Ways of dealing with stress, decision making, crisis management during the Corona Virus.

I am an expert on nonverbal communication and human behavior and speak on dealing with and recovering from crisis, grief, and trauma.

Ways of dealing with stress, decision making, crisis management during the Corona Virus. 

1. You have interacting remotely down and you can pivot and adapt to the need to do so. Your tech confidence gives you an advantage.
2. Call on your social media network for support and to offer support. What can you do for others? What are the critical things you need? Ask, offer to help, follow through with that help and make your needs clear and specific. 
3. If you don’t already have multiple ways to connect to treasured contacts make sure you have phone numbers and email addresses for people you interact with on social media. Do that today an also print it out and have a hard copy. You can print out a hard copy of your contacts on your phone easily. I would also advise you to send a list of your important close contacts to your friends, family, and neighbors should they need to reach you.
4. You may want to initiate check-in rituals for your key friends family and contacts where you just talk about your day and how you are. You may be used to checking in all the time and having full access but that may be overwhelming so I would suggest a ritual be it Good morning contact, dinner chat or a good night sleep well chat. To give you and you network a sense of continuity and security. That way throughout your day if its stressful you know you can hold it together or if something good happens you can look forward to sharing it in that check-in interaction. Start all your interactions with a request for information about THEM, don’t rush to share. It will really help to focus on other’s needs.
5. Have something you can do at home that calms you and gives you the pleasure that is in no way tech-related. A pet, a musical instrument and a how-to-play training book, an art kit with paints, pens and such, and or hard copy books. Plan on a ritual every night of doing something that gets you off of tech and away from the news.

When you talk to other people face to face you lay down neural pathways to the social centers of your brain.  Those pathways are strong and have “broad bandwidth” capacity and are built to handle many situations including stress and decision making, The more you interact interpersonally human to human in person and even on the phone with access to a person’s vocal “paralanguage” the stronger the pathways become.  

But ANYONE who spends large amounts of time on tech including millennials is making what are called quick “shallow decisions”, such as, “I want this text. I don't want this text. ““I want this website it’s interesting. I don't want this one it’s boring” “I want this text.” “I don’t want to respond to this” These quick shallow decisions lay down pathways to the ego centers of your brain and gives you a bit of high and can make you feel superior to those around you but, the pathways formed from shallow decisions are narrow fragile and are more likely to break down under any stress and make it difficult to make decisions or take action that requires interpersonal interaction without tech. 

So millennials under stress know that it may be more difficult to make decisions and perhaps more challenging to do things that require phone or face to face interactions. So take a deep breath if you feel like freeze up and know you can ask others for help. (if you are older and grew up with-out tech prepare to counsel and coach on a more than you ever have)  If you are that millennial start creating good decision making habits like pro and cons of your decisions, informing yourself and seeking wise counsel on decisions.  Heck look up, “Great ways to make decisions.” You got this. 

Patti Wood, MA - 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.
     

Body Language Expert and Executive Coach

I am a body language and human behavior expert and I have coached business owners and C-suite executives for over 20 years.

My work has always included being a sounding board as well giving coaching on leadership, presentation, team building, and interpersonal skills. I am offering more coaching on how to recognize and deal with the fraud that arises in turbulent times,

lead through technology, and how to help them pivot their businesses quickly to adapt to rapid changes as well as maintain and build a strong healthy culture and healthy communication in their family life.

For example, I have several clients that I have worked with to change everything from their outgoing phone mail messages for their businesses,

their greetings, personal check-ins, and goodbyes on one and one and calls and conference calls, as well as what they wear, have showing behind them on Zoom calls.  

I have coached clients that have had meetings with politicians, government officials, and the media.

I also coach on grief loss and trauma so I have been able to offer that support to my current clients, but as yet I have

not marketed that. I am a speechwriter and often help clients create humor for their speeches and now I have pivoted to also help them use humor on their

conference calls. Our marketing material for the topics is evolving and I am currently creating a new website for the company.  

My cell phone is 678-358-6160.

Patti Wood, MA - 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.
     

