Patti Wood Body Language Expert Blog

Cry it out. Letting baby “Cry it Out” causes stress that kills brain cell.

Cry it out. Letting baby “Cry it Out” causes stress that kills brain cell.

This is a fascinating article. It is related to other posts I have done on the importance of loving care and touch for babies and the effects of stress on the brain.

I know. A dramatic headline. Made you look. But it's not fiction. It turns out that the "Cry It Out" method of baby sleep training, where you ignore that your kid is screaming, crying and turning 40 shades of purple so that she can break herself out of the habit of being spoiled and cuddled to sleep, does more harm -- way more -- than good.

In her recent piece for Psychology Today, Darcia Narvaez, an associate professor of psychology at Notre Dame, writes that when babies are stressed, their bodies release cortisol into their systems -- a toxic hormone that kills brain cells. Considering their brains are only 25 percent developed when they're born full-term and grow rapidly in their first year, killing off baby brain cells is a huge no bueno. Narvaez notes that studies out of Harvard, Yale, Baylor and other prestigious institutions show that said killing off of baby brain cells can lead to the higher probability of ADHD, poor academic performance and anti-social tendencies, and that human babies are hardwired for hands-on comfort and care.

"Babies are built to expect the equivalent of an 'external womb' after birth... being held constantly, breastfed on demand, needs met quickly," Narvaez writes. "These practices are known to facilitate good brain and body development. When babies display discomfort, it signals that a need is not getting met, a need of their rapidly growing systems."

Um, remember that scene from the True Hollywood Stories: Rick James episode on the Dave Chappelle Show -- the one where Rick James is grinding his feet into Eddie Murphy's couch? Yeah. *insert an image of Denene doing the Rick James foot stomp into the couch thing here* In your face, Nick Chiles! For the record, I argued and fussed and fought with my husband over "Feberizing" our Mari. The infant self-soothing technique, invented by Dr. Richard Ferber, requires parents to let their babies "cry it out" for a predetermined amount of time, in increasing intervals, before they comfort them -- and even then, comforting involves talking to and rubbing the babies; picking them up or cuddling them is forbidden.

Now, it's been 12 years since we tried this "cry it out" thing with Mari, but I promise you, I can still hear her screaming in her crib in the next room. My breasts would throb at her every whimper, and every second on the clock would feel like an eternity while I waited for my chance to go in and pat her on her stomach, rub her arm and cheek and tell her, "it's okay, baby--Daddy promises you won't die from crying."

But I was. It just didn't feel right to let my child scream and holler and thrash by her little self in the dark in her crib when I knew full well that a little rocking in her glider, maybe a song and a sweet nuzzle of her cheek would send her off to dreamland. Granted, some nights that meant multiple rocking/singing/nuzzle time, but, to me, it was a small price to pay for feeling like I was mothering my baby and helping her feel like her mommy was there. Always there.

Of course, plenty other parents think differently about it and that's their right. We all do what we think works for our kids, our families, our lives. Not gonna point fingers at y'all. But I will point them at the hubs. When I showed this Yahoo Shine story chronicling Narvaez's anti-cry-it-out research -- and an interview in which Ferber actually backs off his own method--to Nick, he shrugged his shoulders and said, "It ain't fun for the baby, but that shit worked. Everybody got some sleep. You going for two years with only three hours of sleep at night isn't healthy either."

I think he might have said those exact words to me the first time I left Mari in her crib. Still, as much as his reasoning made sense, it just didn't feel right to me -- her mother. And when Nick told Mari we did this to her when she was a baby, she was incredulous: "What? You use to let me cry? You didn't come get me? You just left me there by myself?!"

That was Daddy, baby!

Yeah. That Ferber training didn't last long in our house, and I don't remember even trying it with my Lila. (Which might explain why our daughters' nighttime routines were a little worthy-of-a-Broadway-production hectic for longer than they should have been. But whatevs.) My babies and I benefited greatly from our nightly bonding sessions and co-sleeping arrangements, and I'm glad I did it for as long as I did.

Now that we've got this babies need to cry it out business out of the way, I've got some ideas on what researchers need to look into next: I'm waiting for the study to show that beating your kid like she stole something in what is supposed to be a friendly game of Go Fish and Checkers causes brain melt. I'm looking at you, Nicholas Chiles. I'm looking at you.

This post originally appeared on MyBrownBaby.com.

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.

Couple Body Language, What Your TV-Watching Position Together Says About Your Relationship

What Your TV-Watching Position Together Says About Your Relationship
By Lane Moore for Cosmopolitan Magazine

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/news/a51225/what-does-his-body-language-say/

Have you ever wondered what's really going on between you and your favorite Netflix and chill partner? Cosmopolitan.com spoke with Patti Wood, body language expert and author of SNAP: Making the Most of First Impressions Body Language and Charisma to find out exactly what your TV-watching position means.

