Search This Blog

How to Always Look Young With Your Body Language and Voice

How to Always Look Young With Your Body Language and Voice
Patti Wood MA, CSP

The way you hold your body, the way you move your face and hands, the subtle changes in your voice all show your soul age. If you are positive and live up, your smile and posture show energy and vitality so you appear and feel younger and more vital.
The wrinkles do not matter if the face wearing the wrinkles is joyful in the life.

From Patti Wood’s book

Snap Making the Most of First Impressions Body Language and Charisma.

1. Think up and move “Up.”

Practice walking so your whole body lifts up. Look in a mirror and analyze your walk and posture. When you walk into a room hold your shoulders back and your head up. Notice how children seem to lift up as they move. When you do this it should communicate youth. power and confidence. Be careful not to move your chin up as that makes you look stuck up.  

 2. Smile and Shake Hands Make sure you make eye contact right away smile and put out your hand for a handshake make full contact with your palm to their palm, pump with extra energy. (I have done several years of research on handshakes. You can link to my handshake article on my blog and at PattiWood.net)

 3. As you share, your ideas and information in any interpersonal interaction make sure your voice shows your energy and enthusiasm and hold the strength and volume of your voice all the way to the end of a sentence. As we age, our vocal chords show their wear and our voices change and tend to sound rougher and we tend to lose volume at the end or sentences. Research clearly shows that a voice that goes up, or shake can make people feel we are not speaking with conviction. If people every say, “Excuse me I didn’t hear you.” check your vocal pattern. My voice is high and strains easily so I speak with energy to and lots of joy so it always sounds young.
 
4. Get your hearing and eyesight checked professionally. Do it now. If you squint, have trouble reading, and have old fashioned (as in more than a year old) eye wear you look old. If you ask for things to be repeated or seem to be disconnected because you are hard of hearing you look old and out of touch.

 5. Make sure you are fashion current in colors style and jewelry including your watches. If you are still not sure what is current in professional clothing read a style magazine and bring it with you. Go to a high-end store, such as Nordstrom’s and look around. You can always see what you like at high-end store then buy it at TJMAX or Marshalls. By the way, job candidates under thirty rarely wear watches unless they are a high end statement watch like Omega.

 6. Be careful how you sit in a chair. Research says that women perch, sitting on the edge of their seats, arching their backs, while men tend to slouch, relying more on the backrest. Woman don’t perch the entire time you look less powerful. Sit back in the chair, use lots of space, and put you arms on the armrest to look confident. Your mother told you not to slouch. I have to be very careful as I have a curved spine so I compensate with big gestures. If you slouch, you may look old and tired rather than vital and energetic. Sit forward slowly as you share certain information your confident in.

 7. In a job interview or important meeting try not to carry a purse. (Especially if you are a guy. Really I was just being funny.) Your purse, not only sends a strong female signal and it gives you one more thing to worry about and fuss over. When woman sit down they usually have over 16 separate movements. Men have three and look much more together and organized. If you must carry something, carry a folder or hip, in bright colored briefcase. If you MUST carry a purse, buy and very sleek streamlined small one in black, brown or tan that matches your outfit. It should not necessarily matched your shoes as being matchy matchy is old school and can date your look.

8. Woman, wear great color. Whether you wear a blouse with a jacket or a nice jacket I suggest you put nice flattering color around your face hot pink, peach, salmon, cobalt blue. Or find out what this year’s biggest hottest color is by picking up a InStyle  Magazine and looking at their hot color page.. You want to wear hip colors that make your skin glow and make you feel good.

 9. Tighten your glasses. If you need to wear glasses, get your glasses tightened regularly. So they don’t go down on your nose. Glasses that come down on your nose, even a little bit make you look much older. Keep your glasses tightened and high on your face. Again, think up.

 10. Wear the collars on your shirts and jackets pressed to perfection and whenever you can.

Wear then so they go “up” to create lift around your face.

 
Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional
The Body Language Expert
Web- http://www.PattiWood.net
I have a new quiz on my YouTubestation. Check it out!
YouTube- YouTube - bodylanguageexpert's Channel

How to Always Look Young, Fashion for Fall

How to Always Look Young Fashion Musts for Fall.

