“A picture is worth a thousand words”. We know more and more about the importance of our body language , and we are aware that many times an expression or a gesture is more effective and transmits our message with much more force than any word we say.
For some years now, scientists have gone one step further and are studying how specific changes in our postures trigger physiological responses in our brain capable of modifying our emotions and feelings. That is to say: in the same way that when we feel sad and downcast we walk cowering, we “close” as if we wanted to be invisible, and when we are happy or we feel confident we walk more upright and “open”… can we do the opposite ? If we adopt a more upright posture, will we feel better, more positive and confident? According to a work published in the journal Psychological Science , the answer is yes.
The study participants had to adopt a certain posture for two minutes . Some of the positions corresponded to “high power”: more upright, more open, with a tendency to occupy more space; and others with “low power”: more shrunken, more closed, with a tendency to occupy less space. After that, the researchers asked them if they felt powerful, gave them the opportunity to participate in gambling games, and took samples of their saliva.
The results revealed that, indeed, the people who had to adopt “high power” positions, felt more powerful at the end of the experiment and more predisposed to take risks in gambling . These feelings corresponded to psychological reactions: a higher secretion of testosterone (a hormone typical of positions of dominance) and lower levels of cortisol (a hormone that we produce in stressful situations). That is to say: to feel better, with more confidence in ourselves and be more tolerant of stress, it is enough to change our postural habits. Very simple, right? And although science is only just beginning to unravel these mechanisms, some Eastern disciplines such as yoga, which works body postures to cause changes in the mind, have relied on them for centuries. Other studies in this line advise us to smile frequently: that simple gesture is capable of making us feel in a better mood.
Body language shapes our identity
Social psychologist Amy Cuddy, one of the authors of the work and passionate about non-verbal communication, exposes these and other ideals in a popular TED talk. In it, he reveals fascinating facts, such as the fact that blind people from birth who are first in races or sports competitions acquire the typical body posture of winners (expanded body and arms raised in a “V” shape). A finding that indicates that body language has an instinctive component, since these people, being blind, cannot have copied the expressions of their peers.