Respecting Different Generations in the Workplace. Why We Are Addicted to Our Technology. Why Tech Use May Affect Our Relationships and Decision Making

One of the simple tips to working with different generations in the workplace is to train and lead employees to recognize and respect what each generation has to offer and what they need rather than negating or ignoring pushing to be whatever the leader thinks is normal. For example, if a generation Y has been raised on technology their brains have been wired to make quick “Shallow” decisions like, "I want this text and I don’t want that one."

They will have more trouble interacting face to face and may have trouble making decisions under stress. So for them, know that requesting that they go down the hall and talk to Joe is like asking them to get on a dog sled, yell, "Mush" to the huskies, ride up to Alaska, and over to Siberia and speak Russian to Joe. They may think that’s too hard and scary, and or ridiculous when they can message him on their phone instead.” Respect the fact that they can process thousands of tech messages a day and if you need them to interact face to face you need to approach it like they need training in a completely different language and culture or say a totally different technology or software and spend the same amount of time and effort to help them learn how to do it as you would those huge shifts in how to work. 

Why We Are Addicted to Our Technology.

Why Tech Use May Affect Our Relationships and Decision Making

When you interact with a technological device you make what is labeled in the research “quick shallow decisions”, such as, “I want this text. I don't want this text. ““I want this website it’s interesting. I don't want this one it’s boring” “I want to take this call.” “I don’t want to take this call.”

The front of the brain (the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex if you want to know the five-dollar term) that helps us make decisions and integrates complex information and short term memory are activated, so we can make a quick go or no-go decisions. It’s called Continual Partial Attention. It allows us to keep tabs on everything, but never really focus on anything.

 These quick shallow decisions lay down pathways to the ego centers of your brain. In fact, doing so gives you a bit of a hit of a chemical high. If you find yourself hunched over your electronic device or see a coworker that can’t seem to stay focused as he checks his device while he is supposed to be having a conversation with you, or the teenager that listens to music while texting on another device and talking on his cell. Well, guess what? This rewiring for partial attention causes a techno addiction. We stay busy attending. We want that new bit of news or information to keep us excited and high and it feeds our self-worth. Yep, it feeds the part of the hippocampus that enlarges our ego. It actually makes us cocky enough to rudely answer a cell phone call when we are in a meeting or out with a friend or family member. Techno's business is dark chocolate, caffeine, and heroin-like ego-boosting high.

So when you check your phone when you are bored or stressed. If not only gives you a chemical boost you get high, feel in control and because you are getting a hit to the ego centers of the brain it makes you feel superior to those around you.

You can now understand why people are constantly checking their phones, especially when they are stressed or have no other activity or are bored and why techno jerk doing it rudely seems irritated and uncomfortable to have asked him to stop interacting with his phone or gets irritated when you want to talk with him face to face. Unfortunately, to successfully make quick shallow decisions you are laying done pathways to the ego portion of the brain and having the face-to-face interactions that lay down pathways to the social centers of the brain. You’re laying your tracks down to the ego center that produces that nice addictive high but interpersonal communication becomes more difficult and may even feel like an inferior means of interacting. Something you are "above" having to do. “

Again, when you talk to other people face-to-face you lay down neural pathways to the social centers of your brain.  The more you interact interpersonally human to human the stronger the pathways become. Meeting people and talking to them becomes easier and you become more skilled and confident. And researchers have found that the pathways to the social centers are superhighways that stay strong and work even under stress while the pathways we form when we make quick shallow decisions are weak and so fragile they break down when we are under stress.

Why Technology is Stressing Us Out? Technology and the Brain

1. The pruning of (reduction) neural pathways in the brain when we are young is based on how we use our brain. The brain prunes pathways we don’t use and keeps the neural pathways we use the most.
2. The ones laid down when we are highly focused on activities like reading a book or having a deep conversation are deeper and have more capacity like wide superhighways. They can handle more information overload when we are under stress like a highway can handle more cars in commute time than a surface road.
3. The neural pathways laid down for the quick shallow decisions we make when we are on technology such as, “I want this email I don’t want this one.” “I want this website in my Google search I don’t want that one.” are shallow and thin pathways that actually break apart under stress because of their low capacity, like a bridge could collapse if too many cars and trucks are on it at the same time. These are the kind  neural pathways that young people are forming the most. And the kind that form in anyone who spends hours day making quick shallow decisions on technology.
4. If we don’t have focused attention and deep social bonds and enough face to face interactions therefore only have the shallow, narrow, neural pathways formed with our use of technology we have trouble handling stress. We may feel overwhelmed and helpless and unable to make a decision. We may have panic attacks, freeze in place, get sick or call our mommies for help. Anyone that uses technology a lot can form more shallow narrow pathways and therefore have less ability to think and function under stress. Even having a phone or other device of yours in the same room has been shown to create distraction and partial attention thereby reduce you cognition and memory ability, making it difficult for you to solve problems and make decisions!!!

