Patti Wood Body Language Expert Blog

Lavender not only helps you sleep it makes the sleep you get deeper!

You've probably heard that the smell of lavender helps you to get to sleep. New research shows it helps improve sleep as well. People who breathed lavender scent as they slept enjoyed a 20% increase in the quality of their slumber. So find a lotion with lavender in it and put on a little before you go to sleep.

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.

Creating the Perfect Light for Sleep

For a sounder slumber and quicker going to sleep time replace your bed side lightbulbs with one labeled warm white or soft white. Research shows reading in the soft light prompts the brain to release melatonin hormones that promote sleep. When I'm on the road, I put my hot pink hoodie sweatshirt over the bedside table lamp to give the light in the evening a soft pink glow one that promotes the correct brain waves for sleep.

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.

Create a Set of Nighttime Rituals

Before I go to bed I check the locks on all the doors, turn out the lights, let out the dog, wash my face, pull down the shade in the bedroom and curl up with a good book. Creating nightly rituals like checking the house, brushing your teeth, reading before bedtime will send subconscious signals to your brain it's time to relax.

Losing Your Memory? Pick Up a Pack of Gum!

Did you know I was the national spokesperson for Wrigley's spearmint gum? In fact, I helped develop the Chew IQ test that distinguished your personality type based on your chewing style. During my time researching as national spokesperson, I discovered that chewing gum has many positive benefits. There's new research out that confirms one of those key benefits that chewing gum can actually improve your memory. Next time your attention is flagging before a late-in-the day meeting, pop a piece of gum in your mouth to help you stay sharp. British researchers have found that chewing gum improves performance on tasks that involve tuning into audio cues that is listening to somebody talk and retaining key information in short-term memory. In the study, subjects listened to random lists of numbers for 30 minutes, then were tested on their ability to pick up patterns. Compared with non-chewers the gun group detected patterns more quickly and accurately and their abilities improved as the task progressed. The action of chewing seems to temporarily increased blood flow to the brain, allowing more energizing oxygen to reach brain cells. Personally, I would recommend that you chew the gum before your meeting and then spit it out and put it in a piece of paper in the trash before going in the meeting room so people won't see you chewing the gum but your brain will be supercharged to remember what they say.

Speech Anxiety is a Good Thing

Quick Fix for Stage Fright

Standing in front of an audience with your heart racing, your palms sweating, terrified and wishing you were anywhere else but in front of that audience?

Good news is at hand!

Research from University of Rochester New York suggests that embracing your stress symptoms as beneficial can help you stay calm and collect yourself during your speech. When subjects in the research were encouraged to consider the physical signs of nervousness like sweaty palms and heart racing as natural and even advantageous they were more relaxed and had better bloodflow during the high-pressure speech assignment than those who were not trying to view their anxiety in a positive light.

So reframe your stress. See it as a good thing. Use all that energy to give a terrific presentation.

Are Headaches Keeping You from Sleeping?

If tension headaches are keeping you from sleeping there are options. Researchers say that people with chronic tension headaches who took 3 mg of melatonin daily for three months reported six fewer episodes a month and the headaches they did get were less painful due to the sleep inducing supplement. Most antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds may help counter the inflammatory enzyme that trigger head pain. So if your doctor says it's safe to take melatonin take one tablet before bedtime to prevent headaches and get a good night sleep.

Ways to Get a Good Night Sleep

Studies show that having a good evening laugh like watching Bridesmaids or the Bachelor after dinner improves your sleep by making the brain release more of the sleep hormone melatonin. You don't have time for a movie and it's time for bed? You could do exercises to release the day's stress. With laugh exercises breathe like you do when you laugh. As it turns out, by just mimicking the breathing motions of laughter you can relieve stress and improve your circulation, digestion and sleep.

Steps for laughing exercise:

put your hands in front of your chest
put your palms out, and as you push your palms forward twice giving a deep belly sounding HO each time
then press your palms down twice saying HA each time

Now turn to your sweetie and notice they are looking at you and laughing and ask them to thank you for helping them fall asleep.

Is Your Smartphone Ruining Your Sleep?

Have you ever wondered why you couldn't go to sleep at night? Have you ever picked up your cell phone late at night to send just one more text?

Latest research shows us that sending text messages and surfing the web within two hours of going to sleep boost your stress levels more than any other pre-sleep activity. More than watching TV, sending emails or even making love. Researchers suspect that late-night texts or Internet searches ignite alert centers in the brain that interfere with deep sleep. In my book SNAP in the chapter on text impressions I discuss how those quick shallow decisions of texting and surfing actually extend and deepen pathways to the EGAN centers of the brain sending stress hormones. So read a book late at night and send the text tomorrow.

