Yoga & Wellness Advocate
JUDIT TOROK
A regular visitor to Tokyo, New York City- based yoga instructor and interculturalist Judit Torok shares her techniques for alleviating big city stress.
Warrior for Confidence
Body language and non-verbal communication have a profound effect on not just how others perceive us, but on how we feel about ourselves.
I N a TED talk (a platform for discussing technology, entertainment and design), titled “Body Language Shapes Who You Are,” Amy Cuddy, a Harvard Business School associate professor and social psychologist, describes her research on the effects of physical poses for regulating our emotions. She claims that a person’s level of confidence, self-esteem and determination, all of which are closely linked with higher levels of testosterone (competition hormone) and lower levels of cortisol (stress hormone), depends on what body shape or posture a person habitually holds. The way we shape our bodies communicates non-verbally to others and, more importantly to ourselves, how we feel. Cuddy explains that holding a pose for as little as two minutes can radically change our self-perception and lead to significant life outcomes. So to feel more empowered, we should shape our body into a pose that promotes confidence. While it might be “pretend” at first, the more often we shape our bodies into powerful poses the more likely we will become confident people over time.
These ideas seem very powerful, but how do they relate to yoga?
