Amygdala Hijack: Irrational Physical Reactions

Have you ever woken up panting, sweating and screaming in the middle of the night after having a nightmare? Have you ever jumped into an unnecessary fist fight with somebody who wasn’t hostile towards you at all? Have you ever got scared and ran away from somebody who wasn’t frightening you purposefully? From suddenly bursting into screams while sleeping with closed eyes to shouting, frowning, clenching fists and pointing fingers at each other in traffic, we the so-called rational animals behave and react irrationally at multiple occasions throughout our lives.

Although we’re only watching a terrifying dream just like we watch a picture or movie, we react as if we’re physically involved in a terrifying outcome at the very moment. On the other hand, shouting, frowning, clenching fists and pointing fingers at each other isn’t going to achieve anything but we react as if we’re preparing ourselves and challenging other riders, drivers or passengers for a close combat. In the worst case, such reactions from two sides can eventually turn a busy city street into a small battle ground for a violent physical fight between two insanely aggressive animals.

Most of such irrational and instinctive physical reactions lead to troubles, injuries, accidents and causalities only. Only upon realizing on our own or making to realize by somebody after a few moments, we feel as if we were hijacked and we reacted without any rational and conscious control on our whole body. We instantaneously react as if we’re controlled by some ghost, daemon or evil spirit which is pulling all strings of a brainless puppet. So what exactly turns an educated, thinking, rational, normal and civil looking individual into a wild and raging beast?

Road rages are on rise. Beware!

What exactly drives us wild just for a few moments is not any ghost, daemon or evil spirit but a very small part sitting deep inside our brain behind such irrational reactions. This part is called as Amygdala which is a central part of the limbic system (paleomammalian cortex) that initiates basic behavioral responses and different emotions in humans and mammals. Using the signals coming through different sensory organs, vigilant Amygdala constantly scans for the whole surrounding environment for cues, signs, hints and indications of risks, dangers and challenges to survival.

It’s almost impossible to sit inside a time-machine and travel back into the Earth’s remote past in which dangerous wild creatures were roaming freely on the face of the planet. However, just try to imagine yourself walking through a tall grass and you suddenly stumble upon a saber tooth tiger which is waiting in ambush. Only way to survive is either to start running away from it as faster as you can even without looking back at the predator until reaching at a safe distance. Your whole body needs to react without wasting time in rational thinking and detailed analysis.

Dr. Daniel Goleman

This ancient system has greatly helped us in surviving the life-threatening situations and creatures over the millions of years. However, it’s turning us into wild beasts in today’s world which is almost free from the same situations and creatures. Only after doing enough damage to us or others, we end up in regretting or apologizing about what we’ve done instantaneously. This short-lasting neural phenomenon is called as ‘Amygdala Hijack’, as mentioned by Dr. Daniel Goleman is his famous book ‘Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ’.

Out of four distinct behavioral responses and seven basic emotions, both Anger (Fight) and Fear (Flight) responses can be extremely damaging in today’s world especially if they get intensified to an unnecessary proportion just within fractions of a second. These two responses can prove extremely damaging to career, health, relations, well-being and even longevity. Daily newspapers and news channels unmistakably report the news of crimes, abuses and offenses which are committed by very normal individuals which get hijacked by Amygdala.

How exactly the so-called ‘Amygdala Hijack’ takes place inside the human brain? Let’s try to understand the same briefly. Inside our large brains, signals gathered by any sensory organ go to Thalamus first. Some part of sensory signals is sent to Amygdala and the remaining part of it is sent to Neocortex and more specifically the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) which is the thinking part of human brain. Neocortex takes comparatively more time than Amygdala in patiently analyzing the incoming sensory signals before initiating an appropriate response.

On the other hand, Amygdala is much quicker in reacting to incoming sensory signals just like a hyperactive Chihuahua which barks at every stranger coming through main gate of a house. Amygdala rapidly searches for memories of experiences inside Hippocampus (emotional memory bank). If sensory signals are found to be associated with any negative memories then a defensive response is activated. Amygdala takes less than a second to do the same, similar to an experienced sniper who doesn’t miss to hit its target in sight.

Two different paths of sensory signals

Especially if an individual is already stressed, had a bad start of the day, underwent traumatic experiences or has enlarged Amygdala then the individual is more likely to react instantaneously in self-defense than responding constructively, thoughtfully, peacefully, rationally, patiently or logically. As we experience it routinely, even a few abnormal words coming out from mouth of a familiar and caring individual can unmistakably kick-start the Amygdala Hijack in already troubled individuals.

A considerable percentage of modern population appears stressed without any apparent challenges, threats and dangers in the sight because the brain unmistakably releases cortisol and adrenaline into bloodstream to prepare the whole body to either fight with or run away from the individuals or situations that threaten us. Even if we partially or fully succeed in suppressing limbic impulse consciously under social pressure, secreted stress hormones don’t quickly go away.

