Patti Wood Body Language Expert Blog

Quick Ways to Feel More Energetic

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.

What You Can Say To Stop A Bully

Yes, you can look for these behaviors. I would also say you need to be aware of how you feel in the presence of person. If you “feel” bullied, check in on what you are hearing in the words and the nonverbals. Bullies sometimes know exactly what they are doing and they get what they want. Sometimes they don’t know. In either case you have many ways of dealing with it. One possibility if you are awake and aware is to say,

· Och,

· Och, that hurts

· (Action - hold up your hand in a stop hand position.) Stop!

· I am willing to listen to what you have to say, but you need to say it to me in a different way, please speak to me with honor and respect.

· I am feeling uncomfortable with how you are speaking to me.

· You may not be aware of it but, I feel you are not treating me with respect.

· You’re not treating me with respect. I ask that you change the way you are speaking with me

· Stop, I ask that you treat me with honor and respect.

· I don’t deserve that tone of voice, please speak to me with honor and respect.

· I am stopping this conversation because you are not treating me with respect.

Notice that you don’t call anyone a bully in any of these options. Do not label or name call, ask instead for what you want.

Five Tips for Getting Your Children Involved in Politics

Here are five tips I would suggest to get your children involved in politics.

First have them listen to and watch and read the platforms and voting habits of their senators, congressman and women and the political candidates and talk to them about what they see and notice.

For example, recently children have seen politician being bully’. If they are young you can have them imagine a child on the playground saying those things and acting in a particular manner and ask them how they would feel and what that shows about the politicians. ( How would you feel? How would you feel if someone said those things about you?) Watch the debates with your children and have them count and point out the good strong comments and ideas and the attacks and jabs. Have them express what they like and don’t like. Stop the recording and talk about what you have seen and ask them their feeling and state yours!

Second, have them take public speaking and debate classes and enter speech competitions. This will build their confidence and give them a skills that will benefit them the rest of the their lives. The more they speak the better they will be.

Have them take classes on interpersonal skills, logic, and negotiations and teach them how to make friends, form alliances, network, small talk, connect to others and be nice.

Teach them how to meet greet shake hands and make a stranger feel at ease. I have conducted several years of research on first impressions and greeting behavior this is also a set of skills that will serve them well.

Finally I suggest that you see if they would like to volunteer to work on a campaign or assist in the office of a politician. I was a volunteer for a Florida state senator when I was in grad school. I learned so much. One of the things I realized is that my senator was only working three days a week and rarely was present for votes. That guided me to look at voting records of candidates and be very aware of the work ethic of the people I voted for!

First Impressions, Handshakes Are Key To Women In Leadership

Below is an article in NEWSOK.com highlighting Patti's recent program for Meinders School of Business in Oklahoma City.

First impressions, handshakes are key to women in leadership

By:Paula Burkes | April 20, 2016
Attention businesswomen: Want to be more successful in the workplace? Don't worry so much, and master the perfect handshake. Such was the advice of presenters at a women's leadership conference on Wednesday that drew 310 attendees to the Cox Convention Center. Oklahoma City University's Meinders School of Business hosted the seventh annual event, which was presented by the Chickasaw Nation.

Nancy Parsons, CEO of Tulsa-founded and now Texas-based CDR Assessment Group, said studies show men and women are basically equal in leadership energy, calmness and emotions.

“But under pressure, men dominate and women tend to move away and not speak up,” she said.

Her company offers coaching tools that, along with leadership characteristics, measure inherent negative risk factors, including rule breaking, egotism and upstaging, which all are more common to men but — perception-wise — more detrimental to women, Parsons said.

For example, a male rule breaker is seen as a change agent, while a female rule breaker is viewed as inconsistent, she said. Meanwhile, an egotistical male is perceived as overconfident, while an egotistical female frequently is called the b word.

“We're taking ourselves out of the running for fear of failure,” Parsons said. “We women often work harder, putting in 80 hours, but we're not being noticed because we're not speaking up,” she said, noting worrying is seen as a lack of courage, and companies want leaders with courage.

Atlanta-based body language expert Patti Wood said first impressions on credibility, likability, attraction and power are made within the first second of meeting someone, and take up to six months of face-to-face interaction to change.

Because women want to be perceived as equals, they always should extend their hands for handshakes, Wood said.

When someone approaches, people should raise their eyebrows to show an openness, which causes approachers to be open, Wood said. “Then scoop in, with your hand tilted down, so you get a palm-to-palm firm grip, versus someone grabbing the end of your fingers in a wimpy handshake,” she said.

To compensate for bone-crusher handshakes: “Use your free hand to encompass the shake, and send the symbolic message, ‘You're surrounded,' ” she said.

