Lesson 6

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Leakage

By now, I feel you’re super-aware that body language can reveal an awful lot about messages that people are sending. ‘Leakage’ is the term for body language that gives away what you’re really thinking, as I’m sure you know by now.

The mind and body link

The mind and body are inextricably linked. So every thought produces a body reaction. Any message can be better interpreted if non-verbals are read successfully. Equally your own body language, as we’ve repeatedly hammered home, is crucial to how effectively your message is received by others.

It’s not the displaying of positive thoughts that we tend to try to conceal – it’s usually a state of discomfort or anxiety. No matter how hard we try, in certain instances our body language will let us down, and the ‘leakage’ means that a message can lack ‘congruence’ between what is being said and what the body shows.

When we talk about anxiety there are, as far as psychologists are concerned, two main types exhibited by most of us:

• trait anxiety
• state anxiety.

No surprises here with the first one. Within our complex personalities, some people could be classified as perhaps being ‘anxious’. It’s a trait within somebody’s personality – in other words; it’s non-specific; a general characteristic.

State anxiety refers to a person’s response to stimuli. So, in a particular situation a person will experience anxiety, but at other times in the ‘switch off’ position there is no such perceived threat, so everything is in equilibrium. Thus we’ll experience anxiety or nervousness if we’re asked to give a speech or make an appearance on television, for example. It’s perfectly normal. Even experienced screen actors can experience extreme nervousness when appearing in front of a live audience, on a chat show for example.

Oh... Oh... Seven

I’m reminded of the appearance of actor Daniel Craig, after the film release of his portrayal of 007 secret agent James Bond in Casino Royale. Appearing on the Parkinson chat show, a week after the release of the film, it was interesting to watch the displacement and comfort gestures that were in action.

Daniel Craig

Unfortunately, it’s all magnified on screen and you have to have a degree of sympathy for these people when they’re put in the limelight. I made an analysis of this interview and it should bring home to you how subconscious this ‘leakage’ is – and the impression it gives. I’ve chronologically itemised the ‘displacement’ and ‘comfort’ activities – as they occurred – to highlight the pattern of behaviour exhibited, and how they formed the all-important cluster indicating nervousness.

Sitting down opposite Michael Parkinson, first of all Craig gripped the arm of the chair with his right hand. After being welcomed he began speaking (with crossed legs), then he did the following as the interview progressed:

• stroked ear
• touched bottom of nose
• made ‘intention movement’ associated with leaving (i.e. gripping both arms of chair)
• touched bottom of nose
• scratched side of neck
• moved tongue around lips
• three simultaneous eye cut-offs (when questioned about his mother’s attitude to his acting)
• touched eyebrow
• touched bottom of nose
• moved around in chair
• smoothed hair at back of head
• touched bottom of nose
• rubbed nose
• moved tongue around lips
• smoothed hair at back of head then, with same hand movement, did a nose rub on the way down, before gripping arm of chair again
• moved around in chair
• rubbed nose
• rubbed nose
• made ‘intention movement’ associated with leaving
• touched bottom of nose
• scratched left cheek
• touched bottom of nose.

Michael Parkinson then uttered the word ‘finally’ (for the last question) and Daniel Craig oriented his body towards Parkinson – to the right – for the first time; looking more relaxed. There were no more gestures in the final two minutes. Only the ‘intention movement’ to leave the chair at the end of the interview (only this time it was for real!).

Just two interesting points to add to that:

• During the whole interview, Craig’s eye pupils were constricted. Due to his pale blue eyes it showed up conspicuously. As we discussed earlier, when you’re experiencing something pleasurable the pupils dilate and become much bigger. The opposite happens during times of discomfort or nervousness.
• Also, it was noticeable that when Craig’s right hand left the right arm of the chair when he occasionally gestured during his speech, when it returned to that position it was always another grip. This remained throughout the whole interview.

All this was noted, of course, only when the camera was on him during the 14 minutes of the interview.

Doesn’t it just go to show that no matter how experienced or famous we are, the true feelings that we’re experiencing will always leak through?

It’s all in the head

What about sporting personalities? How does their body language aid them in their pursuit of success? Let’s take a look at that most ‘psychological’ of sports – tennis. A game that is always referred to as being one that is played in ‘the player’s head’.