Amygdala Hijack doesn’t at all miss to give clear warning signs through sudden change in body language. Due to secretion of cortisol and adrenaline hormones, breathing rate shoots up with breathing location shifting from belly to chest. Eyes become widely open. Fists are clenched. Skeletal muscles are flexed. Nostrils are flared. Eyebrows are pulled downwards and pulled inside. Under the tight grip of rage, glaring without blinking or batting the eyelids can be observed.

Today’s modern world is vastly connected yet became more complicated than ever before. Learning about various disturbing incidents occurring in different parts of the globe contributes in building stress, terror, tension, despair anguish, insecurity, discomfort and apprehension. It increases the possibility of Amygdala Hijack in future. While living in small and geographically isolated clans, our primitive ancestors never faced this unprecedented situation.

Amygdala Hijack doesn’t need to happen only while facing life-threatening situations, circumstances and challenges. A few wrong, abusive, ridiculing, unexpected and inappropriate words uttered during normal interactions and conversations are enough to trigger Amygdala Hijack in stressed, troubled, traumatized, sociopathic, endangered, intoxicated and serotonin-deprived individuals. Heated verbal exchange can quickly turn into nonverbal violence.

[#Critically Important: Empathy, laughter, meditation, spirituality, acceptance, visualization, conditioning, compassion, mindfulness, introspection, physical workout and breathing exercise (Yoga/Praanaayaam) greatly help in minimizing or avoiding Amygdala Hijack or irrational and uncontrolled reactions during many interactions, encounters, incidents and situations.

Also, good sleep, good nutrition, happy childhood, warm parenting, emotional support, stronger relations, promising environment, positive social interactions and deep knowledge about human body silently motivate people not to react to each and every sensory signals unnecessarily.]

Related Articles:
1) Fear Factor 2) Basic body responses in stressful situations 3) Body Language Brain 4) Turtle Effect: Body response under threat 5) Surprise vs Startle Reflex 6) Body Language in Depression 7) Body Language of Extreme Narcissist 8) Body Language of Extreme Psychopath 9) Chicken and Egg Paradox 10) Body Language under Stress

Power Postures

We all are fans of super-heroes and super-heroines, the divine avatars and supernatural beings. We want them around and with us to protect, shield and save ourselves from super-villains, evil-minded individuals, monsters, demons, natural calamities, catastrophes and disasters in the world which is highly susceptible to disorder, calamity, disaster, destruction and chaos. Don't we really?

From ancient mythological superheroes like Hercules, Thor and Hanuman (Indian Super-hero from epic Ramayana) to modern day Superman, Iron Man, Batman and Wonder Woman; their stories and legends have made their way into almost every household on this planet through oral traditions, (comic) books, dramas, movies, images, statues, figurines and toys. All super-heroes and super-heroines have distinct dresses and distinct signature postures.

In their stories, all super-heroes and super-heroines are depicted as very powerful, strong, skilled and risk-taking individuals who are often equipped with body armors, shields and weapons. They look and appear very different in entire crowd just by standing differently in the first place. Their faces are held upward, necks are exposed, shoulders are stretched wider, chests are puffed, two legs are put apart from each other, forearms are put on their hips and feasts are clenched or weapons are wielded in them. They appear very formidable.

If they don't adapt their signature postures and put on ordinary clothes while facing the super-villains, evil-minded individuals, demons, natural calamities, catastrophes and disasters; they would appear or look no different than the entire crowd filled with ordinary, weak and vulnerable people who seek their protection in the first place.

Their signature postures are their own ways to show that they are capable of facing dangers and saving people. By adapting such postures they physically prepare themselves, assert themselves into people's eyes and warn their opponents.

We are not super-heroes and super-heroines and they are not us but we mimic or impersonate them. Children often dress up themselves like super-heroes and super-heroines. Until they don't make signature poses, mimicry or impersonation is not complete. So is it the posture that makes super-heroes and super-heroines what they really are? Do such postures really benefit the ordinary people? Can we turn ourselves into super-heroes and super-heroines just by adapting their signature postures?

Until year 2010, nobody was quite sure about the same to be able to make scientific claims publicly through an article and later a popular TED talk in year 2012. It made Dr. Amy Cuddy (social psychologist, author and speaker) enormously famous overnight world over. According to her, if we consciously adapt high-power postures during (potentially) stressful social interactions then we feel confident, in-control, calm, powerful and dominant.

With more that 20 millions of views, it could be one of the most watched body language videos ever published on the internet.

She studied and found that both humans and animals unconsciously adapt such open, upright body and limb extending postures when they are in control, powerful and feeling accomplished in various situations e. g. winning a contest, defeating an opponent etc. She conducted an experiment on how nonverbal expressions of power and control through expansive, open, wider, broader and space-occupying body postures affect people's feelings, behaviors and hormone levels.

She claimed that adapting body postures that express dominance and power ("power posing") for as little as two minutes before facing the actual situation can increase testosterone (stress reducing hormone), decrease cortisol (stress inducting hormone) and increase appetite for taking risks. Eventually, it leads to higher possibilities of better performance during stressful interactions especially job interviews.

