‘You’re not paranoid – you’re the opposite of paranoid. You suffer from the insane delusion that people actually like you.’
Woody Allen
By now, I feel you’re super-aware that body language can reveal an awful lot about messages that people are sending. ‘Leakage’ is the term for body language that gives away what you’re really thinking, as I’m sure you know by now.
The mind and body are inextricably linked. So every thought produces a body reaction. Any message can be better interpreted if non-verbals are read successfully. Equally your own body language, as we’ve repeatedly hammered home, is crucial to how effectively your message is received by others.
It’s not the displaying of positive thoughts that we tend to try to conceal – it’s usually a state of discomfort or anxiety. No matter how hard we try, in certain instances our body language will let us down, and the ‘leakage’ means that a message can lack ‘congruence’ between what is being said and what the body shows.
When we talk about anxiety there are, as far as psychologists are concerned, two main types exhibited by most of us:
No surprises here with the first one. Within our complex personalities, some people could be classified as perhaps being ‘anxious’. It’s a trait within somebody’s personality – in other words; it’s non-specific; a general characteristic.
State anxiety refers to a person’s response to stimuli. So, in a particular situation a person will experience anxiety, but at other times in the ‘switch off’ position there is no such perceived threat, so everything is in equilibrium. Thus we’ll experience anxiety or nervousness if we’re asked to give a speech or make an appearance on television, for example. It’s perfectly normal. Even experienced screen actors can experience extreme nervousness when appearing in front of a live audience, on a chat show for example.
I’m reminded of the appearance of actor Daniel Craig, after the film release of his portrayal of 007 secret agent James Bond in Casino Royale. Appearing on the Parkinson chat show, a week after the release of the film, it was interesting to watch the displacement and comfort gestures that were in action.
Daniel Craig
Unfortunately, it’s all magnified on screen and you have to have a degree of sympathy for these people when they’re put in the limelight. I made an analysis of this interview and it should bring home to you how subconscious this ‘leakage’ is – and the impression it gives. I’ve chronologically itemised the ‘displacement’ and ‘comfort’ activities – as they occurred – to highlight the pattern of behaviour exhibited, and how they formed the all-important cluster indicating nervousness.
Sitting down opposite Michael Parkinson, first of all Craig gripped the arm of the chair with his right hand. After being welcomed he began speaking (with crossed legs), then he did the following as the interview progressed:
Michael Parkinson then uttered the word ‘finally’ (for the last question) and Daniel Craig oriented his body towards Parkinson – to the right – for the first time; looking more relaxed. There were no more gestures in the final two minutes. Only the ‘intention movement’ to leave the chair at the end of the interview (only this time it was for real!).
Just two interesting points to add to that:
All this was noted, of course, only when the camera was on him during the 14 minutes of the interview.
Doesn’t it just go to show that no matter how experienced or famous we are, the true feelings that we’re experiencing will always leak through?
Any time we’re feeling anxiety of some sort, displacement activities and comfort gestures come into play. The body’s physiology is unforgiving.
What about sporting personalities? How does their body language aid them in their pursuit of success? Let’s take a look at that most ‘psychological’ of sports – tennis. A game that is always referred to as being one that is played in ‘the player’s head’.
Confident body language in this sport sends a message to the opponent and at the same time influences the player’s own mindset. So therefore it impacts the player as well as the performance of their opponent. Negative ‘leakage’ that’s displayed – on the other hand – can benefit the opponent and further demoralise the player.
On court, the opponent picks up conscious or subconscious signals from every action the other player displays and it gives an overall impression of whether the person across the net is feeling confident and in control or experiencing frustration (maybe due to their serve that has ‘deserted’ them), nervousness or getting increasingly tired. How many times have you passed a TV screen on which a tennis match is being relayed and even with the sound muted and no visible score line, you know which player is ‘on top’? You can tell just by looking at the demeanour of the two players.
British number one Andy Murray is a talented player but on occasions – as he all too readily acknowledges – his head is in the ‘wrong place’ and his body responds with negative body language that benefits his opponent and further demoralises him during the match.
Andy Murray shows his frustration
Critics respond that his surly on-court manner and frequent outbursts to himself and his ‘entourage’ in the players’ box prevent him from achieving his potential.