1. The Little Black Jacket: this season the little black jacket is being hailed as, "The answer to every fashion question." My favorite is cropped and fitted just under the bust or boy cut in black leather or black denim. This is look made for us. The little black Jacket can dress you up and make you look youthful if you pair it with a little dress or jeans and a high quality little white t-shirt! Tuxedo, biker, military, or lady-like... velvet, wool, or embellished... so many to choose from! Make sure it fits. You have to be very careful with denim the “washed” or faded look or biker look is difficult to pull off when you are an over 40 woman, but if the jacket fits you and you pair it with crisp well pressed clothing you can look really cute. Do not pair denim with denim. It looks great on a teenager but it can make us look like we are trying to hard to get the "under twelve" discount at the movies. Wear your cute black fitted jacket with your jeans and flash your AARP card with a big ole’smile on your face.

2. Pants: Jeans are taking a back seat this season to cotton or leather trousers, I don’t know many women over 40 who can do leather pants, but we can look great in black denim. Ankles are this season's bare-skin. Great for us as they ankles don’t wrinkle! If your comfortable with your ankles roll loose-fit jeans above your ankle and give yourself some length with nice heals.

3. Skirts: Classic cuts and lines in vivid, can't-look-away colors dominate the skirt collections of this season. If A-lines and pencil cuts aren't for you, don't fret! Super short, super full skirts are just as noteworthy for fall. Love those full skirts. One of my sisters looks adorable in a short super full skirt. She is over 60 and a size sixteen!

4. Tops: While jackets were a focus in the top-department, what goes under them is just as important! Ruffles are big big big. However, we must be very careful in how we choose them. We can look hip in deep jewel tone purple and like a little churchwoman in pastel pink. Don’t pull out your old ruffled blouses from the back of the closet. The ruffles this season are bigger often asymmetrical and the colors are bolder. In addition, when you wear the new ruffles make sure you pair them with something hip not dowdy. Mix the formally formal ruffles with jeans, corduroys, and an above the knee skirt or casual boy cut jacket. Boundaries of matching formal to formal are aging and are out out out this season. Mix and match the style and dressiness of your tops with your other pieces: a white t-shirt with a velvet blazer and patent heels goes just as well as a silk, puff-sleeve blouse with jeans. Rebels rejoice.

5. Dresses: perhaps the most understated piece of the current wardrobe, sheath dresses and draped frocks are the two most sought-after styles: think 50's style silhouette... and then pair it with high heels! I wish I could wear them.

6. Colors: Black is back! Black, white, black & white, navy (yes, navy,that has been out of style for several years is back) gray, deep yellows, reds, nudes, and my favorite, purple are the front-runner colors of this season's pallet. You have to be careful with this seasons hot stripes, sequins, hounds tooth, embellishments, studs, and plaid. Plaids and hounds tooth can make you look spinster aunt, Agatha Christie Miss Marple old and the hot looks in stripes, animal prints and sequins can make us look like you are ready to go to Las Vegas and sit on a stool at the end of the row of slot machines with a coin cup and a cigarette. You can pair a hounds tooth skirt with a low next cashmere sweater in bold color and you can look great with the new cute patched pockets on jackets and jeans, or candy-colored-footwear. Take the somber new looks that make you think of afternoon teas and foggy-morning-in-London main pieces and accent them with traffic-stopping, bold, bright accessories.