A) Low-Power Postures/Poses: Closed, Non-Assertive, Constricted, Twisted and Space-giving body postures



B) High-Power Postures/Poses: Open, Assertive, Wider, Broader and Space-occupying body postures



Her theory of “power posing” emphasizes the influencing power of body language during social interactions. Showing power and dominance through body postures eventually makes a person feel powerful, confident and stress-free was the central idea of her theory which faced many counter-claims, threats, rebuttal and denial too. Also, there are a lot of contradictory results presented against her promising 'self-empowerment' theory of consciously adapted power postures by different scientific studies till date.

In animal kingdom, both low power and high power postures/poses are quite prevalent. Animals use them unconsciously during the kind of confrontations in which showing power, confidence and dominance is necessary to distinguish a high-power individual from a low-power individual(s). Does it really work for humans by adapting power postures consciously (before facing somebody)? Should we purposefully adapt power postures to appear like super-heroes and super-heroines in public?

According to my own thoughts and opinions, we constantly need to audit, check and question ourselves for the postures which we adapt unconsciously in the given social situation and physical condition. If postures are really closing, shrinking, bending and twisting our bodies unnecessarily we can adapt open, aligned, upright and good body postures. By doing so, we wouldn't ruin our musculoskeletal fitness, joints and spine in the first place.

Additionally, if you're genuinely competent, strong and expert in your professional skills (and you've proved the same); open, upright and confident body postures would definitely suit on you if you adapt them reasonably, especially in front of individuals who see you as a pioneer, a leader, a motivator, an inspirer or an influencer.

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Online Etiquette

Since Covid 19 (Corona Virus) pandemic took the entire modern world in its tight grip, billions of people have lost control over their normal daily routines. Both social and work lives have been affected thoroughly and changed dramatically within just a moment after lock-down were declared by local governments.

Millions of working professionals all over the world have been forced to work from home, using devices like laptops, computers and cellphones. Their work-life has been confined to boundaries of their homes. Coincidentally, I'm one of them only.

Getting ready to go to the work place, interacting with many individuals on the way to office or at the work place, staying, working and eating together, attending meetings and going out on regular breaks with workmates is a daily routine of billions of people on this busy planet.

No matter how much monotonous, boring and mechanical it is, most working individuals like to spend their lives for decades like this. However, forcing most of us to Work From Home (WFH) has completely changed it, just at a moment's notice. Most of us weren't prepared for the same, both physically and mentally.

Facing and interacting with people effectively to achieve a specific common goal is already a great social and professional challenge. Additionally, online meetings, seminars, workshops, interviews and conferences have further intensified the same. Many individuals are finding it hard to interact online and thus making a lot of mistakes during online interactions.

Hence, I thought to come with a brief list of etiquette and good practices to help many working from home individual in appearing professional, attentive and interactive during online meetings.

Following is a list of the same:

1) Before interaction begins, ensure that you look enough professional. Ensure that you're wearing adequate and proper cloths. Ensure that your hair are well set.

2) Along with maintaining a professional look and composure, choose a quite and safe place to be able to seat undisturbed for a while to attend the meeting.

3) Maintain a proper, upright and steady posture so that your face and torso wouldn't appear appear leaning too much forward. Avoid playing or fidgeting.

4) Keep maintaining a proper distance between yourself and camera of the device so that other participants can see your entire face and neck.

5) Avoid making sudden, erratic and aggressive body movements until you really need to leave your place in emergency or the meeting ends.

6) Make sure that other participants can hear you and/or see you properly by setting up camera and microphone before meeting.

7) While a meeting in going on, don't touch your face and scratch your head/neck. Don't put fingers in mouth or bite nails.

8) Let it be only a voice meeting or a video meeting, avoid doing anything else simultaneously other than attending it.

9) While all others can see and hear you in the meeting room, avoid looking at your cellphone and listening music.

10) Make controlled hand gestures, nod your head and smile whenever it's necessary. Don't just seat coldly.

11) While all others can see you in the meeting room, maintain a proper and adequate eye contact.

12) Make sure that you've everything necessary with you to present, refer, recite or show.

13) Mute your microphone whenever you're not talking. Avoid whispering and talk fast.

14) Politely ask to repeat if you haven't heard somebody or something properly.

15) Don't forget to greet others at the beginning and the end of the meetings.

16) Choose a good background, blur it or replace it with a proper image.

New variants of the virus are emerging almost all over the world after a few days. Hence, there seems no relief from this ongoing pandemic that we all are facing since the beginning of 2020. Work From Home (WFH) might become a permanent routine for millions of working professionals from here onwards.

Be professionally ready for online meetings.

Many companies and professionals have switched to the long-term or even permanent Work From Home working mode already. Better prepare yourself properly to face it effectively.

