The Body Language Expert: 4 Body Language Tricks That Will Make People Love You & Respect You!

Cuddy explains that body language isn’t one-way; how you sit, stand, breathe, and move feeds back into your nervous system. Collapsed, constricted postures (shoulders forward, limbs wrapped, ankles locked) are associated with powerlessness, anxiety, and even higher depression scores. Expansive postures and slower, deeper breathing activate the behavioral approach system, making you feel safer, more agentic, and more willing to act.

Studies show that briefly opening posture in people with major depressive disorder reduces depressive symptoms, and expansive yoga plus breathing significantly eases PTSD in combat veterans. Cuddy recommends micro‑habits: stretch out of the fetal position upon waking, adopt a ‘starfish’ pose in bed, stand with one hand on your hip while brushing your teeth, sit farther from the steering wheel, or rearrange your desk to encourage openness. These “tiny tweaks” compound into large shifts in how powerful you feel.

What most reliably reveals deception or inauthenticity is asynchrony: your words say one emotion but your body expresses another. This same mismatch appears when people feel like imposters and can’t present themselves honestly, even if they’re not lying. Observers (e.g., investors on Shark Tank) may not consciously identify the body–speech mismatch, but they reliably experience such people as inauthentic and favor those whose nonverbals match their genuine conviction.

Research on dating apps shows that open, confident postures in profile photos make both men and women appear more attractive. In the workplace, the same warm-confidence blend—open posture, leaning forward, relaxed arms and hands, slower speech—predicts better outcomes for leaders and communicators. Importantly, women are not punished for this non‑alpha, non‑aggressive form of dominant body language; it signals comfort in one’s skin, not arrogance.

Cuddy distinguishes “fake it till you make it” (performing a false self to fool others) from “fake it till you become it” (using expansive behavior to create conditions where you can discover and grow into your real self). Self‑affirmation research supports this: writing briefly about your core personal values before a stressful task improves performance and lowers stress hormones, not by lying to yourself but by anchoring you in who you actually are regardless of the outcome.