Bates Method – Part 2

Like most people I am interested in body language.  Like most people I noticed awkward social interactions in day to day life.  Until recently I considered that body language is about

• what you are communicating others
• what they are communicating to you

I always viewed body language as a tool people use to help them understand how other people think & feel.  What I never considered is the impact my body language had on me.  The influence my body language hand on my thoughts, feelings and physiology. We all have situations in our life when we would like to feel more optimistic and confident basically more powerful.  Social science has show that powerful leaders have low levels of cortisol (i.e. low levels of the stress hormone) and high levels of testosterone (i.e. high levels of the dominance hormone).  So what if we could use our body language to make ourselves feel more powerful in challenging situations, it turns out we can by adopting the wonder woman pose. By adopting the Wonder Woman pose for 2 minutes, social scientists have proven that it will increase your confidence, assertiveness and help you feel more comfortable in a situation.  This is due to the impact holding this "high power" pose for two minutes has on your body, its reduces your cortisol levels and increases your testosterone levels.  Meaning you are less reactive to stressful situations. So can you apply this in real life.  Last weekend I was on my sports massage course and each weekend we have a written test we need to pass.  For some reason I had misunderstood what the test was on and forgot to review the whole subject.  I discovered this about 30 minutes before the test.  So I was in a highly stressful situation.  So I decided to give this power pose a try and did it during the next 30 minutes while revising.  The science says 2 minutes but I felt I needed all the help I could get.  It turns out that I passed.  While this isn't irrevocable proof, I would recommend people try it. As Amy Cuddy says "our body's change our minds, our minds change our behavior and our behavior changes our outcomes."  For a more detailed understanding of power poses, the science behind them, watch Amy Cuddy's Your body language shapes who you are.  

In previous blog posts I have explored the following reasons for not slouching

• Part 1 - High BP
• Part 2 - Heartburn
• Part 3 - Sad and Shy

So finally I would like to focus on how slouching affects your breathing. You’ll notice that people don’t sigh when they sit slumped — they have to sit up to take a deep breath,’ observes Professor Stephen Spiro of the British  Lung Foundation. ‘That’s because the lungs work best when we’re vertical. If you’re slumped forward you don’t fully breathe and ventilate the lungs, because they’re compressed and the diaphragm is coming up into the chest — so you won’t breathe as easily and efficiently.’ This can cause particular breathing problems for anyone with asthma or lung disease. ‘If you’re an asthmatic you probably don’t have bad posture because people are quite clever at correcting themselves,’ says Professor Spiro. Physiotherapist Sammy Margo adds that slumping can mean less oxygen gets to the brain. ‘Slumped or C-shaped people complain of being tired and fatigued all the time and it’s because the lungs are squashed and cannot get enough air in, and the brain needs plenty of oxygen to function at its best.’ In addition, if you slumped you are breath with be short and shallow from your upper chest.  In order to relax and digest food your body needs the parasympathetic nervous system to be dominant.  A quick way to do this is to sit up right and take deep breaths and this simulates the parasympathetic system.  So slumping may be contributing to you feeling anxious and finding it hard to relax and switch off when you leave work!