For shakers who won't let go: “Lean in over your right foot, to discombobulate them so they'll loosen their grip and you can splay your fingers and break down and away.”

Other conference highlights include:

•Jaynie Studenmund, a public company board member of LifeLock, Pinnacle Entertainment and Core Logic, and former southern California banking and Internet executive, said colleagues always trump products.

“An A group of people can turn a B product into an A product,” she said. Also, “keep walking cash, so you're not emboldened to a particular job because of what it pays” and “Take jobs or board positions to get out of your comfort zone.”

•Brian Uzzi, a professor of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, said networking is not about having lunch, but sharing sports, nonprofit, community service and other activities with something at stake, such as a record to break.

“Through shared activities, we build trust with a diverse group of people who see our true colors,” Uzzi said.

Bill Gates' big break came through his mom's service with an IBM executive on a United Way board, he said. When IBM opened up its desktop publishing division, it — at the suggestion of Gates' mom, Mary Gates — opened proposals to smaller companies and Microsoft won the exclusive licensing agreement.

So What Are Some Signs That The Person You're Dating Actually Has Antisocial Personality Disorder? How Can You Tell You Are Dating A Jerk Or Narcissist Or Sociopath?

Below is information on a Pod cast series I was interviewed on about this topic. My podcast interview airs tomorrow!

April 21, 2016

How to tell if you are dating someone that is not safe? How can you tell you are dating a jerk, a narcissist or sociopath? We are hard-wired to pick up on credibility. The first impression in the basic survival instinct asks, "Can I trust this person? Can I feel safe in his or her presence? Is he or she going to pull a knife out? No, I can believe what I'm seeing as the real thing." Credibility is vital and primary. Knowing what it feels like to be with a healthy person helps you know when you are with someone who is unhealthy and treating you or has the potential to treat you in unhealthy ways.

I do an interesting exercise with my body language speech and workshop audiences. I say, “I’d like you to think about a person in your life who you think is the most credible person you know. There is something about them that makes you feel absolutely safe in their presence. You can believe them. What is it about them that makes you feel that way? What kind of behavior do they demonstrate? What do they say? Are there things they do with their hands, their body that makes you tell yourself, “This person has integrity”?

Think about this person you just described as your "True North." A person of Credibility. If you have a" True North" in your life, it becomes easier to recognize what it's like to be in the presence of someone who truly demonstrates credibility. You know if it feels safe and it is typically energizing rather than draining because you are not in your Freeze, Flight, Fight, Fall or Faint stress response to danger. (Romantically that doesn’t mean you don’t feel excited, it just means under that excitement you should feel safe.)

Tension- So if you are with someone and you feel tense, uneasy, off balance, over charged, you don’t laugh fully only stress laugh and they DON”T PICK UP ON your discomfort and make you feel at ease that is a sign you are with an unhealthy person.
A sociopath may pick up on your stress and call you on it and make you feel wrong or bad for feeling uncomfortable. Perhaps saying something like, “Hey you shouldn’t be so tense.” A healthy person wants you to feel good and safe and will want to know what they can do to make you feel comfortable. An unhealthy person may get “Charged” by making you uncomfortable. (See the study below.)

Teasing - An unhealthy person may even make fun of or push to make your discomfort increase. That is not to say that healthy teasing and play aren’t good and a fun part of healthy dating and relationships but, healthy teasing makes you feel good. You don’t feel anxious or ill at ease and constantly wonder what is wrong when you are in the presence of a healthy person.

Pushing and making you wrong - Unhealthy people will keep pushing and if they do try to comfort the comfort may feel slick, artificial, on the surface or insincere. The comfort will NOT comfort you. And let me repeat an unhealthy person makes you feel that you are unhealthy or that you may be doing something wrong. Healthy people don’t keep pushing!

High-Testosterone People Feel Rewarded By Others' Anger, New Study Finds
ScienceDaily (May 12, 2007) — Most people don't appreciate an angry look, but a new University of Michigan psychology study found that some people find angry expressions so rewarding that they will readily learn ways to encourage them.

"It's kind of striking that an angry facial expression is consciously valued as a very negative signal by almost everyone, yet at a non-conscious level can be like a tasty morsel that some people will vigorously work for," said Oliver Schultheiss, co-author of the study and a U-M associate professor of psychology.

The findings may explain why some people like to tease each other so much, he added. "Perhaps teasers are reinforced by that fleeting 'annoyed look' on someone else's face and therefore will continue to heckle that person to get that look again and again," he said. "As long as it does not stay there for long, it's not perceived as a threat, but as a reward."

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.