7. Accessories: Don’t you just love TJ MAX for purses and Marshals for shoes! So in Quilted clutches, gloves. So what if we can’t wear these seasons knew high socks. We may be able to do the leggings. I like me feet to be comfy but if you can do them heels and cut-away booties, metal and metallic detailing, riding boots, patent leather, fringe, and animal print shoes are so so in. The switch-up this season: bare your ankles, not your knees! Sadly, to say, nary a flat was in sight... unless, of course, it is a boot. I will be looking at out for what my favorite oh so comfortable no more sore feet and aching back shoe brand Q form Merrill’s has in a boot this fall.Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional
The Body Language Expert
Web- http://www.PattiWood.net
I have a new quiz on my YouTubestation. Check it out!
YouTube- YouTube - bodylanguageexpert's Channel
I just got back from Speaking in Evansville Indiana. Today I am going to be speaking here in Atlanta for the MBA students at Georgia Tech about body language and job intervews.
I have quite a few entries on body language and interviewing so make sure you search the blog for them. Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional
The Body Language Expert
Web- http://www.PattiWood.net
I have a new quiz on my YouTubestation. Check it out!
YouTube- YouTube - bodylanguageexpert's Channel

The distance between a woman's eyes and the distance between her eyes and her mouth are key factors in determining how attractive she is to others,

New 'Golden Ratios' for Female Facial Beauty
ScienceDaily (Dec. 17, 2009) — Beauty is not only in the eye of the beholder but also in the relationship of the eyes and mouth of the beholden. The distance between a woman's eyes and the distance between her eyes and her mouth are key factors in determining how attractive she is to others, according to new psychology research from the University of California, San Diego and the University of Toronto.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

See Also:
Mind & Brain
•Perception
•Psychology
•Social Psychology
•Stress
•Relationships
•Child Psychology
Reference
•Facial symmetry
•Morphing
•Visual perception
•Social cognition
Pamela Pallett and Stephen Link of UC San Diego and Kang Lee of the University of Toronto tested the existence of an ideal facial feature arrangement. They successfully identified the optimal relation between the eyes, the mouth and the edge of the face for individual beauty.

In four separate experiments, the researchers asked university students to make paired comparisons of attractiveness between female faces with identical facial features but different eye-mouth distances and different distances between the eyes.

They discovered two "golden ratios," one for length and one for width. Female faces were judged more attractive when the vertical distance between their eyes and the mouth was approximately 36 percent of the face's length, and the horizontal distance between their eyes was approximately 46 percent of the face's width.

Interestingly, these proportions correspond with those of an average face.

"People have tried and failed to find these ratios since antiquity. The ancient Greeks found what they believed was a 'golden ratio' -- also known as 'phi' or the 'divine proportion' -- and used it in their architecture and art. Some even suggest that Leonardo Da Vinci used the golden ratio when painting his 'Mona Lisa.' But there was never any proof that the golden ratio was special. As it turns out, it isn't. Instead of phi, we showed that average distances between the eyes, mouth and face contour form the true golden ratios," said Pallett, a post-doctoral fellow in psychology at UC San Diego and also an alumna of the department.

"We already know that different facial features make a female face attractive -- large eyes, for example, or full lips," said Lee, a professor at University of Toronto and the director of the Institute of Child Study at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. "Our study conclusively proves that the structure of faces -- the relation between our face contour and the eyes, mouth and nose -- also contributes to our perception of facial attractiveness. Our finding also explains why sometimes an attractive person looks unattractive or vice versa after a haircut, because hairdos change the ratios."

The researchers suggest that the perception of facial attractiveness is a result of a cognitive averaging process by which people take in all the faces they see and average them to get an ideal width ratio and an ideal length ratio. They also posit that "averageness" (like symmetry) is a proxy for health, and that we may be predisposed by biology and evolution to find average faces attractive.

The authors note that only Caucasian female faces were studied. Further studies are needed to know whether there is a different set of golden ratios for male faces and for faces from other races or for children's faces.

The research is published by the journal Vision Research and was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the American Psychological Association.




Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at http://PattiWood.net. Also check out the body language quiz on her YouTube Channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

What are the Body Language Cues people Like You at Work?

Check out the new stands in September for the October issue , (yes is comes out a month before) of Woman's Health Magazine to see Patti's tips on, "How to tell if your Boss or Co worker think well of you?" This is the fifth time Patti has been quoted in Woman's Health Magazine.

Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional
The Body Language Expert
Web- http://www.PattiWood.net
I have a new quiz on my YouTubestation. Check it out!
YouTube- YouTube - bodylanguageexpert's Channel