A Beginners Guide To Body Language

Body language is non-verbal communication, but is used along with verbal communication. It expresses our emotions, conveys our attitudes, demonstrates our personality traits and supports out verbal communications. Everyone uses this whenever we communicate with each other.

There are many different non-verbal behaviors that vary across cultures, such as the thumbs up to signify "way to go" or "good job". However, the different six primary emotions of happiness, surprise, sadness, fear, anger, and disgust are common throughout all cultures. You will find that these six come from our own instincts and can be taught to us, as they will naturally appear when we speak and communicate with others.

When you have a conversation with another person you will have an expression coming from within you that will come from your sub consciousness. And, because this comes from the subconscious, it can tell others a great deal about how you are as a person.

Fear is a natural human emotion and serves a purpose related to our safety and security. But let us imagine a person who has witnessed a serious auto mobile accident, but rather than running to the aid of the injured; they run franticly in the opposite direction. This frantic running away is body expression that certainly infers some kind of fear. Specifically what that fears might be we cannot know without talking to the person. But it is obvious that the fear has nothing to do with immediate safety. Through this example you should be able to see how we can read another's personality through the lens of his body language.

You can try an experiment of your own at home. When you speak to someone, you should look at what their body is communicating to you as well. Whilst talking with someone, observe their body language as they talk. After a few moments observation, you should close your eyes and continual listening to them. When you do this, you will not be able to see their hands moving, facial expressions, or other bodily movements. You will, though, realise how much information is not available to you because you have your eyes closed. You will find that thus process will become even more difficult to read and understand without actually seeing an individual's expressions that go with their vocal speech.

You will find that a specific way to learn how to a person's body language will be to observe them and get to know how they 'talk'. You will need to that all individuals have six common types of instinctual body language, yet will vary in degree of expression. Non-verbal communication will also be common among certain cultures, societies and families. Because of this, two different people could have a similar behavior which will be expressed through similar types of body behavior. If you are conscious of your own body language, then you undoubtedly find it easier to read other people's who are similar to yours.

As you progress and continue to learn your own body language and how it relates to the behaviors of your sub consciousness, you will need to be conscious of the fact that you don't overdo this. After some time, you will recognise the only goal will be to match your thoughts with your own body language.

In this process, you are not concerned about judging yourself, but want to learn how to read your own body language so that you will later be able to read the body language of others. After, you will be able to use the information you have gained for your own understanding.

Once you recognize some of your own body language movements and what they mean, you will be able to begin to read other people with more accuracy. When you are having a conversation with someone, you will be able to identify different things such as mixed messages. These mixed messages will be identified when an individual says one thing, yet their body communications something else.

You can find that a good way to test your understanding is to see when someone lies to you. They may tell you, "I didn't do it!", but the tone of voice, the way they look away, and then are slightly nervous will indicate they have something to hide and all things just don't add up.

You will recognize a specific conflict between verbal and body language, which will signal possible deception on their part. When you receive mixed messages like these, you can be almost certain they will be related to insincerity and mean they have something to hide from you.