Body Language | Eye-opening Facts on Communication

Body language is a non-verbal communication that says beyond our verbal language. It says a lot about people in a particular communication, like a person’s interest, expression, mood, nervousness, etc.

You probably heard about the metrics, which says in a communication spoken words matters only 7 percent, voice tone 38percent and the big chunk, body language matters 55 percent.

As I previously mentioned that body language says a lot, for instance, I assume that you have the experience when you went to your friend’s home and before he explained his sadness you got that earlier by his or her physical behavior. That’s the power of body language.

So, simply body language is nothing but physical behavior that expresses a lot of cues about a person’s current situation of his state of mind and body. Body language helps us to communicate with others at an optimal level.

1. Different types of body language
2. Negative body languages
3. Positive body languages
4. Conclusion

Different types of body languages

We can see many different types of body language, like facial expression, body posture, hand gestures, head signal, oculesics, proxemics, etc. We will discuss every major type of body language briefly.

Facial expressions

Faces show our emotions. The human face is extremely expressive with its many muscles with the combination of eyes, eyebrow, lips, nose, and cheek movement.

According to Dr. Paul Ekman, who is an American psychologist and a pioneer in human emotion and their relation to facial expression, there are two types of facial expression. Macro expression and micro expression.

Macro expressions are obvious and normal and last between half of a second two-four second. On the other hand micro expressions are creepy and often misinterpreted and occur in half a second or less. It occurs in everyone and often without their knowledge and there is no other way to prevent them from occurring.

Facial expressions are universal, someone born in Africa makes the same expression as someone who lives in America or India. One another fact researcher found that children born blind also have the same facial expression. That means facial expressions are not taught. Researchers in that field also convey that there are about more than ten thousand facial expressions.

Body movement and postures

When you communicate with others the way you move your body, your posture, your stance, your sitting and standing position are also influenced by your emotion and feeling. Not only humans but also the animal’s body posture change due to a particular emotional situation.

One common example would be, when two or three dogs attack a weak dog, the weak dog’s body language in that hopeless and fearful situation is he or she closed up and wrapped and made himself or herself smaller.

And on the other side the attacker feels powerful, proud, and expands their body, making themselves big, stretch out and open up. And this is true across the whole animal kingdom and humans also do the same thing. In a sitting or a standing position conversation, we can see people’s interests and disinterests, involvement and detachment.

If someone sits till the back of the chair and lean a little forward nodding his head along with the discussion, shows that he is interested in that conversation. On the other hand, if someone crosses his legs and arms, his body language shows that he is impatient, not interested, and emotionally detached from the discussion.

Bad habits that affects your postures

Spending a lot of time on your mobile phone and computer screen makes your posture slouchy. You can not stand and sit straight. And that not only affects your health but also indicates you to others as lazy and weak.

We know that our mind shapes our body, but here is another fact that our body also shapes our mind. So if your body posture is weak, you are also mentally feeling weak, lack of confidence. That’s not a good thing right.

Gestures

The body part (like hands, arms, head, fingers) that you move to express yourself at an optimal level consciously or unconsciously is called gestures.

For example, when you agree with someone’s opinion you can nod your head and if you’re not you can shake your head side by side. However, some gestures’ meanings can be very different across cultures.

Eye contact

Eye contact is a very strong non-verbal communicator. It is the most important body language and aspect of a conversation.

Think when you are in a conversation and the other person is not looking at you instead he or she is looking down and up and side, how do you feel about that person? Not making eye contact shows the person is underconfident, not interested, detached from the discussion.

And on the other hand, maintaining good eye contact during conversation shows a person as he is powerful and dominant; warm and personable; more attractive and likable; higher qualified, skilled, and valuable; more trustworthy, honest, and sincere; more confident and emotionally stable.

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Negative body languages

There are some body-languages that you must avoid in order to better communicate and achieve success in the different aspects of life.

Avoiding eye contact

As we previously discussed avoiding eye contact makes a person look weak, underconfident, dishonesty, disrespect, don’t have interest, etc. and we also talk about the advantages of making eye contact.

So, don’t even think about avoiding it. Have natural balanced eye contact. Don’t do it too much or it will indicate dominant. You can hold three to five-second and take a glance to the side then resume again.

Crossing arms and legs

Here is another bad habit during a conversation. Crossed arms and legs indicate a defensive attitude and impatience. It also shows you as unimpressed or uninterested. On the other hand, opening your arm or keeping your arm in one side signals openness and approachability.

If you have a problem with what to do with your arm during conversation, instead of crossing your arm you can keep one hand in your pocket and another is open and relaxed.  

Bad postures

If your posture is bad, it not only shows you as weak and under-confident but also actually makes you feel less powerful. As your mind shapes your body it’s also true that your body can shape your mind. So beware of your posture.

Not enough and too much hand gesture

During speaking and conversation not moving your hand makes you unnatural, rigid, and robotic. Moving too much of your hand makes you crazy.

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Positive body language

Here are some positive body language you need to consider in order to show and feel confident, attractive, and powerful.

Open body

Now, what do I mean by an open body? let’s start with your hand. Keep your hand at your side, relax and open. What about your feet? well, keeping your feet shoulder length apart with your pointing outward.

Good posture

These days, so many people have problems with their posture because of years of computer and mobile phone using. If you also have a posture problem with your posture, fix it. Stand straight and open your chest.

Forward head positions

Don’t keep it up too much or it will show you as arrogant and also don’t keep it down or it will show you as weak and under-confident. The best option is to keep it forward.

Smile

Here is another important body language. Having a natural and genuine smile makes you more attractive and approachable.

Good eye contact

Maintaining good eye contact shows you are attentive, interested, confident. Now maintaining good eye contact means you follow the 80/20 principle. 80 percent of the time during the conversation making eye contact and 20 percent wander.

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Conclusion

Body language not only has a great impact on our career but also has on our relationships. It projects you to others. I think giving a little bit of attention to this aspect of our life will not be a bad idea.