Unlike rest of the subconscious body language cues, ettiqute need to learned by oneself or taughed by others consciously.

Wishing you all a very happy Working From Home!

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The Unspoken Sales Tool

Nonverbal communication is essential, especially since body language is 55 per cent of effective communication. Your eyes, voice, arms, hands, and full body positioning all play valuable roles in helping you build a connection with others.

Furthermore, when you take note of another person’s body language, you can tailor the conversation - and salespeople can be more aware of how a potential customer is responding to a pitch.

When a prospect is making eye contact, smiling, nodding, and using open-handed gestures, they are actively engaged in the conversation and interested in what you have to say. Make sure you’re facing one another and slightly leaning in to show the conversation is important.

Even when communicating in a large group, such as during presentations, eye contact and physical acknowledgments of other people’s presence will help you connect with your audience. Or, alternatively, they’ll help you, as an audience member, have a more personal connection with the speaker.

Paying attention to body language helps everyone in business. Most importantly, it helps salespeople connect better with their contacts. More details about specific body language, and how it translates in a conversation, are in the infographic below.

[This article was originally written by Kaylee White, who works for Ghergich & Co. (Ghergich.com) and writes for SalesForce Canada. Entire text and images have been re-published, by her formal permission, from the SaleForce Canada's blog article - www.salesforce.com/ca/blog/2016/08/master-body-language.html.]

elates Articles:
1) Body Language in Advertisement

Analytical Interview: Are HR Professionals ready for it?

Show if you can really play.

Gone are the days when kings, leaders, landlords, chefs, merchants, masters and captains of ship used to recruit their employees only after adequately ensuring that candidates have required skills to perform tasks.

Royal examinations, tests or verifications used to be quick, tough and very thorough, thus debarring unskilled, inefficient, incompetent or unfit candidates from possibility of getting employment opportunity in the first place.

The candidates were asked to prove themselves by showing what actually they can do or perform (i. e. through actions or performances) and not just claiming the same verbally because only actions speak louder than words.

Haven’t you heard a classical story in which a sorrowing king promises that he would let the lucky young man marry his daughter (of course a young and gorgeous princess) who could rescue her from clutches of a mightily witch living in a spooky castle in high mountains?

Apart of good qualification, personality and etiquette; getting truly skilled and proficient employees is a great challenge for every employer i. e. let it be running business in any domain and part of world. Job interview is the only available window through which an employer or recruitment officers can ‘look into’ potential employees in a limited period of time.

No other opportunity, other than an interview, can be sought to examine any person as a deserving candidate for a particular job. Thus interviewing becomes a difficult, elaborate and also tiresome task for most employers and human resource professionals.

Is Qualification sufficient?

The Conventional ‘question and answer’ interviews rely mostly on information provided by a candidate, the documents it submits to the scrutinizing authority and some few well-know or established nonverbal clues of authenticity.

While verbal analysis remains limited to scrutiny of facts and figures only, nonverbal analysis provides us large spectrum of information about candidate being interviewed in real time.

Why nonverbal scrutiny and checking body language is required after all? Never forget that actions and expressions are primeval, genuine and profound than words. Paying careful attention to non-obvious clues and tone of voice could reveal much insight about the candidate.

Different nonverbal clues given away by a person being questioned can convey affective (emotional), cognitive, associative, physical and social statuses with varying degrees. However, many interviewers don’t have critical skills to obtain and analyze different nonverbal clues given away by a candidate being questioned.

Hence it raises a great question about core purpose behind recruitment of skilled employees. Great responsibility of any employer or human resource personal is to find that where a candidate might fit itself well if sufficient evidences of its credibility are found.

"Companies which suffer from poor performance from an employee, actually lack skilled human resource professionals to pick the able one."

While facial expressions only convey both genuine and fake emotional state of a candidate, most interviewers mostly rely on them only. Many seasoned and experienced HR professionals cannot collect and analyze different types of clues other than facial expressions so chances of getting false and misleading information become higher.

Especially when patients and enthusiasm of interviewers gets challenged after multiple and long running interview sessions, they might take negative steps out of anger, boredom and frustration during interview. At many instances, truly skilled candidates are debarred whereas ‘smart’ ones easily get through due to their skills to hide certain clues from interviewers.

Asking good questions is a great challenge.

Thus accurate collection of context specific nonverbal clues with respect to what kind of question is being asked becomes very important. True purpose of any recruitment procedure is not just to authenticate information being provided by candidates during screening but also to understand affective (emotional), cognitive, associative, physical and social clues given by them and try to co-relate those clues with facts and figures being shared.

However, due to lack of required skillfulness in the context specific (analytical) questioning, clue collecting and analyzing; the conventional interview sessions cannot reveal the information and clues required for further verifications of a candidate’s true professional and personal capabilities.

Looking at the core issues related with scrutiny and authentication during recruitment, employers need to implement Analytical/Behavioral Interviewing Techniques. Actually, employers and bosses need to rigorously train their Human Resource officers to get skillful in them in the first place.

