5 Ways of Improving Your Body Language

5 Ways of Improving Your Body Language.

Your body language speaks volumes about you and we are all fluent. So how can you improve your body language to make you look more confident and consequently less likely to be bullied?

We can't get away from body language, and we are always communicating something; confidence, nervousness, anger or upset. Whether you are meaning to or not, your body will give away tell tale signs that other people will be able to pick up on. For example if you are nervous you may tap your fingers, fold your arms or cross your legs.

Young people can be mean and they can pick up on small differences and weaknesses such as a lack of confidence. Don't let your body language be the reason you're getting bullied!

Body language is an outer reflection of our inner feelings, but it can also work the other way round. Your feelings can reflect your body language and so you can control your feelings just by changing the way you stand or walk. This concept we call "fake it to make it" and is based on the idea that faking a smile can actually make you feel happier - a concept that works hugely well in laughter therapy. Laughter therapy is short sessions where you force yourself to laugh from the belly. This laugh spreads and become sincere until eventually a whole room is manically laughing at nothing can help reduce stress, make people and employees happier and more committed, as well as improve their interpersonal skills.

So, what 5 things can we do to improve our body language?

1.        Put your shoulders down! 

As humans, we carry a huge amount of stress and tension in our shoulders; this can cause them to rise up to your neck at times when we are feeling unsure, nervous or frightened. Dropping your shoulders will release this tension and will immediately make you look and feel more confident and less stressed.

2.        Uncross your legs

Crossing one leg over the other is a protective movement and is often done to protect a person’s private area from possible danger. It's something we naturally do when in the dentist’s chair or at the doctors. Crossing our legs to other people can look as though we are frightened and intimidated. It also makes our base look weak and we look easy to push over or knock off balance. Take a strong stance with wide feet that would be difficult to knock over and feel (and look) more confident!

3.        Look Up!

No-one is going to look at you or listen if your eyes are glued to the ground and your face isn't on show. It also makes you look stand offish, uninterested and upset. Look up, let people see and read what is happening in your face. People are more trusting and friendly if they can see your face. They are also more likely to be engaged in your conversation partly because you are able to keep eye contact.

4.        Keep Eye Contact

Eye contact is a huge part of communication and with our eyes we can show trust, deceit, warmth, power or confidence with a single glance. Our eyes are the window to our soul and you can work a lot out about someone by looking in their eyes. Thus by avoiding eye contact you might be communicating a lack in confidence, deceit or a lack of care.

It's not always easy maintaining eye contact, so how do we "fake it to make it" to show confidence? If you’re not comfortable looking directly in someone’s eyes then there is one trick to make it look as if you are. An equilateral triangle forms from one eyebrow to another and down to the top centre of someone’s nose, this triangle of skin is a point that if you look at directly it looks as if you are staring into someone’s eyes. Give it a go!

     5.       Try to show your palms.

This one sounds a bit left field, but (trust me) it works. By showing the palms of our hands people tend to trust us more; it's partly because open palms highlight that you clearly have no weapons and also shows you are not hiding anything. If you want trust and authority the palms open is the best body language to adopt. Just by turning over our hands so our palms are down, or closing our fists, we take away this trust and people feel intimidated and patronised.

So there you have it! 5 simple ways of improving your body language so you look and feel more confident and people treat you better. Try to turn these actions into habits and you’ll be on track to becoming a happier and more confident person!

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