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Recognize the body-mind connection
There are universal expressions of emotions. It’s adaptive for us to be able to signal those things and for us to be able to read those things. So for example, when we feel good, smile. When we feel sad, we frown. When we feel surprised, we go like this. These are universal expressions across cultures. They’re expressed the same way in different cultures and they’re recognized in different cultures. When people are talking about emotion expressions, though, they tend to think about facial expressions. And it turns out there are some universal expressions of emotions that are postural expressions. They’re below-the-neck expressions. And one of the ones that I think has been most thoroughly studied now is what we call the pride posture or the power posture. The researcher who has lead that work is Jessica Tracy, who’s a social psychologist at the University of British Columbia. And Jessica Tracy has been studying it in dozens of cultures, and what she finds is that when people win first place they naturally throw their arms up into a “V”. They tend to lift their chin and open their mouth a bit. That’s a universal expression of pride. The other evidence we have that this is universal is that it’s not even limited to humans. So non-humans, when they’re trying to signal dominance or power or status, what do they do? They make themselves big. They expand. They stretch out as much as they can. They bulge their chests out. They pound their chests. Chimps will pick up sticks and hold them out to make themselves look bigger. A swan will bring its wings back and open. A peacock will lift and expand its tail feathers. All of these are expansive shows of dominance and power. So this is definitely something that seems to be hardwired in the brain – the link between feeling powerful and expanding.
Let the body lead the mind
The body leads the mind, and we have spent so many hundreds of years getting it backwards. I think that we as humans want to believe that the mind leads the mind. That we can talk ourselves off the ledge or think ourselves off the ledge. We’re actually not very good at doing that. But our body is constantly in conversation with the mind. Now, it is a conversation. So the communication is moving in both directions. But we neglect the body-mind piece. We forget how much our body is telling our mind what state we’re in. Are we in a threatening state, or are we in a safe state? So when we start hunching over our desks and not moving, the body is certainly not telling the mind, “Oh you’re feeling really powerful now. You should go out and do something.” It’s starts to signal to the mind that you’re powerless, and that’s related to feeling sad, and feeling inactive and not very creative, and just feeling generally defeated.
Calm yourself like a yogi
When I talk about this work, people are like yep, and yoga people have known this forever. And I say, yes they have. You’re right, they have. This is not new. This is just a little bit of science to backup thousands of years of what yoga practitioners have actually known, which is, when you expand the body, especially in these particular poses for short periods of time, and you also focus on your breathing, what’s happening is your body starts to tell your nervous system, “You are safe. You are powerful.” That’s what’s happening and that’s why it makes people feel better. Yoga also has physical benefits, obviously. Stretching and strengthening your muscles is beneficial. It’s not just psychological. But the effect that yoga has on the mind – we’re only beginning to understand it. Very simply yoga techniques are now being used to treat post-traumatic stress, and they are extremely effective. Post-traumatic stress is really one of the most powerless states that a person can experience. While talk therapy can work really well for some people, it doesn’t work for everyone. And one of the groups that is benefitting much more from body-mind interventions is combat veterans with post-traumatic stress. So they come back, and think of it – their identity has been dramatically disrupted, they have seen or experienced something really horrible, physically they might be in great pain. They are feeling utterly powerless. So using these yoga-based practices to treat post-traumatic stress among that population, and also among women who are rape victims with post-traumatic stress, has just been phenomenally effective.
Self-soothe in high-stress situations
This goes so far beyond the “Victory Pose.” This really is about how you hold yourself. Do you hold your shoulders back and open? Is your posture erect, or are you hunching over? Which we spend a lot of time doing at work. We certainly spend a lot of time doing that when we’re on our phones. The way you move and hold yourself is pretty easy for most of us to change. Let me give you an example. If you go in to give a talk and you feel nervous, and you feel your shoulders start to collapse and you wrap your hand around your arm, and feel your breathing get shallow and fast, force yourself out of that. Pull your shoulders open. Hold something in your hand like a water bottle or a slide advancer, something that forces you to open up your body. Pause. Take a deep breath. These are things that you can do. And these things, even if you are mentally resisting it, they are still going to be signaling to your nervous system, “You’re safe.” So they will calm you down.