Smell Can Help You Make a First Impression

You can "SNIFF out someone's personality in a SNAP. The four first impression factors are credibility, likability, attractiveness and power.

New research says that you can use your sense of smell to tell if someone isn't nice. A new study in the Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, reveals that self-centered or domineering people (those high on power) have higher levels of stress hormones --- and that those hormones emit a unique scent that is detected by your lymbic and subconsciously alerts us to their true personality! Thus if you get a gut feeling that someone isn't nice, it may be our sense of smell that's identifying that personality trait for you. So don't leave your house if you have a cold.

Video of Miley, SNL, Today Show, Tongue Thrusts, Sticking Out Your Tongue, Body Language Read of Miley

Miley, SNL, Today Show, Tongue Thrusts, Sticking Out Your Tongue

Body Language Expert Patti Wood will be talking about
Miley's body language on the Today Show and on her recent SNL interview.

Baby's thrust their tongues to as they nurse and to "self comfort" or self sooth. When a babies stop thrusting their tongues when they are not nursing it is a sign that they are ready to eat solid food. Miley thrust out her tongue to show she was ready to grow up and be seen as a sexual being. As she did it with the entire tongue thrusting out of the mouth and held is very sexual and aggressive.

During the Saturday Night Live Monologue she appeared confident and sassy. She came out giving a prayer steeple and self comfort handclasp. As she said, "I don't apologize for my VMA performance." Eye flutter. That she still feels bad about it. Though she appeared at one level to be UBER confident for the entire monologue their was something that may surprise you that revealed what she was feeling underneath the hupla and performance façade. It was very very subtle. When I do a read of a performance like this I have the first level read of how they performance and then how they feel about what they are saying. What was the most interesting that when she said, I'm not going to do Hannah Montana - She did a rapid eye flutter that indicated she high anxiety she I hate that old role in my life, I am done with that child persona. Then she said, "... but I can give you an update on what she's been up to. She was murdered." and then did a eye shutter. Though her voice was coached and powerful as she said she was murdered she puckered her mouth with distaste. She didn't really like saying that. So as much as you think she was confident and having the time of her life, their was a "tell" that she was

From SNL: She said

MILEY: I don't apologize for my VMA performance. If I owe anybody an apology it's the people who make the bottom half of shirts, but there are a few subjects we're not going to get into tonight. I'm not going to do Hannah Montana - but I can give you an update on what she's been up to. She was murdered. And also, we went back and forth on this - but guys, I just don't think we should do that wrecking ball sketch.

BOBBY: What? I mean, come on...

MILEY: Sorry Bobby

On the today
TODAY SHOW INTERVIEW
She was a

TODAY:

IN: 00:00:01

MILEY: I don't really worry about anything because I know who I am, and I know that I'm and artist and I know that I've put all of this time and this effort into my record and my record is proof of really who I am and you know I said something before - where for me the most important thing is being a really good person and that doesn't depend on what you do on stage - that depends how you treat people when you're off stage - and I know how I treat people, so I'm not really too worried about it.

TODAY

MATT: Any do-overs in terms of your career right now? Is there something you'd like to do differently that you've done in the last couple of months?

MILEY: I can't change anything. Can't go back, so I can do a lot of things but I can't change the past - so nothing. Can't change. but you know, anything I can't control I don't really think about. I just live my life the way it is and I don't really regret anything.

Can't go back rather than I can't go back, Can't Change, Depersonalize it. Taking away her responsibility for what she did in at the awards. Then she speeds even faster than her baseline through the, I don't regret anything.

TODAY:

MATT: Do you have a five-year plan? You said you don't plan things a second ago. I think you meant overnight, but do you have a five-year plan?

MILEY: Not really. I'm just - I'm focused on when I get to go on tour - which is gonna be next year - which I'm really excited about. And, so that's really my focus. My plan is focusing on right now and continuing what I'm doing because everything - I'm the happiest I've ever been in my whole life so I'm really happy to be here.

In the media interviewing BIZ they call that statement aTalking point. It a prewritten rehearsed statement, written by your marketing team. Notice how she She rushes into it. Letting me know it is prepared statement.

Body Language Read of Orlando Bloom and Miranda Kerr

Patti read the body language of Orlando and Miranda for Life & Style as they made their entrance at the Broadway play, Romeo and Juliet in NYC. Patti noted that their bodies create the shape of a heart. She also noted that with his embrace, it shows that Orlando loves and cherishes Miranda. His face is soft. He's at ease with her. Miranda is posing for the camera, but her body is relaxed. She's at ease with him too! Patti gives this couple a 4 on the True Love Rating scale!

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.