Content:
- The Psychological Nature of Body Language
- How to Use Body Language to Your Advantage
- Read the person’s look
Our world is filled up with words so much that we often turn deaf to all the other ways of communication. We rarely think about how much our body language can say, it’s even unbeknown to us. You may say one thing, but your body language will contradict your words. You wouldn't like your body to tell the truth if it needs to be hidden, but you would like to control your body enough to be able to emphasize what you are saying, i.e., using your body language to your own advantage. But to do so, you need to have a more detailed look at what is body language.
The Psychological Nature of Body Language
So, what does body language mean? Body language is the nonverbal communication, which often goes unintentionally. While verbal language is mostly structured, our body language, though it may be following certain rules, is more likely to be unstructured. Unlike verbal language, which comes in disconnected units, body language is continuous.
Body Language: What You Need to Know
1. What Body Language Means
We've already mentioned that your body language may say something that contradicts your words, which seemingly indicates that every move has its own meaning. The problem lies in the fact that until someone else decides to pick up our move and assign it with a meaning, our moves are most likely to remain meaningless. But that counts only with unintentional moves. We rarely realize when we are using body language to say something. Now, think when a certain action of your partner or someone else upsets or irritates you, and you don't want to express your feeling with words, you most likely roll your eyes or stand in some certain position.
2. Psychology of Body Language
The main reasons for intentional usage of body language include: emphasizing the verbal information, lying, as well as an inability to communicate via verbal language, for example, infants, deaf and mute people, etc. There is a great difference between the human verbal language and body language psychology, while the former is an acquired knowledge, the latter is a natural instinct, which can be proved by the following list of evidence:
- Blind children who are unable to learn such aspects of body language as smiling and nodding still display them;
- Newborn kids show recognizable emotions, such as joy, pain, surprise, and anger;
- When analyzing cultures on different continents, it is clearly seen that regardless of cultural origins, people express emotions like surprise, anger, fear, disgust, and sadness relatively similarly.
3. Percentage of Body Language in Communication
If you ask what percentage of communication is body language, you may be quite surprised with the answer. As we've mentioned before, we are living in the world filled up with words, so you may be amazed learning that words' share in our communicative system is only 7%. Yep, we use the tone of our voice for communicative matters more often. Voice tone has 38% share. Now, using maths, it's quite easy to figure out that 55% of our communication is body language, as we are using it both consciously and unconsciously.
After learning everything above-mentioned, it is easy to conclude that reading body language is quite easy, but such a conclusion will prove that you know nothing about the psychology of people. The misleading theory that you can read people like books is very popular. But this theory's aficionados forget the main difference between books and humans. Books are passive, and their message is mostly conscious, while humans are active and, as we've already mentioned, their message is often unconscious. So, even if you take courses in reading body language, you are most likely to learn how to read 15%-25% of what human moves may tell you. But being unable to read all the messages doesn't mean that you won't be able to send the messages that others need to receive. Thus, it is much more useful to learn how to send messages with your moves in order to use body language to your own advantage.
How to Use Body Language to Your Advantage
Before we start to dwell on how to use body language effectively, you need to learn why body language is hard to use. You've already learned that body language is not that easy to read, as a lot of our moves are subconscious and you may not always correctly translate the message, the same goes for usage of body language. You can read thousands of books on how to use body language correctly, but the probability that you will control all of your subconsciously-caused moves is extremely low. Besides, once again, even if you control yourself completely, there is no guarantee that all of your messages will be interpreted correctly. So, the best way is to keep it simple, as a girl you are trying to lure may interpret your 'moonwalk' wrong. So, let's check out how to use body language to attract a girl.
1. Movement
Of course, you can smile, but when it comes to expressing emotions, it has much more to do with how you use your body language in general, i.e., your whole body. When reading a face, it is quite difficult to tell what the person really feels. So, if you are sitting or standing still, the smile may be interpreted that you are just bored but too polite to say it in her face. So, you need to move, but slowly, as you don't want her to think that you are nervous. Nervous guys are always jerky, so, if you want to show her that you are a confident man who is successful with women, all of your movements must be controlled, which can be achieved by slowing them down. When you are slowing down your moves, you are showing that you are “comfortable” with yourself and with the world around you, and women find such a type of men highly attractive.
