Body Language Tips for Confidence
How you can use 3 powerful body language strategies to reduce anxiety.
If you’re a student of mine you already know that your body, mind and emotions all interact with one another.
Once cool trick you can use to disrupt run-away anxiety is to change up your body language.
How can body language change the way you feel inside?
Here’s a simplified explanation of what goes on in your brain.
Your brain is constantly scanning the world to understand what’s going on, so that it can prepare you for what’s coming up next. One of the parts of the world it scans is your body.
If your brain notices your body tensed up and drawn inwards it will sense something is wrong or uncomfortable. It may send a neural message to the rest of your body to prepare for a problem or possible danger. It may also create the thought “something’s wrong”. All of this causes feelings of anxiety.
On the other hand if your brain notices your body is relaxed, open, and upright it will sense that things in the outside world are pretty good. It will interpret that pleasant things are happening, that you are in a good place, that there is nothing to be concerned about. It will send a message to the rest of your body that things are fine. It may create a positive or empowering thought or feelings of happiness and comfort.
You can tap into this phenomenon by deliberately changing your body language to help yourself to feel more relaxed, confident and happy. (You can also use it to deliberately create anxiety and unhappiness – but why would you?)
A famous study shows just how this works.
College students volunteered to be part of a psychological experiment. They were not told what the topic of the research was. There were divided up into 3 groups. Each group was shown an amusing story and was asked to rate how funny it was. The groups were all shown the same story.
The difference between the groups was in what they did prior to being shown the story.
Group 1 was asked to hold a pencil between their teeth for a few minutes without letting their lips touch the pencil. Try this out and see what happens. Your mouth will mimic something like a smile.
Group 2 was asked to hold the pencil between their nose and upper lip for a few minutes without letting it fall. Try this one out as well. Your mouth will turn down into a pout/frown.
Group 3 (which was the “control group”) did not have anything they were asked to do before being shown the story.
All of the students were then shown the amusing story and asked to rate how funny it was.
The results might surprise you…….
The group that was required to hold their mouth in a position that somewhat mimicked a smile rated the story as way funnier than the other students did.
The group that was required to hold their mouth in a position that mimicked a frown rated the story as significantly less funny than the other students did.
Deliberately changing their body language created a change in their mental outlook and perception of the world.
Body language changed perception and feelings!
It’s important to note that this powerful change in feeling happened even though holding a pencil either between the teeth or under the nose doesn’t create a true smile or frown, just something close.
How can you use this interaction between your brain and body to feel more confident?
All you need to do is deliberately take on the postures of confidence. In any situation where you feel nervous, tense and anxious change your body language, and let the magic happen. You may need to correct your body if you notice it drifting back into nervous anxious postures.
The Body Language of Confidence
- Take up space. Allow your body to expand out and take up space in every direction. Stand or sit tall, allow your neck to stretch up, let your arms and legs take up room.
- Open your body up. Uncross your arms and legs. Allow your chest to expand and your shoulders to drop.
- Relax your muscles. Tense up your large muscles and then let then relax. Take in a deep breath, hold it and let it out. Scan your body for spots of tension and flex or move that area biefly to allow the tension to discharge.
Practice these 3 tips in any situation where you want to allow feelings of confidence and relaxation to flood your body. They really work!
Have fun experimenting with this. I wonder what subtle and not so subtle differences you will notice.
You can supercharge these tips with mindset exercises to make them even more powerful.
Stay tuned for more!