Talking to BBC Sport in April 2011 he said:
In Miami I was getting more angry ... I was just kind of lost. It seemed like I was trying to do so many things – without coming to the net ... You really need to go into a match with a clear mindset. It probably showed in my body language and my mental state.
You’ve seen players with the following negative type of body language on court, I’m sure:
Rafael Nadal comes back from a losing position
Contrast that with the player who’s feeling good and wants to intimidate their tired and dejected opponent. You’ve seen it – fist pumping, head up, quick and rapid movements, jogging to the chair at the end of a game or set, juggling their feet while seated (can’t wait to get back on court). All the time they’re aware that this upbeat body language has a great impact on their own game as well as the performance of the opponent on the other side of the net. It’s been said that the great champions have emotional control, which separates them from the rest. The self-sabotage body language (smashing rackets and balls, self-abuse) is substituted for emotion that is directed towards their shot-making.
Multiple Grand Slam champion, Rafael Nadal, is renowned for not wanting to lose a single point, even when he’s in a commanding winning position. As well as being known for chasing every single shot, he confines his negative body language after a bad shot to the natural show of disappointment – a wince or disappointed expression. Even if he’s in a losing position he channels his energy into his shots (rather than defeatist body language) and a winning backhand or forehand is greeted by him with fist-pumping and jumping and encouraging looks to his team of coaches in the seats. He, like many of the other top players, realises that adverse behaviour affects the mind – and therefore his own performance – as well as sending out a message to the opponent that he is frustrated and not in control.
In order to understand negative leakage better, I feel it would be helpful for you if we take a look at negative thoughts or anxiety and the subtle changes that take place in your mind and body. These affect:
Because stress and anxiety originate from a cycle of activity (1 to 4 above) then, of course, if we could reshape our thinking this cycle of negative behaviour – which reflects itself in our body language – could be halted in its tracks. But quite often it’s too late – you’re already at 3. You’re in the room being interviewed for the job (your thoughts are screaming, ‘There’s too much competition, I won’t get through this. I did so want this job ...’) and the physical symptoms of your body – pounding heart, muscle tension – are producing this anxiety ‘leakage’, which is at odds with the calm, coping image you wanted to portray.
In another scenario you’re aware of your ‘freeze–fight–flight’ symptoms while you’re waiting in reception because your body tells you so. This hauls you back to what is causing this – your emotions – and gives you a chance to change your thinking before you go into the room. More easily said than done, you may say. But since your thinking (good or bad) creates your emotions – which in turn causes your body to react physically – which then manifests itself in your outward behaviour – then changing your thoughts will change your body language.
One of my favourite sayings: ‘It’s only a thought. It can’t hurt you’.
If you recognise the symptoms of anxiety or stress you have a chance of taking control. We spoke earlier about the popularity of ‘emotional intelligence’ in which managing one’s emotions plays a big part, and of course the self-awareness to recognise these in yourself. So if your success in interpreting body language in others is to do with reading thoughts (effectively mind-reading), it is also concerned with you identifying and being aware of your own thoughts, which gives rise to various emotions and therefore your own body language (good or bad).
Since it’s not what happens to us in life that causes us anxiety, but rather the view that we take of the events, we need to be able to control and change these perceptions. We know that negative thoughts fuel anxiety and anger. If you don’t think the thought, you don’t feel the emotion.
The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognise that we ought to control our thoughts.
Charles Darwin
Of course, you’ve often heard of the benefits of the ‘power of positive thinking’, but in the battle of the gladiators between negative on one side and positive on the other, who finds it easier to win the contest? Usually it’s negative thinking because as the whole stress cycle begins, the depressant activity of the stress chemicals causes more and more upsetting thoughts to crowd the brain, which just makes you feel worse.
Negative thoughts are self-generating and so they just multiply, whereas positive thoughts, unfortunately, do not operate in the same way because they tend to be much less self-generating.
Try to train yourself to replace any worrying thoughts that are causing you anxiety by more positive ones (‘I won’t dry up and forget most of the speech’, ‘I’m just as qualified as the others who have applied for this job’.) The brain can concentrate on only one thing at a time, so if you focus your mind on positive thoughts (effectively supplanting the old thoughts) you’ll feel in a much better mood. This is, to a large extent, the result of ‘the power of positive thinking’ on the body’s biochemistry as it releases the good chemicals while at the same time diluting those that were released during your anxious state.
