Become a starfish!
There is a simple technique that you can use to boost your confidence, reduce anxiety and improve your ability to deal with stress.
What may surprise you is that it works immediately and only takes two minutes!
This is how it works:
Amy Cuddy, Harvard Business School professor, gave a now famous TED Talk on the benefits of “power-posing”, which consists on changing your body language in ways that can make you feel more confident.
Cuddy and her team noticed that humans and other animals express power through open, expansive postures, and they express powerlessness through closed, contractive postures. It could be argued that those powerful postures indicate to the world that the individuals with the expansive postures are powerful. But, is there more than that? Do they actually feel more powerful as well? The research team designed experiments to determine if these postures can actually cause power and confidence.
The people participating in the study were asked to do a high-power pose (such as hands in the air), or a low-power pose (hunching over and crossing arms) for two minutes. Their testosterone and cortisol levels were measured before and after doing the power posing.
The results showed the impact of body language on the hormones. High power poses increased testosterone by 20 percent and decreased cortisol levels by 25 percent.
Higher levels of testosterone (in both men and women) lead to increased feelings of confidence, while lower levels of cortisol lead to decreased anxiety and an improved ability to deal with stress. Therefore, it is not surprising that powerful leaders tend to have higher levels of testosterone and lower levels of cortisol.
The relevance of these results is that our posture and body language, not only affects the way other see us, but also the way we feel. And the best part is that we can purposely modify our hormone levels to become more confident by striking a power pose for two minutes.
So next time you have an important meeting, a presentation or a difficult conversation, find a private place (like a bathroom stall) to do a power pose for two minutes. You can stand like a starfish with your legs spread apart, chin up, and your arms high in the air, taking as much space as possible. Another alternative is standing like Superman or Wonder Woman, standing tall with feet hip-width apart, opening your chest, throwing your shoulders back and planting your hands on your hips.
You can also make power posing part of your morning routine, while doing breathing exercises or meditating. You will start your day with confidence.
It has also been suggested that the very common practice of sleeping on your side with your arms and legs pulled toward your torso is a low-power position that can make you feel insecure in the morning. Adopting an open position, with your arms and legs outstretched, or with your hands behind your head, is a better alternative to wake up feeling more confident.
There are many aspects to feeling confident and this research shows that body language is one of them. You now have a practical tool in your toolbox to boost your confidence and reduce your stress whenever you need it.