Apart of standards established by analytical interviewing experts from other countries, local experts and researchers should be deployed to identify ethnic, social and cultural specific nonverbal clues that can give clear indications of authenticity of information being provided by candidates.

Finding, recruiting and also retaining is always a great challenge in front of employers and establishments. Analytical interviewing could bring astonishing advantages to both interviewers and candidates because true purpose of it is finding what a candidate is exactly skillful in and compatible with.

Hiring candidates based only upon clues like good eye contact, smile, hand shake and excellent verbal skills could prove 'costly' because it could hamper basic goals of any purposeful establishment which are better performance, efficiency, profitability and prosperity.

Human Resource or HR professionals capable of reading body language accurately is the true game changer for companies. Only question is if are they even considering about it yet?

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Basic Gestures: Best Survival Tools for Travelers

Like most other enthusiasts, I like to travel and especially to those locations that never been visited before by me. Traveling is a unique kind of experience because it widens person’s horizon and also level of understanding about different types of environments, places and people.

A traveler put itself on test because it has to adapt to new place and environment while assuring its own well being. A traveling individual always has to remain fully attentive towards incoming signals that could give clear idea about different biological and non-biological entities.

This is the very reason why traveling generates the feelings such as thrill, achievement or adventure in the minds of the most people. Traveling to different locations, facing local people and adapting with local climates teaches many things that stagnation doesn't.

On the other hand, traveling person has to remain more conscious while sending out signals or communicating with native people. If the traveler and native people know same language(s) then there wouldn’t be many issues other than violation of some local cultural protocols and norms.

Both parties need to make certain compromises to let interaction and dealing remain smooth as much as possible. But what if both parties don’t know each others' language(s) at all? What if a traveler is visiting a territory that is filled with people belonging to entirely different ethnicity, race and culture? This is the real challenge that many people hesitate or even avoid to face.

Language barrier?

Many travelers might get frustrated or even give up in this situation because both parties could not understand each other well and perhaps feel misunderstood by each other. Nothing seems moving smoothly! Language barrier makes both traveler and native people ‘Dumb’ for each other. Still, they both parties need to cope up with language barrier.

Moreover, the traveler might feel guilty and restless because of certain local codes of conduct that might have been broken by it. There’s no way to convince native people that violations were unintentional and due to lack of knowledge only. Nobody would like to return back to home beaten or harassed by native people

What would you do when you are asked to migrate and live over a considerable amount of time period in a foreign territory? How you would communicate with native people without knowledge of their language(s)? Successful spoken communication without a good translator or translation handbook seems highly impossible in any foreign territory.

Still, we dare to venture in new people because we human beings (or any other animals on this planet) know a unique way of exchanging information without words or numbers. We all very well know, observe and experience that facial expressions of basic emotions are almost common across the globe.

There’s no other commonly known, observed and experienced facial expression or gesture like a smile - even if it’s genuine, fake, forced, polite or social. However, conveying information using muscles of face isn’t enough so we need to use our hands for exchanging different types of data, ideas, facts and figures.

Of course, we cannot achieve precision/accuracy and attain variety using gestures the way an established spoken or a sign language can. Any typical spoken or sign language may have its own (limited) vocabulary to meet different demands.

Yet there are few well known gestures that we all inherit and can easily learn. These gestures can really help us in surviving and negotiating challenges across geographical boundaries.

Some commonly known gestures or signals

Few commonly understood *facial emblems, neck movements and especially hand gestures which are equivalent to different words, phrase and sentences can definitely make a great difference. If you know them well and have used before accurately then facial and hand gestures can really give you an upper hand in foreign territory.

More chances are that native people would understand you clearly and instantaneously by observing your gestures as compared to any other attempts you do. In some situations, it could make difference between life and death too.

This world is full of both opportunities and challenges so we need to negotiate with them in an equal manner. We might miss many opportunities hidden exactly behind those few challenges we’re trying to avoid in our journey.

Destination Chennai

Before migrating to Chennai (a large south eastern port city in Tamilnadu state of India) with my wife to grab a good career opportunity, many people expressed great concern about language barrier that I would face. I wasn’t aware about native language - Tamil at all.

Moreover, the language is entirely different than any north Indian languages (specifically language like Hindi - world’s 4th largest population speaks it) because of its ancient and classical nature.

Still, I wasn’t much worried about communicating with native people because of knowledge about common hand gestures. In fact, I decided to put myself on a test - Efficiency and accuracy of gestures (or nonverbal signals) I use to communicate with people in different situations.

Hand gestures alone or sometimes combined with *facial emblems, neck positioning/movements and para-linguistic annotations can be used for conveying or enquiring numerical information, physical conditions, directions, geographical features, physical location, weather, characteristics/features, feasibility (related to something) and different objects or entities.

Different messages can be generated by making solitary gestures, by combining many or putting them in a certain sequence. However, one also needs to keep in mind that a particular gesture can convey message that can have an entirely different or opposite meaning in foreign population.

