Quick Ways to Feel
More Energetic
How you hold your body can actually change how you
feel, in less than a 1/40 of second. If you hold and move your body the
way you want to feel, your body's chemistry can change in a fraction of a
second. Your posture and movement create a message that acts like a doctor’s
prescription. The message is sent through your neural synapse to the
brain's pharmacy. The brain notes the posture and movements and creates
chemicals that match and sends them out into your blood stream so you begin to
feel chemically the way your body language is held or moves. If you drag around
head down feeling tired you will get the chemicals that make you feel more
tired. You think your body language reflects
your fatigue and lack of energy but you can change your energy by how you hold
and move your body. I have been writing about the biochemistry aspects for over
30 years. (In her Ted Talk Amy Cuddly speaks
about Power Poses using research about this phenomenon.)
Keep your body language
“up.” Up, energetic body language is beautifully symbolic–you go up when you’re
feeling up. In addition up body language brings your posture up in a way that
allows more deep full lung capacity breathing which gives you more oxygenated
blood, thus more energy. Though the steps may seem wacky, if your are feeling
sluggish and just want to lay down and take a nap, these methods can charge you
up very quickly.
Quick Ways to Use Your
Body Language to Feel More Energetic:
- Take
five deep full breaths. Breathe in on a count of three, hold for three seconds and let your breath out slowly on the count of three. Make sure
your lungs fill up fully.
- Stand
up and lift your chest up and out.
- Stand
up against a wall and see if you can get your shoulders back against the
wall. Pull the shoulders back so even the tops of the shoulders
touch the wall. Now step away from the wall and see if you can stand and
walk with your shoulders back. This posture enlarges the chest
allowing the lungs to fill up with air giving your body more oxygen.
- Bring
your hands up and gesture high in the air. The location of your hands also
affects other nonverbal behavior. Put your hands at your sides and your
energy goes down, your voice lowers and can become more monotone, and you
tend to move less and show fewer facial expressions. Bring your hands to
the level of your waist, and you become calm and centered. Bring your
hands up high to the level of your upper chest or above, and your voice
goes up; you become animated.
You
can have fun for a second and pretend you’re a conductor leading an orchestra. Coincidentally, research shows conductors tend to live longer and they believe one
of the reasons is their high gesturing that increases their oxygen. You can
pretend like you have just won an Olympic competition and bring both hands up
above your head and hold them there for three seconds, lower them then raise
them again.
Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com. Also check out Patti's YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.