Position: Both of you sitting on opposite sides of the couch.

You both definitely need your space, which isn't necessarily bad, but it does show that you're both independent people. That said, if you used to sit in a closer position and suddenly switched to this one, it could be a sign that one or both of you needs to withdraw from the other's affection.

Position: You putting your head on his lap while he sits upright.

This is known as a parent/child position. The person whose head is cradled is allowing themselves to be vulnerable and wants to feel taken care of. Putting your head on someone's lap says, "I trust you to be gentle and caring with me." The person offering their lap is assuming a caretaker role. If this isn't your usual position but you're in it lately, it could mean that one of you is going through a hard time and needs comfort. If it's the primary position you always go to, that's an indicator of you both being happy with your usual roles in the relationship.

Position: Both of you spooning horizontally on the couch.

If your go-to is lying down and spooning, Wood says you both have both a strong sexual chemistry and feeling of security in the relationship. The person being spooned is basically saying with their body, "I can turn my back on you and know I am safe. You have my back." The person doing the spooning is saying, "I want to surround you and take you in." This position has also been shown to increase intimacy in couples and reduce the stress of both partners, so if it works for you, keep doing it.

Position: Both of you sitting close to each other, holding hands.

If you usually find yourself sitting like this together, you're both using an innocent way of connecting and really focusing on your partner. Because your hands are intertwined, you can't really do anything else (like pick up your phone and check your Instagram for the 80th time), so that means you're forced to be totally present with your partner. Wood says she often sees this position with elderly couples who have a strong bond and less of a need to stay busy and connected to the outside world.

Position: Both of you sitting close to each other with your head on his shoulder and his arms at his sides.

If you usually have your head on his shoulder and he stays in place like a statue, you're trying to connect with him and feel safe and protected, but if he never reaches out to connect with you, that's not a great sign. If he doesn't reach out to touch you or moves away from your head, it shows he doesn't want to feel connected to you and wants to remain more independent.

Position: Him sitting upright, you with both arms wrapped around him like a sloth.

This one depends a lot on how your partner is responding to it. If your guy isn't looking at you very much or touching you at all, he's probably not thrilled with the position. If you wrapping yourself around him makes him feel like you are trying to possess him, he might be turned off by that neediness. Wood says this one depends so much on how he's reacting to it. If he seems into it, then you're both likely expressing how connected and happy you are with each other.

Position: You both on the couch with only your legs or feet touching each other.

Wood says a lot of couples who end up in this position have been together a long time, but still want to stay connected in some physical way. It's also a position you might take if you've been fighting and want to stay connected, but you're still kind of mad at each other.

Position: You sitting close to each other with his arm on the back of the sofa.

If you love to sit close and he always has his arm wrapped around the back of the couch when you do, that shows he has a desire to protect you and connect with you. He wants to let anyone nearby know you're his and that you're truly connected to each other,

Office Party Behavior, Appropriate and Inappropriate Behavior at Office Parties

Office Party Behavior Appropriate and Inappropriate Behavior at Office Parties.
Here is a piece I did for Yahoo.com. My contribution is highlighted in yellow.

Slips, Slurs & Slappin' the Boss: The Most Shameful Office Holiday Party Stories Ever

Tim Murphy

December 16, 2015

Illustration by Sarah Mazzetti for Yahoo Style

Everyone remembers the over-the-top office Christmas party scene from Mad Men, right? The out-of-control boozing and smoking, the indiscriminate makeout sessions in every corner, the festive conga line through the halls of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce with Joan at the front in a fire-engine-red dress…and the trashed office at the end of the night!

Then again, that was 1964, when all manner of bad behavior was tolerated in the workplace, especially at a boozy office party. More than fifty years later, workplace socializing has become a potential minefield of missteps that can lead to anything from coworker side-eye and trips up to HR for a write-up, all the way to finding yourself among the next round of “unfortunate but necessary” layoffs— or, at worst, litigation. What might have been a mere case of “boys will be boys” in Don Draper’s era could today be construed as a violation of workplace sexual harassment or anti-discrimination policy.

And yet despite all that, at this most merry time of year, colleagues nationwide are expected to come together after a long day at work, in a venue replete with a DJ or karaoke machine and unlimited free liquor, for the undying ritual known as the holiday office party. Sure, there are those of us out there who actually look forward to this event–who somehow know how to finesse the slippery overlap between work and play, between our professional and our real selves. But for the vast majority of us, “office party” is a bit like saying “dentist picnic” or “jury-duty vacation.” They’re two words that just don’t go together.