Just a quick look at biochemistry – the chemical reactions in your brain and body:
All of this activity plus chemical release activates the body to go faster, especially during fear or anger – but even with mild anxiety the same process is at work.
No wonder the body gives so much away when we’re experiencing nervousness and anxiety.
Let’s take a short journey to see what exactly is happening to cause these outside signals that give away our discomfort:
These stress chemicals inflict quite a bit of damage on your normal brain function. This may help to explain why you sometimes get flustered or impatient with yourself when you’re with others (displaying just the kind of body language and vocal irregularities you normally strive to avoid) and you can’t remember something or think straight:
So I hope you all now have a better idea (if you weren’t already aware) of how the lack of oxygen to the brain and neurotransmitter blocking causes certain malfunctions in your behaviour when you’re operating under anxious and stressful situations in your personal and professional life. You find yourself not being able to make decisions, think clearly, concentrate fully or remember things. So if you’ve wondered why your carefully planned presentation to a group of people at a business meeting, wedding or wherever – honed carefully for optimum vocal and body language effectiveness – results in you standing there with a blank expression, try not to blame yourself too much. It’s a result of those ruthless stress chemicals knocking out your neurotransmitters, which in turn has a knock-on effect on your memory. For example, ‘forgetting my lines’ comes in the top five of greatest fears, whether it be for acting, a work presentation or a wedding speech.
There will always be occasions when disaster befalls us. What about the description of this unfortunate speaker:
His face was blank the audience was mute, he’d left his speech in his other suit.
Back to that rich source of leakage information, apart from showbusiness – the world of politics.
A researcher analysing a speech during a Labour Party Conference noted that while Tony Blair was speaking to the delegates, the then chancellor Gordon Brown, sitting next to him, engaged in the following (we’ve got this far now, so let’s call it ‘displacement activity’ since you’ll be using this term – as well as being aware of it – when you’re let loose): he adjusted his clothes 25 times; bit his lip 12 times; hand-to-face gestured 35 times; fiddled with his cuffs 29 times; crossed and uncrossed his arms 36 times; looked away 155 times.
Are you thinking what I’m thinking (test your mind-reading)? The words – records ... Guinness ... world ... book – come to mind.
I just get the feeling that there was some negative leakage coming out there – don’t you? And that’s without seeing the lower half of the body, the all-revealing legs and feet – what might have been going on there? He didn’t want to be there, did he? What do you think?
I’d like to highlight – as an aide-memoire – some of the gestures associated with discomfort. In other words, negative leakage signals.
Always remember that each gesture listed, on its own, doesn’t tell the story. A number of these gestures together – let’s say three or so – will give you a good ‘reading’. Otherwise you’ll be committing too many ID 10T errors.
I’m not going to repeat again what they can signify. I’m confident that you’re able to identify them easily by now:
Q I think with all these ‘leakage’ signals that I now know about, there’s no excuse for not being aware of my own – and also picking them up in other people’s behaviour.
Absolutely right. I think you’ve noticed that with a little bit of empathy – so that you really see when you look and also when you listen ‘between the lines’ – you’ll just become so much more effective. It’s not even that difficult, if you have the will.
Q You know what I think the problem was – and I probably speak for a lot of other people here and also, no doubt, for a lot of people out there – we don’t know that we don’t know.
Glad you’ve picked that up.
Q So it’s all about image really, as well, isn’t it? Things have to be congruent or the action doesn’t match the image that we want to project. Our body language seems to be really important in creating our image. Any good tips for maintaining the right image?
That’s a tough one – you’ve put me on the spot. Okay. ‘Never try to make a dramatic exit in flip flops!’
Q I was trying to be serious.
Serious? Any more questions?
Q Yes, one last one. This ID 10T error. I don’t want to sound stupid or anything. Some people have been giggling – they seem to know what it is. Can you enlighten me?
Sure. Just unravel it.
Q Unravel?
Yes. I – D – I – O – T. It means an IDIOT error!
No offence to you all. Just be wary. Last question, anybody?
Q Yes, here. You said right at the beginning of the first Lesson that body language was not an exact science. Can we rely on something that’s not an exact science?
A question for you: Who said science is an ‘exact science’?
Hey, that’s just so profound. Wow. Need to get my breath back. I’ll be able to use that for years to come. I’ll just have to lie down in a darkened room for a bit.