When I see my kids slouching doing their homework, I know they’re not doing a good job. Or at least, not relative to what they could be doing. This is because there is a direct link between our posture and how we feel. When we are curled up making ourselves small, we are by at a minimum lowering our energy levels and at worse increasing our cortisol levels (the stress hormone), neither of which contribute to the process or intellectual thought.
In one of the most popular TED talks ever given (68.2 million views and counting at the time of writing), Harvard professor Amy Cuddy discussed the value of adopting ‘power poses’ for two minutes. A high-power pose is when we make ourselves big. When we throw our arms out, stand tall with legs wide and arms waving we are making ourselves big.
Cuddy’s research found that when in a high-power pose for two minutes, we experience about a 20% increase in testosterone and a 25% decrease in cortisol. Conversely, when we are in a low-power pose and making ourselves small, we experience about a 10% in testosterone and a 15% increase in cortisol. Testosterone has the opposite effect of cortisol making us feel more confident and assertive.
Many years ago, I was asked to coach a Hong Kong Chinese lady who had just been promoted to Asia Pacific COO for a large asset management company and now had a team of 70 people to lead. I already knew her as she had been on a number of my training courses. She was quite introverted and never one of the more active contributors to class discussions. When we started our first session, I noticed that she had her arms folded into her lap and her legs crossed under her chair. She couldn’t have made herself smaller if she had tried!
I asked her to place her arms on the arm rests of the chair and we carried on talking. Within a few minutes I noticed a difference in her posture and the confidence with which she spoke but I said nothing. After 15 minutes I asked her how she felt and have never forgotten her response:
“I think you make me feel like my boss wants you to make me feel!”
A minor adjustment to how we sit or stand can make a material difference to how we feel and project ourself. Whether going into an interview or an important client meeting, two minutes of high-power poses before you start will lead to hormonal changes that configure your brain to be assertive and confident.
Our physiology changes our energy levels and thought processes, and thereby our outcomes. The next time you see your child slouching when doing their homework, you now know the neuroscience behind why they need to sit up!
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