That’s because we don’t associate the constraints we put on ourselves at work with the cocktail-lubricated unwinding among true friends we expect of a real party. “We have these unspoken rules and norms of workplace behavior, but the office party layers on a different set of expectations that really blurs boundaries,” says Nancy Rothbard, PhD, a professor at the Wharton School of Business who has researched the social dynamics of office parties. “And for a variety of reasons, some of us have less trouble navigating those boundaries than others.”

When those boundaries are navigated less than expertly, they can lead to moments that are cringe-ily funny at best, truly humiliating (and career-damaging) at worst. Says Emmy, who works in New York at a big website, “Once at this holiday party, some random dude who was way drunker than everyone at the party just came up to me and said he’d always thought I was cute, and did I want to make out? I just laughed and told him I had to get back to my boyfriend, who was five feet away talking to another coworker of mine.”

Then, she says, there was the work party at Webster Hall, the big downtown Manhattan club. “By the end of the night, the floor was so sticky from spilled drinks that people were falling down on each other like dominoes, with at least one serious injury.”

It’s not the first time that, like on Mad Men, an office party has become something of a bacchanal. And that can be great, a chance for people who work hard together day-in, day-out to blow off steam together and get crazy. Remembers Derek, a New Yorker, of the party for the law firm where he was a legal secretary: “It was insanely ritzy with an open bar all night. There was this bearish, super-sweet guy who worked in the mail room who obviously had way too much to drink. At one point, he was quite literally swinging from one of the ornate chandeliers— or at very least grasping feverishly for it.”

But then, says Derek, things got ugly. “First he had an altercation on the way out with the coat-check. Then he began conversing with the head of HR, a biker and overall cool lady. He abruptly called her something unseemly and slapped her across the face, apropos of nothing. Thankfully he was considered such a sweet man in general that he was not fired for his slip into insanity. The head of HR decided that his humiliation was punishment enough. But he was banned from ever going to another corporate party.”

Stories of such gasp-inducing behavior abound. One gay friend of mine remembers that the last time he had sex with a woman was at an office holiday party. He also remembers the party at the boss’ house where someone got so drunk they passed out in the boss’ tub with their pants down— only to be discovered by the boss’ 11-year-old daughter. Another friend, Kellee, a film editor in Chicago, remembers making out at a holiday party with the only straight man in the office, then getting so drunk that one of her managers had to put her up for the night–at which point Kellee vomited all over the jammies her manager had lent her.

Felipe, a Brooklyn finance editor, remembers a holiday party where “basically, soft-lit eighties porn was re-enacted in a couple of bathroom stalls.” And Ben, a dancer, remembers “catering a huge New York law firm’s party at Madame Toussaud’s Wax Museum where one of the secretaries got so drunk she threw up profusely in the middle of the floor and had to be carried out in a wheelchair.”

Krista, a publicist, recalls “the one time we had eggnog and a client of ours who said she’d never had eggnog before got sloshed in, like, 20 minutes. I thought it was hilarious, because how can you be thirty years old and never have had eggnog?” (Perhaps you grew up in one of those early vegan homes?)

According to Rothbard, if you have a history of not being able to handle (or put a limit on) your liquor, “a club soda would be advisable.” You can always use some convenient excuse for your teetotaling, like saying you’re on antibiotics or that you have to go later to your second job as a bus driver or heavy machinery operator.

And if alcohol-related humiliations weren’t bad enough, then there are the fashion faux pas. “Someone once told me that the office Christmas party was extremely dressy,” says Kate, an educational content executive in Brooklyn. “Having no experience at the time with a grown-up office party’s idea of dressing, I wore a mid-shin-length, puff-sleeved velvet Laura Ashley dress. Most people there were in regular early-nineties office wear and a couple wore sequined tops, but only I was wearing a Lady Di New Year’s dress.”

According to body-language expert Patti Wood, Kate was probably standing in a way that reflected her embarrassment. Wood says she loves to scan the room at corporate social events for tell-tale physical signs of who’s who. “Guys who know each other and feel they are of equal status will stand side-by-side as they talk to each other. Men who feel they need to compete to see who is alpha will stand face-to-face.”

And, she says, watch who hangs out by the food. “The one eating all the shrimp. That can be nervousness and anxiety. Also, when we feel vulnerable, we tend to hold plates and beverages close to the heart.” Influencer types, she says, “stand with their legs spread and toes pointed outward, hands on hips or gesturing broadly above the waist, speaking louder than necessary— like Donald Trump!”

The key to surviving the office party, says Rothbard, is knowing how to strike a balance between informality and appropriateness. “Warm but professional is your safest bet,” she says, “but if you can only do one, stick with professionalism. It’s not just any party. You’re still being evaluated in a professional context.”