Vertically held open palm silently says ‘Stop’ or ‘Enough’ in western hemisphere but same gesture means ‘Come’ in Iraq. It’s exactly like single word having different meanings in different languages.

'Stop' Gesture

Good examples of common nonverbal signaling equivalent to different words, phrases and sentences are Hi, Hello, Bye, OK, Yes, Good, Bad, I’m (not) good/fine., My name is (your name)., I’m from (name of your native place)., I’m here., Thanks!, Sorry/Excuse me., Beautiful, Please, No, Enough, Not, Here (it is), There (it is), Crazy, This/that, Up(ward), Down(ward), Long, Short, Small, Big, Tall, Inside, Outside, Open, Close, Entity having shape like (the way hand gestures you make), It’s me., My mistake/fault, This/that is mine., On feet, Where’s the place/object (that you want to go to, get or see)? Oh I see., Which way? Who are you? What is price (of the particular thing)? What’s this/that? How (come)? What’s the matter?, Look at me/here/there/(or any other direction you point at)., Which one?, Bring this/that to me., I’m (not) coming/going., It’s (not) OK., It’s here/there. Stop, Come, Follow me., I’m (not) going., I don’t want this/that., Go, You may go first. Let’s go!, I take care of this/that., I’m thinking., Interesting, Is it so?, Disgusting, Hmm, Surprising, Tasty food, Terrifying, Keep this/that away from me. Though I’ve given only few examples here but many adverbs and verbs or actions can be represented by hand gestures only.

Can a person learn foreign language(s) also on its own? Of course, it’s very possible! A willing person needs to pay keen attention at native people using different hand gestures, vocal tones, *facial emblems, neck positions/movements and other body movements during dialogs. By picking nonverbal signals, the learner can easily figure out what native person might have spoken or said. For same, situational awareness is also very essential to have good idea of different contexts.

By sensing repetitive verbal and nonverbal messages in clusters, anybody can learn to speak any foreign language within just few days or months at least with a limited vocabulary. Undoubtedly, this is an extraordinary power of nonverbal communication that everybody would accept unconditionally.

Are they really 'Dumb'?

Words and numbers help us to exchange accurate and elaborate information about real and abstract entities. Even large vocabulary coupled with good knowledge of grammar can help somebody in achieving great success in fields like literature, media and education.

However, when it comes to basic survival situation then only few words are sufficient to get your message across. In same way, few commonly known hand gestures and *facial emblems can definitely help you in inducing their literal meaning in the mind of receivers.

Just look at thousands of dumb and deaf people who can easily communicate through sign languages that have numerous hand and facial gestures. Perhaps, it's the most advantegeous and conscious use of body language cues.

*Facial Emblems: Voluntarily movement of facial muscles to convey information especially cognitive and felt-emotive statuses. Good examples of emblems are frowning (pulling inner edges of both eyebrows together), raising eyebrows, protruding lower lip, biting lips, circling lips, biting tongue, pulling down both corners of lips, pressing lips together etc.

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Should leaders show emotions?

Modern world and especially the workplace has remained not so formal as compared to former generations. We’re witnessing, adapting and adjusting ourselves with new ‘styles’ of leadership too. We're observing the political, corporate and social leaders interacting with sub-ordinates more and more than discussing about serious stuff only.

However, the core requisites for being a good, result oriented and widely accepted (being accepted by followers is very crucial) leader haven’t changed much since hundreds, thousands and perhaps millions of years.

A good leader should be master
of its own emotional expressions.

First of all, any leader shouldn’t assume himself/herself as superhuman entity or alien being altogether. Like any other human being, a leader has emotions and ways to express them. Showing and expressing emotions verbally, nonverbally and para linguistically should be used mostly to make followers and sub-ordinates aware of true potentials they have and different areas they could improve.

Throwing speech in an upbeat, assertive and firm tone of voice is what good leader can do to motivate its followers, sub-ordinates or team members. We see this in movies e. g. a knight or general giving an inspirational speech to motivate its soldiers to fight with enemy especially when their morale is down or enemy is appearing more powerful/outnumbered.

Every emotion serves a unique survival and socialization purpose. Throughout the million years of our evolutionary history, we've learned and got in heredity the ability and skill to express, read emotions and also control their expressions on purpose i. e. voluntarily manipulation of emotional expressions. A good leader has to have all these skills.

Martin Luther King Jr's "I have a dream." speech

Although most part of emotional expression is entirely unconscious, degree and validity of every expression is entirely contextual i. e. kind of situation, cultural and gender norms, people involved into it, necessity of own (of a leader) involvement and severity and scale of potential outcome of any emotional expression.

Expressing an emotion at a certain amount in front of family members and friends is one thing and doing exactly the same in front of followers, sub-ordinates or team members is a different thing. Therefore, the context has greater importance when we try to necessitate and also validate an expression of any emotion.

A leader should be a motivator.

