8 Quick Ways to Feel More Energetic Without Drugs or Caffeine.
How to Use Your Body Language to Feel More Energetic.
How you hold your body can actually change how
you feel, in less than 1/40 of a second. If you hold and move your body
the way you want to feel, your bodies' 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 synapses to the brains 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 you are feeling sluggish
and just want to lay down and take a nap, these methods can charge you up very
quickly.
Eight 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, researches show 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. You can dance to Pink’s song, “Raise Your Glass”, “YMCA” or Taylor Swifts, “Shake it Off.” All contain up gestures! (I just love the up shake it off body language at the end of Taylor Swifts Shake it Off video! The link to it is here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfWlot6h_JM
- With a lot of energy and at a very loud volume read a paragraph from something, even these instructions. Overdo it have fun. Sing the lyrics to the songs in step 5.
- Make up facial expressions. First bring your eye brows and forehead muscles up and down and up again in a look of surprise. Now smile and open your mouth so your cheeks and the corners of your lips come up.
- Have you ever noticed how children skip and move up when they are happy and filled with energy? They are moving with up body language. See if you can walk across a room with the same upward energy. You don’t have to skip just move so that your energy is up.
Try any of
these postures and movements anytime to recharge your batteries and feel UP with
energy. Your gestures move up,
your head comes up, your chest goes up and your shoulders come back and
up, your step is upwards.
I am a researcher, and writer on nonverbal
communication and hold degrees with an emphasis in nonverbal communication.
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.