Patti Wood, MA - 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.
     

Body Language of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's final appearance as senior royals at the annual Commonwealth Service

Prince Harry Feels Tense Around the Queen, According to a Body Language Expert

"His head is downcast. He's trying..."

By Bianca Rodriguez 

Mar 9, 2020

Monday marked Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's final appearance as senior royals at the annual Commonwealth Service at London's Westminster Abbey. The couple announced back in January that they would be stepping back from their royal duties to focus on their son Archie and the launch of their new nonprofit. The Queen reportedly knew little of this plan—and had not approved it—when they made their announcement, which, you know, got pretty awkward.

However! Family is family, and in the end, this too will pass (probably). Just this month, the Queen sat down with Harry for a "heart-to-heart." But the Commonwealth ceremony was the first time the Queen and her beloved grandson had appeared in public. They didn't walk in together, but the body language between them said a lot. In particular, we're focused on the moment that the Queen walked up to take her front-row seat at the ceremony, with Harry and Meghan in the row behind them. You can watch it below, starting at 16:30.

Patti Wood, body language expert and author of Snap: Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language, and Charisma, gave Marie Claire the lowdown on how the couple and the Queen were really feeling, based on their body language. "The Queen is looking down and not looking at them, and Meghan is smiling. I would say that's fairly genuine because it's made along with eye contact," says Wood.

She added: "If you look at her hand, she's holding on to the paper, but you notice how relaxed her fingers are and how open the fingers are. She's not tensely holding the paper. It's very relaxed. That says that she's fine. She's okay. It's all good."

"But when you go to him, if you look, his head is downcast, and he's trying. He's looking at his grandma. If you look at the eyebrows in that photo, it's concerned," continues Wood. "It's more you wouldn't know he's the grandson in that photo—you would think he was some sort of subservient in a greater way. It shows a change in his status, his feelings."

"It's not negative. It's just revealing," she explains.

Interesting! Now I'm left wondering how that four-hour meeting really went.

https://www.marieclaire.com/celebrity/amp31279505/meghan-harry-queen-commonwealth-body-language/?fbclid=IwAR1nAuB5gPT0wXUQTM7NkdNM21bVczjhg5_VClgHTun3m40yPN2g8StVXSg






Patti Wood, MA - 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.
     

Steps to take to Connect to Others and Deal With Stress During the Corona Virus Outbreak.

1. If you are reading this you have to "interact remotely" down and you can pivot and adapt to the need to do so. Your tech confidence gives you an advantage as we move through this challenging time.  
2. Call on your network including your social media network for support and to offer support. How are they doing? What can you do for them? What are the critical things you need or may need as you and your network go through this? 


3. You may want to initiate check-in rituals for your key friends family and contacts where you just talk about your day and how you are. You may be used to checking in all the time and having full access but that may be overwhelming so I would suggest a ritual be it Good morning contact, dinner chat or a good night sleep well chat. To give you and your network a sense of continuity and security. That way throughout your day if it's stressful you know you can hold it together or if something good happens you can look forward to sharing it in that check-in interaction. Start all your interactions with a request for information about THEM, don’t rush to share. It will really help to focus on other’s needs.
4. If you don’t already have multiple ways to connect to treasured contacts make sure you have phone numbers and email addresses for people you interact with on social media. Do that today an also print it out and have a hard copy. You can print out your contacts on your phone easily
5. Have something you can do at home that calms you and gives you the pleasure that is in no way tech-related. A pet, a musical instrument and a how-to-play training book, an art kit with paints, pens and such, and or hard copy books. Plan on a ritual every night of doing something that gets you off of tech and away from the news. 

Patti Wood, MA - 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.