Are you one of those people who hate mornings? Mornings can be rough, but a Harvard psychologist has devised a method for making your mornings better.
Amy Cuddy (American social psychologist) says that the first thing you should do when you wake up is to stretch out! It’s as simple as that! You should stretch your body as wide as possible before you even put one foot on the floor.
The theory behind that is called “power posing”. Try to stretch out as much as you can and make yourself as big as possible. This pose mimics that of a confident person and helps you to make your mind and body believe you are more confident.
Amy Cuddy is the author of “Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges.” It’s a book on the subtle yet powerful ways our posture can influence our thoughts and emotions.
Cuddy’s TED talk on power-posing, on how standing like Wonder Woman can build confidence, is the second-most-viewed of all-time.
People think that their behavior follows their own emotions. Cuddy’s research suggests the opposite is also true, meaning that we can become more confident simply by striking a power pose.
Body Language is a very significant aspect of modern communications and relationships. Other people’s body language helps you to see their feelings and meanings to you and your own body language reveals your feelings and meanings to others.
Cuddy explained how that wisdom can carry over to your daily routine at a recent talk at New York’s 92Y. ‘It’s obviously bi-directional, but the people who wake up like this are super happy, like annoyingly happy.’
‘And what are nonverbal expressions of power and dominance? Well, this is what they are. So in the animal kingdom, they are about expanding. So you make yourself big, you stretch out, you take up space, you’re basically opening up.
It’s about opening up. And this is true across the animal kingdom. It’s not just limited to primates. And humans do the same thing. (Laughter) So they do this both when they have power sort of chronically, and also when they’re feeling powerful in the moment. And this one is especially interesting because it really shows us how universal and old these expressions of power are.’
On the other hand, you could be doing your emotions a disservice if you wake up curled like a cat.
‘If you sleep in a fetal ball, we have some preliminary evidence that people who wake up like that wake up much more stressed out,’ Cuddy says.
She says that aproximately 40% of people sleep in the fetal position, and this position could be making them less confident throughout their day. If you multiply those individual mornings across entire weeks, months, years, one annoying morning turns into a lot of unnecessary misery.
Experts have revealed that sleeping naked is the key for getting a good night sleep. There are numerous benefits of sleeping without your pyjamas, the first being that you help your body to breathe and get fresh air. Taking your pyjamas off can also keep your cortisol in check (the biochemical in our bodies which affects out levels of anxiety and stress).
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A professional writer with over a decade of incessant writing skills. Her topics of interest and expertise range from health, nutrition and psychology.