Your body language matters!

Can we change our state of mind, just by changing how we behave?

Have you ever noticed that your physical expressions convey the message to others more powerfully than your words?

Have you experienced that your eyes convey love more effectively than your mouth?

What we express physically in our comunication and relationships reflect what state of mind we are in. It is natural for us to do so. However, it is also true that if we change how we express ourselves physically, we can change our state of mind: Thoughts and Feelings!

It is easy to understand that our Thoughts determine our Feelings and Behviours; and also that our Feelings can decide what thoughts we are going to have and what actions we may take in response to our emotional state.

For example, if the content of my thought is empowering, I will have associated empowered feelings and will acto accordingly. Also, if I am already feeling upset because of some reason, I am going to have disempowering thoughs and will not act in an adaptive way.

Your Actions affect your Mindset

What is very striking and less appealing (yet the most important in the concept of CBT or Behavior Therapy) is the effect of Behavior or Action on our Thoughts and Feelings. If we change our Behaviours or Actions, with our conscious choice, inspite of what we are feeling or thinking, we can influence on what we think and feel!

We have a feedback mechanism set inside us that sends signals to our brain from various peripheral muscles we use in our physical expressions. Tension in our body muscles sends signals to our brain that therre is some danger in our reality. Similarly when we smile, the muscles used for smiling tell our brains to think and feel happy as it is conveyed that things are safe, ok and pleasant.

Effects of your body language on Others

We learn over the years interpreting other people’s expressions and concluding subconsciously about their thoughts and feelings by attaching meanings to their expressions. Our learning may be adaptive or may have bugs!

Let me tell you that only 7% of our communication is conveyed through words we use. The rest is our physiology and tone of voice. 55 percent of the impact is determined by your body language- posture, gestures and eye contact. 38 percent is by your voice tone (Ref: The journal of Counselling Psychology, Vol. 31,  pg248-52 )

Children can perceive things better

My son often tells me to be mindful of my Voice Tone. He can perceive even the slightest change in the tonal quality of my voice and makes me aware incogruency in what I say to him and actually what I feel at that time. When I say sorry to him, sometimes he tells me that I dont mean it, as my voice tone and facial expressions do not match with the feeling of Soryness! (This is the word from my own dictionary!! Using it here as I liked it.).

I have learned that children can perceive the language of physical expressions much better than adults (as they are not yet fully conditioned and modified by Social Norms). As adults we can rely on children to get in tough with our true-selves.

Non-verbal expressions create relationships

Our preoccupation with life’s hassles may not give us time and space to become aware about the messages that we convey in our communication through our physiology and voice tone. But that really matters!. Over the course of time, we create our relationships based on our messages conveyed largely by other channels and not only words.

How to change our Feelings and Thoughts by changing our Actions?

When you are feeling anxious, fearful, angry or just upset; consider apply following suggestions (do tell me back in comments if they help)

  • Take 3-4 deep breaths and then slowly tune the rhythm of your breathing to more natural and spontaneous breaths
  • Change your posture
  • Stretch your limbs
  • If you are working in a chair, get up and take a walk in your room
  • I prefer to take a break from my ongoing activity (Time out!), go to my bathroom, look in the mirror and Smile at Me! I continue to do so till I feel lighter and my mind starts affriming positive sentences by itself.
  • Skipping or dancing for few minutes can also help in changing the mindset
  • Sing your favourit song (even loudly if required)
  • Read positive affirmation from your personal diary or a good book (this also, if required, do it a aloud)
  • If you are in front of a computer or television, get up from that position and leave the place. I have observed that you tend to respond passively to information in this situation and continue to spend time without much change in your mindset at the end.

These changes in our behaviors, initiated consciously, help break the cycle of negative thoughts and resulting feelings. This can be learned to make it more spontaneous.

The begining is- Make a conscious decision to choose your actions.

Have a Resourceful Life,
Dr. Sudeep Shroff

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