The Power is in the Pose
The Superhero Pose
After a tiring, but fun day I found myself lounging on my couch indulging in the latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy attempting to turn off my brain for a while. If you aren’t familiar, this show is about goings-on at a hospital and in this particular episode a doctor was preparing to do a very intense surgery. She was standing in an “odd” position and a fellow doctor asked her “What are you doing?”, she simply replied,
“I am being a superhero”.
She briefly explained that its been proven that if people simply stand in a superhero position for 2 minutes before a big “performance”, they will perform better at this event. I was immediately intrigued and had to find out more.
Upon my search I came across a Ted Talk by Amy Cuddy “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are.” Her talk discusses the studies that have shown how your body language can affect how others treat you, but she found she was more interested in knowing if your body language effects how you feel about yourself. She conducted studies with individuals in different “power” poses and then tested their saliva for physiological indicators of change. They found interesting results, the power posers showed an 8% increase in testosterone (dominance hormone), those who had done closed off, small poses had a 10% decrease in the hormone. Also, the inverse relationship happened with cortisol, the stress hormone. While the power posers experienced a 25% decrease in cortisol levels, the closed off posers had a 15% increase in their stress levels.
Now, knowing there are chemical reactions happening in your body when striking a power pose Amy Cuddy had half her study participants practice a power pose for 2 minutes while the other half didn’t do the power pose, before a stressful interview. Videos were taken of the interviews and unbiased individuals analyzed them and decided who’d they would choose to hire. All of the “power posers” where chosen as hires.
Amy ends her talk with a powerful personal story of “faking it” until you, not just be it, but become it. She encourages individuals to spend just 2 minutes in the mirror or elsewhere striking their favorite superhero pose to prepare for an important presentation, interview, talk, etc.
This simple act of just becoming Superman for 2 minutes before my next presentation is worth trying. I can’t wait to give it a go.
Here is her Ted Talk, I encourage you to take a look.
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