Every gesture is a message!

“What every BODY is saying”: A resourceful guide in reading body language.

All Indians have come across the phrase “Hasee Toh Phasee” 😛 (meaning: If she smiles, she is wooed) once or more in their life. Often, the so-called mind readers or body language experts make the following statements:
1. If she is playing with her hair, she is trying to flirt.
2. If they are stuttering, they are lying
… and the list goes on.

Authors, scriptwriters, etc. often use body language as a medium to describe or emphasise someone’s thoughts or emotions. Take a look:

Fie, fie upon her!
There’s language in her eye, her cheek, her lip,
Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out
At every joint and motive of her body
- William Shakespeare (Troilus and Cressida — Act IV. Scene V.)

All this makes one thing clear that body language is something people resort to in situations when other forms of communication are not possible or are deceiving or just to put extra emphasis on the thoughts being conveyed.

Book cover

In this book, Joe Navarro, an ex-FBI agent, has presented detailed explanations to read people, along with examples from his career.

He calls this Non-verbal Communication and considers it the most honest form of communication.

This book can be considered a guide to read people. As Navarro states, this is something that needs a lot of practice and patience. He doesn’t claim any one to be an expert by just reading his explanations.

I saw the human body as a kind of billboard that advertised what a person was thinking via gestures, facial expressions, and physical movements.

Importance of Non-verbal Communication

Non-verbals are genetically coded in us as they exist even before language was present.

Scientifically, these non-verbals come from the limbic brain, which is our emotional and decision-making centre that influences behaviour, based on situations. Since the reaction occurs without thought, these behaviours are mostly genuine. Hence, the limbic brain is the honest brain.

On the other hand, the neocortex that is responsible for analytical thinking, memory and cognition is the lying brain as it is capable of complex thoughts.

When we speak or write, our words come from the neocortex and thus, they can deceive. Our body language, which is governed by the limbic brain, will give the real clues.

Thus, with the understanding of non-verbals:
1. You will be able to distinguish when someone is being deceitful towards you.
2. You will be able to understand the true thoughts or feelings of people close to you.
3. Communicate more positively when required.

3F’s of Survival

In case of danger, it’s not just fight or flight. There is a third response that is passed on to us by years of evolution — freeze.

Freeze

Early men used to inhibit their movements or freeze in presence of predators, as movement attracted attention. The childhood story of the men holding his breath when the bear approached comes to mind while reading this. In the present day, soldiers follow the same approach — when the point man or the man ahead freezes, everyone in the queue freezes.

Thus, our limbic brain knows that when there’s a threat, we should freeze or hide. During interviews, nervous candidates tend to hold their breath. Scared children avoid eye contact and make their arms still to remain unnoticed. All these are examples of the freeze response.

Flight

When freeze response is not enough, getting away as far as possible is the way to escape danger.

You may see such behaviour in public transport when women try to keep their bags beside them to distance themselves as much as possible from the stranger or in the elevator where they try to be as near to the exit as possible.

You may notice people leaning away when they enter into an argument. People turning their feet away or moving their bodies away in case of undesirable situations is a first-class flight response.

Fight

This is the final survival tactic which involves a lot of aggression. Aggression can be shown without any physical contact too — like by showing stern eyes. Modern-day lawsuits are classic examples of fight response where each party tries to establish their views by arguing.

Seeking “Comfort”

… the “prime directive” of the limbic brain is to ensure our survival as a species. It does this by being programmed to make us secure by avoiding danger or discomfort and seeking safety and comfort whenever possible.

When we are comfortable, we display high confidence in non-verbals (or tells). When not, humans show many pacifying or comforting behaviours. Knowing these becomes important to understand a person’s current state of mind.

There are a lot of pacifying behaviours such as touching the neck or face, rubbing the cheek, exhaling with puffed cheeks, rubbing the forehead, etc. When we feel threatened, maybe due to a tough situation or conversation or an interview, our limbic brain induces these behaviours to calm us down.

When we see such behaviours in others, we must think about the possible reasons for the same. This is because the person may say they are okay but if they show these behaviours, then that means internally something is bothering them or they are hiding the true information.

Pacifying behaviours do not confirm deceit. This is because a person may be stressed or nervous in a situation and thus show those behaviours. The trick is to understand their baseline behaviour first (how they react normally vs in stress) and then connect the dots with the current circumstances and conclude.

Is our face always honest?

Our face is the canvas of the mind which can reveal our thoughts through our expressions — smile, frown, etc. However, since we can control these expressions, they are often not honest.

Remember these things being told by parents when we were a kid:
1. Even if you dislike those relatives, greet them with a smile.
2. If you don’t like the food, don’t eat it, but stop making that silly face.
We hear such statements from such an early age that it becomes natural to us to lie using our face.
The term poker face has originated because we can control our expressions, thus making them less ideal when detecting human emotions.

According to Navarro, our feet are the most honest body part when it comes to non-verbals. When we are happy, we can’t stop moving our legs — we wiggle them, we dance, we hop, etc.
During a conversation, if you see that the other person has moved his one or both feet away from you, consider it a sign that either they don’t like you or the ongoing conversation. Interestingly, this is a flight response sign too.

Nagarro also highlights how our arms play a major role in conveying our comfort or discomfort. As we know, our torso has all our vital organs and thus our limbic brain is pre-programmed to protect those in case of any threat. When someone doesn’t like a topic or feels uncomfortable in a situation, notice how their arms cover their torso in different ways. Crossing both arms during heated conversations is a good example. Another thing you may have noticed is how people tend to touch one arm with another when they feel nervous, thus giving cover to the torso. On the contrary, when we are comfortable with someone, we keep our torso open — even greet them with a wide hug to display affection.

The book talks about a lot of other signs which we do with our feet, arms, torso to show our happiness or disappointment.

Ten Commandments of Non-Verbal Communication

Navarro has outlined 10 commandments of understanding non-verbal communication.

1. Be a competent observer of your environment.
2. Observing in context is key to understanding nonverbal behaviour.
3. Learn to recognise and decode nonverbal behaviours that are universal.
4. Learn to recognise and decode idiosyncratic nonverbal behaviours.
   The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour.
5. When you interact with others, try to understand their baseline behaviours.
   We will be able to tell what’s different or abnormal only when we know what normal looks like.
6. Always try to watch people for multiple tells.
7. It’s important to look for changes in a person’s behaviour that can signal changes in thoughts, emotions, interest or intent.
8. Learning to detect false or misleading nonverbal signals is also critical.
9. Knowing how to distinguish between comfort and discomfort will help you focus on the most important behaviours for decoding nonverbal communications.
10. When observing others be subtle about it.

This book is more like a textbook and may require multiple re-reads to understand and apply the learnings. It surely provides a starting point to learn about body language and opens the reader’s eyes with many mind-boggling examples and explanations. It may even take you on a nostalgic journey of your own reactions in case of similar situations as described in the book.