A leader should be more skilled and also quick (as compared to its followers, sub-ordinates or team members) in picking emotional clues and respond them appropriately, in a very constructive manner. If a leader wants to express emotions then he/she should be well aware of contextual factors (as mentioned above) before expressing any emotion.

Sometimes, not expressing an emotion at the very moment it induces in subconscious mind and conveying a message to followers, sub-ordinates or team members at any other time through a different channel (verbal or nonverbal) could be the wisest choice. A good leader has to gain the mastery in responding appropriately and reasonably to something in the first place.

If a leader wants express useful emotions on face and body then facial emblems, vocal tones, postures, body positions, body orientations, body movements and hand gestures can be used more effectively to convey emotional message to people. Not expressing emotions at all would simply disconnect a leader from followers, sub-ordinates or team members.

A leader should express its emotions but should keep their expressions in check as much as possible so that they don’t create mess. Yelling, shouting, grunting, frowning, furrowing and taking out frustration is not expected at workplaces or in public. Negative emotions shouldn't be expressed openly.

If a leader could manage its own emotions well then its overall body language and especially facial expressions would reflect the same unmistakably.

[#Special Note: This article is entirely based on my own comment under a question "Should a leader show emotion?" posted by Stephen Manallack (Australia), Consultant in Communication and author of "Soft Skills for a Flat World" book, in a Indian Leadership Network group on LinkedIn.]

Related Articles:
1) Basic Emotional Expressions 2) Recognizing emotional expressions: Scientific viewpoints 3) Emotional Intelligence and Success

Good posture is Healthy

You can conduct seemingly easy experiment on your own after reading this article. Fill a glass with water (on any other liquid) and hold it in one of your hands. You can choose any other (light or moderate weighted) object too for this experiment.

I'm quite sure that you might think that what this fellow is asking me to do is what you do routinely i. e. holding a glass, cup, mug or bottle in hand to drink water, tea, coffee or other beverages. You might be holding or handling these kinds of containers for less than 2 or 3 minutes on average at a single instance.

What’s so different with this so-called experiment then? Complete specifications of this seemingly ordinary and short lasting experiment are not over yet. Please stay with me for next few minutes and you'd understand what am I trying to convey through this lengthy article.

I’m asking you to hold any object by stretching you hand straight and keeping it away from your body. You have to keep your hand steady and not let it bend at elbow. Obviously, you can’t take support of anything and also take breaks. To arrive at a conclusion of the experiment, you should hold the object until you start feeling trembling, pains and tingling sensation in muscles of your hand.

Why supposedly strong muscles, which have been sophisticatedly designed to lift heavy load than that of one you’ve hold in your hand, started to ache after few minutes only? Answer to this question, which you would know after going through rest of this article, is definitely eye-opening.

Before evolving into tree dwelling apes, our remote ancestors used to roam on four limbs. As we can easily observe, vertebral column i.e. backbone or spine of all four legged animals remains horizontal. Standing and walking on four legs (i. e. quadrupedal anatomy) offers them more flexibility, good balancing ability and capacity to attain more speed while running.

That’s the very reason why the fastest animal on earth is cheetah and not us. Also, almost all quadrupedal (four-legged) creatures can achieve balance and walk on their feet within just few minutes or hours after taking birth.

"Human body is more vulnerable due to its bipedal anatomy. We can easily adapt a defensive posture in danger."

On the other hand, we have a unique ability to stand and walk on two hind limbs or legs (i. e. bipedal anatomy) that we feel very proud about. Moreover, it's only the bipedal anatomy which developed broader shoulders in men and wider hips in women.

This kind of anatomy allowed us to lift different things by forelimbs or hands, carry objects, throw stones, climb flexibly and observe much clearly over a large distance with wider visual angle and move from one location to other by spending less amount of energy.

Probably you might knew that our spine is made of interconnected bony segments which are stacked upon each other and called as vertebrae. Also, our spine has four different sections and curves which are Cervical, Thoracic, Lumbar and Sacral.

While standing, taking rest, walking upright or running on four legs; quadrupedal creatures hardly have to pay conscious attention at their body postures and natural curves of their spines. Watch carefully at your dog or cat when it seats, stands or runs.

Only in the condition of not having enough energy and essential body parts unfit or in a bad shape (infested, deformed, amputated or wounded), bad body posture could negatively affect speed of roaming, ability to perform different tasks and their natural spinal curves.

We too are not exception to this but I believe that only we humans suffer from spine related pains, deformities and decay by most. Unlike four legged creatures, we need to maintain accurate balance along with keeping upper body erect to carry our different kinds of static and dynamic tasks.

Types of Posture

To be able to adjust ourselves with various operational demands, we eventually alter spinal curves, distance between two vertebrae and pressure on the whole vertebral column. We twist, jerk, pull or burden it instantaneously, momentarily or over a considerable amount of time.

"Pat your back on your own frequently because it reduces the issue of frozen shoulders. Simple idea but great effect!"