2. Relax
You are not shy, thus you have no need to shield yourself from her, so let your arms hang down at your sides. Mind that whenever you are not standing, you need to lean back and relax. Once again, you need to show her that you are absolutely comfortable with everything, which is impossible to achieve unless you are completely relaxed.
3. Mind the Space
Wherever you are, you need to have enough space for it to be comfortable for you. Don't forget to lean back and kick your legs out when you are sitting. Subconsciously your prospective girlfriend and everyone around will see that you have marked your territory. But don't dismiss this issue as simply territorial, as it assures your girlfriend that you are absolutely confident and that you can take what belongs to you.
4. Flirting
Whenever it comes to flirting, words and phrases pop up in your head, but there are a lot of ways how to use your body language to flirt. Start with your face:
- Simply winking and rolling your eyes will do perfectly fine for flirting with your prospective girlfriend. But make sure that your winks are not overly vulgar;
- Eyebrows are also important. Mind that with raising one brow you are showing your prospective girlfriend that you want to know more, while raising both eyebrows may be interpreted as your questing whether you have the same on your minds;
- One of the most important tools of flirting with your body language is your lips. Smiling, biting and puckering are the best choices for flirting, but as with winking, make sure that it doesn't look vulgar.
You can also flirt with your prospective girlfriend using your body:
- Show your physical features, your muscles, your strong hands, your butt. No striptease, so you should think about your outfit beforehand to be able to show your strong features with your clothes on;
- Break the barrier with your touches. No need to grope your prospective partner, you are flirting, remember? So, when you are laughing about something, you can unintentionally put your hand on her shoulder;
- When the touch barrier is broken, you can easily get closer. Start slowly with holding each other’s hands, and then slowly moving towards hugging.
5. How to use Your Body Language to Show a Girl You Like Her
Girls like when a guy can show her that he likes her without saying a word. Actually, if you went through flirting through your body language, you succeeded in it. But if flirting is yet to come, you shouldn't forget about the power of the eye-contact. A smile combined with gazing into her eyes, even if you are in a few feet from each other, signals that you really like her. Remember, that it is quite easy to misinterpret the body language, so try to avoid creepy looks by all means, as you don't want her to think that you are some kind of maniac, right? Another way to show your prospective girlfriend that you like her is to lean towards her. Once again, try to avoid misinterpretations at all costs, don't try cornering her in some small spaces, as that may look a bit threatening. When you are talking with her, just lean towards her a little bit, and mind that you need to stop if you notice that she's trying to pull back from you.
Analyzing body language
Analyze proxemics and touches
This is one way of transmitting information in interpersonal relationships. Closeness in space and touch speak of sympathy, affection and love. People who are in close relationships need less personal space with a loved one than with strangers. It is important to note that the size of personal space also depends on the culture. What is considered a small distance in one culture can be considered large in another.
Read the person’s look
As it was established as a result of research, people who are keen on interesting conversation look at the face of their partner for about 80% of the time. However, they look not only in the their eyes: they stop at them for several minutes, then the look goes to the nose or lips, and then again to the eyes. From time to time, they may look at the table, but the look will still return to the eyes of another person.
A direct look in the eye is considered a sign of honesty. Too persistent or even aggressive look suggests that the person perfectly understands what message he is trying to convey. A person who is trying to fool someone will try to divert the gaze of the person with whom he is talking so as not to avoid looking directly into his eyes, which is considered a sign of a lie. Do not forget that, as mentioned above, everyone has their own personal characteristics that must be taken into account when analyzing attitudes and attempts to deceive.
While body language may be quite a difficult topic to understand, using it to your advantage, at least for attracting girls, is not that hard. It turns out that smile and your looks can be quite a powerful tool in luring a woman. Women love with their eyes, so there is no surprise that 55% of communication with them relies on body language. But before you start thinking of yourself as of some body-language-guru, we remind you that there are subconsciously-caused moves that you can't fully control and that can easily tell a lot about your real thoughts and intentions, so be careful with them.
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