not an open book
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I recall a Desmond Morris book, “The Naked Ape,” among the bookshelves in a library near the college where I studied in the eighties. The psychology section, on a great balcony overlooking all the other book divisions, enticed me. I had a thirst for knowledge about how humankind worked.
Jung, Freud, and then Morris fell into my hands and I devoured their works like a hungry lion. “The Naked Ape” was particularly ‘out there.’ It showed naked people from behind on the cover for a start but was a book about body language and behavior and above suspicion if you were curious about sex.
I grew up reading my older sister’s “Jackie,” a girl’s magazine in the seventies, that offered articles about how to get on with your best friend or talk to boys. Nothing like the glossy magazines of today.
There were, of course, “below the waist issues” in its Cathy and Claire letter columns. Nothing too racy though.
“The Naked Ape,” on the other hand, talked freely about breeding, in an animalistic sense. There was no romanticism involved. Just facts. Women wore lipstick, Morris said, because the redness represented female genitals in a state of arousal.
The book offered a matter-of-fact view of human behavior, and it all came down to the survival of the species. What I got from his works mostly, though, was that people act as they do unconsciously and for good reasons, and the concept fascinated me.
I went on to study psychology and worked intermittently in the field of mental health while training as a counselor, hypnotherapist, and neuro-linguistic practitioner.
After learning more and more about non-verbal communication, it became clear we can control our body language, to an extent, and change the way we think and behave.
Of course, now we know the brain is malleable. We can shape it with repetitive behavior; in effect, rewiring ourselves to be more like we want to be.
The first I knew about the idea, though, came from observing and learning about how and why we moved our bodies as we did.
Sometimes, to gain an understanding of how individuals might feel, I would go a step further than imagining I was in their shoes.
I watched how they moved, and in private, copied them, noting how it felt to bow your head like a depressed person, and walk along looking at the ground, or take huge strides and bounce along the pavement with a smile plastered on your face — I learned a great deal that way.
You see, when you adopt a style of body language, similar to someone happy or sad, you evoke a similar emotional response.
Body language became a tool rather than something that ruled me. The more I understood, the more I gained from being able to experiment and observe.
My studies certainly helped me when I saw clients for counseling sessions; sometimes what individuals say verbally and what their bodies tell you don’t match.
Recently, in the last few years, there’s been controversy about Amy Cuddy’s advice about standing like Batman to elicit a superhero state of mind.
Experts argued against her claims, gleaned from a legitimate study, saying standing with your hands on your hips like Superman or Wonder Woman wasn’t effective.
It’s likely, however, findings show, that power posing does bring about a short-term boost in confidence; perfect prior to job interviews or your first meeting with your in-laws. (This was exactly what I learned via ‘walking the walk’ of people in various moods).
For genuine long-term confidence, though, you must change your brain with repetitive positive thoughts and actions leading to the real belief you are capable and worthy.
Perhaps repeating positive body language, Cuddy-style, can actually aid rewiring.
The point is when you understand body language you can read people and know them better. It aids communication, too, and helps you empathize. You can even change your mood and boost confidence when you use positive non-verbal communication.
True confidence, I would argue, stems from altering your mindset, long-term, not just the way you move. Team the two concepts, positive non-verbal with positive thinking strategies, nonetheless, and you might be on to something good.
