Power Posing
Amy Cuddy power posing on TED.com
Many of you have heard me talk about power posing and Amy Cuddy. I have decided it’s time to share this exciting research with our Human Wellness Journey community officially, here on the journal page.
What is power posing you might ask?…well, I’m eager to share what I know about it with you.
First, at the time of this writing, Amy Cuddy’s TED Talk is the most watched ted talk in the history of ted talks. It is absolutely worth the watch. Below is a link to the video and to Amy’s website. Amy is an ivy league graduate who works for Harvard as a researcher and professor of sociology.
She noticed differences in the body language of her students. Men take up more space, raise their hand with a straight arm and are not afraid to spread out across multiple desks or chairs. Women often tend to try to take up as little space as possible, stacking items, crossing legs, raising their arm slightly while keeping the elbow bent, and using less than the total of one desk space. In an effort to learn more about this observation, Cuddy started her research.
She brought a double blind interview panel together, 5 interviewers who were told to show no sign of emotion through their body language or otherwise. Separately, interviewees were asked to spend three minutes in one of two postures, take up space like super woman and ‘power-pose’, OR behave as many of us do while we wait at a doctors office, hunch over, look at our phones while touching our necks (one of the most passive body language acts). The interviewees were then interviewed by the panel. They also had their hormones tested. What was learned? The interview panel chose those who had power posed before the job and those who power posed had a significant dip in cortisol (stress hormone) and increase in testosterone (calm, cool, collected hormone). The opposite was also true, those who hunched had higher levels.
So, now that you know this, there is no reason not to utilise this amazing technique when you are feeling stress, ‘power-pose’ before your next job interview for sure, but use posture to lower stress hormones as often as you think of it. 3 minutes is all it takes and more time does not show a bigger impact. Now we know why those yogis are so blissed out, 60 minutes of power posing!!