As many anatomists would agree, the lower section of our back is not much perfectly designed (or not ‘evolved’ correctly through millions of years). When it comes to perform activities by adapting an erect posture, this very design defect speaks (and also ‘hurts’) very loudly. Perhaps, only human babies need to learn and also practice to walk on two feet.

Ability to stand and walk with the perfectly erect or upright posture comes only after few years after a baby's birth. We insist on good posture because it’s an inevitable part of influence and impression in society but we hardly relate it with health.

Vertebral column or spine is a bridge of life force that flows between brain and rest of the body. Vertebrae or one of the bony segments of the spinal column that rests on other vertebrae with soft disk or cushion in between, is one of the vulnerable and also complex structures.

Spine connects the whole body with the brain and also provides energy and signals to different body parts through spinal cord. Both stagnant life style and exhaustive workout done by adapting wrong postures accelerate the process of spinal decay and deformation.

Like any other moving body part that is made up of blood veins, nerves, bones, tendons (band of inelastic tissue that connects muscles with bones) and muscles; entire spine or backbone is spring like a long metal spring but a little more complex than it.

One question might be raising in your mind i. e. Why we experience inflammation and pains in back, neck or arms only few minutes after applying pressure or strain? Crucial importance of good posture, workout and physical activities won’t make sense properly until we don’t get answer of this big question.

Bone, tendon and muscles: All tied up together

"Musculoskeletal pains and inflammation, if persisted over a long time, can lead to performance degradation and most importantly - deterioration of self-confidence."

Composed by elastic and fibrous tissues, muscles have their own dynamics and chemical processes. Muscles remain fit and also painless when they are moved in regular intervals because only movements ensure supply of blood and oxygen. Lactic acid gets generated as by-product of exercise but it also needs to get washed out through adequate blood circulation.

Holding any body part in a one position or configuration and putting strain on it in repetition causes contraction of muscles and ultimately disturbance in process of circulation of blood, nutrients and oxygen. You might have heard about an athlete suffering from tennis elbow.

In absence of required nutrition and accumulation of lactic acid, the muscles start to ache, tingle and inflame. If muscular pain is not relived and lactic acid is not excreted within proper time then it badly affects not only muscles but also tendons and nerves in the long run.

Spinal column is also surrounded by muscles, nerves and tissues. Muscle fibres provide support and stability to it. Muscles help us in adapting different postures by bending and twisting the spinal column at different curves. Weaker and injured muscles led to improper postures.

Which posture you think is the correct one?

"Incorrectly lifted load of only 5 kilos puts an enourmous pressure of 80 kilos on lumbar area i. e. 15 times higher than the original weight."

While sitting at one place for a long time in any particular posture, we put pressure on our whole spinal structure and thus kicking off the vicious process of musculoskeletal decay. Upper body weight also adds to the pressure on lower body, which is felt in lower back and abdominal region.

If posture isn’t changed or any body movements are not made to re-establish sufficient blood supply then not just spine but all related body parts get exhausted and start to ache and inflame. Over a considerable amount of time (in months or years), person working  stagnantly starts to feel lack of energy, enthusiasm and lightness from inside.

"Nearly more than 80% of today's youngsters in cities suffer from pains in shoulders, back, neck, arms, wrists, palms and feet. Only reason is stagnation and spending a of time with motorbikes, computers, cell phones and television."

Although we all love luxury and relaxation, it's crucial that our body is moved and not kept stagnant for a long time. In fact, stagnation deteriorates it much faster as compared to a lifestyle filled with regular movements and actions. While sitting, walking or doing different tasks; only good body posture ensures spinal health and continuity of liveliness.

Try to remain in a good and upright posture as much as possible because it’s not just healthy but impressive too. Respect your body and pay attention at your posture. Be smart and stay fit, healthy and performing for a long time!

Good and impressive sitting body posture with and without computer

"Stagnant lifestyle coupled with bad static and dynamic postures make situation worse or nightmarish."

Between year 2008 to 2013, I've gone through worst health and performance conditions. Pains, swelling, inflammation of muscles and tendons in back, neck, shoulders and wrists was about to put me out of action permanently. However, my own excruciating conditions and ordeal has taught me a great lesson in life.

I've successfully recovered from severe pain in back and neck only by adapting a proper posture, changing it frequently and doing rigorous exercise on regular basis. Good posture is a health insurance and a very impressive too. It has changed my life completely and also how people perceive me socially.

Would you still like to conduct or continue the experiment, mentioned in first two paragraphs? Certainly not I guess. If you want to test that how your muscles and tendons respond to long lasting stagnation, go ahead and try it out carefully.

It would end in ailing but I'm sure that you would become more conscious about your body and its dynamics. Also, you'd become more conscious about your overall body language and especially posture while sitting, walking and standing.

Related Articles:
1) Postures 2) Positive Body Language 3) Confident Body Language 4) Conscious shift in body language 5) My posture discovery 6) Power Postures