One good tip? “Ask people about themselves,” she says. “People love to talk about themselves and hopefully you’ll not disclose too much about yourself.”

But Ennio, an Italy-born graphic designer, learned the hard way at an office party not to probe too deep. “A woman told me she was dating a man from Scotland and that she thought European men were better. I asked, ‘Better how? Better lovers?’ And she said, Yeah! And I said, you mean better in bed? And she said, Hell, yeah! So I told her that I’d dated both European and American men and couldn’t note a clear difference–except maybe foreskin.”

At which point, recounts Ennio, “she turned around and left the conversation. And the next day at work, people told me she was coming up to them saying, 'You know what that weird Italian guy told me yesterday?’”

But other people’s peccadillos make Ennio’s look mild. One friend told me about a colleague who got so drunk she plopped down on the boss’ lap. Another friend, recounting a holiday party at a fancy magazine, told me about a colleague who literally climbed over her boss on a banquette so she could slobber all over a famous writer who’d dropped in, who happened to be her hero.

“The boss roared, 'Who the hell are you? You’re fired!’” remembers my friend. “But the next day the second-in-command said of this person, who was really sweet and good at her job, and whom we’d already nicknamed Little Miss Moonshine, that you just can’t blame anyone for what happens at an office holiday party. So she kept her job and all ended well.”

Link to actual article in yahoo.com:

https://www.yahoo.com/style/slips-slurs-slappin-the-boss-the-most-200836832.html

Body Language Read of Sarah Hyland and Dominic Sherwood

The walking photo is intriguing. Dominic has his left hand holding arm out away from his side so the elbow is almost locked into formal “Groomsmen” position. “This position is used to escort women down the aisle at a wedding or you are escorted into formal dinners at a royal court.” Then his hand is gripping around the front of her hand and lifting it up in a superior caretaking position used by parents with otherwise wandering away children or adult children guiding their elderly parents. She is smiling but it’s a tight smile and her neck is straining in a way that shows she is trying to keep up and is stressed. I think he is trying to get her out of the camera’s range, but it does show that he wants to take a superior lead. I give that photo a 3, but I would have liked to have seen how they were out of the paparazzi’s eye fifteen minutes earlier.

The above photo shows how they are very playful with each other and highly attracted and sexual. I like how both of them have locked arms around each other as they press against each other in a way that not only shows they are in the world just for each other but also locks others out. Great energy for a celeb couple to have. Her puckered kiss is fun and playful and shows she trusts him enough to be a vulnerable little girl with him. His relaxed self-wrist hold says yes you are mine.

Patti's Tips For Relationships in the Month of December

December can be a wonderful month and a stressful month for our relationships. Sometimes all the twinkly lights and good food distract us from what matters most, our connection to those we love. I am not perfect, (though parts of me are excellent) and I recently messed up and hurt a friend. I was distracted by the twinkly lights and bacon dip and forgot to be empathetic to a loved ones needs. I was self-focused when I should have been other focused. I wish I had noticed. So I offer up a gift to give others for the holidays and a gift for you. Don’t be distracted. When a loved one has stood in the lines at Costco, battled through traffic, searched for a parking place, struggled to find the perfect gift or just gone out of their way to be there for you, notice it, say thank you, say you’re grateful, give them a good long hug, and, when you mean it, look them in the eye and say I love you.

In the wonderful book, “The Gift of Imperfection” Brene Brown defines connection as, “the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued: when they can give and receive without judgment: and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.” So be gentle with yourself, love yourself and all your imperfections and for the next few weeks love, see and value everyone, don’t judge yourself and don’t judge others. Show you notice that they are working as hard as they can. Notice the person who brings packages to your door, and the checkout person who asks you for your phone number, date of birth, (and the name of your first born.) Notice those you work with and the people who have been in your life for a good long while. Notice everyone as they work so hard to be there for you. Please notice them, and tell them you are grateful.

(As for the bacon dip, here is the recipe, just make sure you make it for someone you love.)

Patti’s “That’s so good!” Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato Dip

1/2 cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes (the best are from Trader Joes)
1 cup of roasted tomatoes. ( I put cherry tomatoes in the oven with olive oil for 30 minutes or more till the skin gets crispy)
1 cup sour cream
1 block of cream cheese
8 strips of gluten free bacon - fried and then crumbled (You can use the vegetarian bacon strips if you’re a vegetarian. They are made with coconut and are scrumptious.)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
You can add green onions or chopped onions, but I don’t always do that.
You can add a cup of hand shredded sharp cheddar cheese, but I don’t always do that.
You can replace the sour cream with plain yogurt.
You can add fresh tomatoes cut up.

You blend it in a big bowl with a spoon. Then put saran wrap over the bowl and put it in the fridge over night to let the flavors blend.