Confident body language in this sport sends a message to the opponent and at the same time influences the player’s own mindset. So therefore it impacts the player as well as the performance of their opponent. Negative ‘leakage’ that’s displayed – on the other hand – can benefit the opponent and further demoralise the player.

On court, the opponent picks up conscious or subconscious signals from every action the other player displays and it gives an overall impression of whether the person across the net is feeling confident and in control or experiencing frustration (maybe due to their serve that has ‘deserted’ them), nervousness or getting increasingly tired. How many times have you passed a TV screen on which a tennis match is being relayed and even with the sound muted and no visible score line, you know which player is ‘on top’? You can tell just by looking at the demeanour of the two players.

British number one Andy Murray is a talented player but on occasions – as he all too readily acknowledges – his head is in the ‘wrong place’ and his body responds with negative body language that benefits his opponent and further demoralises him during the match.

Andy Murray shows his frustration

Critics respond that his surly on-court manner and frequent outbursts to himself and his ‘entourage’ in the players’ box prevent him from achieving his potential.

Talking to BBC Sport in April 2011 he said:

In Miami I was getting more angry ... I was just kind of lost. It seemed like I was trying to do so many things – without coming to the net ... You really need to go into a match with a clear mindset. It probably showed in my body language and my mental state.

You’ve seen players with the following negative type of body language on court, I’m sure:

• slumped shoulders
• head down as they walk back to the baseline or umpire’s chair
• shaking of the head after a point
• muttering or shouting to the ‘self’ or to others
• walking slowly
• breathing heavily.

Rafael Nadal comes back from a losing position

Contrast that with the player who’s feeling good and wants to intimidate their tired and dejected opponent. You’ve seen it – fist pumping, head up, quick and rapid movements, jogging to the chair at the end of a game or set, juggling their feet while seated (can’t wait to get back on court). All the time they’re aware that this upbeat body language has a great impact on their own game as well as the performance of the opponent on the other side of the net. It’s been said that the great champions have emotional control, which separates them from the rest. The self-sabotage body language (smashing rackets and balls, self-abuse) is substituted for emotion that is directed towards their shot-making.

Multiple Grand Slam champion, Rafael Nadal, is renowned for not wanting to lose a single point, even when he’s in a commanding winning position. As well as being known for chasing every single shot, he confines his negative body language after a bad shot to the natural show of disappointment – a wince or disappointed expression. Even if he’s in a losing position he channels his energy into his shots (rather than defeatist body language) and a winning backhand or forehand is greeted by him with fist-pumping and jumping and encouraging looks to his team of coaches in the seats. He, like many of the other top players, realises that adverse behaviour affects the mind – and therefore his own performance – as well as sending out a message to the opponent that he is frustrated and not in control.

Changes in mind and body

In order to understand negative leakage better, I feel it would be helpful for you if we take a look at negative thoughts or anxiety and the subtle changes that take place in your mind and body. These affect:

1. your thinking
2. your emotions
3. how your body feels physically
4. your behaviour.

As you think, so you will feel

Because stress and anxiety originate from a cycle of activity (1 to 4 above) then, of course, if we could reshape our thinking this cycle of negative behaviour – which reflects itself in our body language – could be halted in its tracks. But quite often it’s too late – you’re already at 3. You’re in the room being interviewed for the job (your thoughts are screaming, ‘There’s too much competition, I won’t get through this. I did so want this job ...’) and the physical symptoms of your body – pounding heart, muscle tension – are producing this anxiety ‘leakage’, which is at odds with the calm, coping image you wanted to portray.

In another scenario you’re aware of your ‘freeze–fight–flight’ symptoms while you’re waiting in reception because your body tells you so. This hauls you back to what is causing this – your emotions – and gives you a chance to change your thinking before you go into the room. More easily said than done, you may say. But since your thinking (good or bad) creates your emotions – which in turn causes your body to react physically – which then manifests itself in your outward behaviour – then changing your thoughts will change your body language.

It’s not what happens to you ...

If you recognise the symptoms of anxiety or stress you have a chance of taking control. We spoke earlier about the popularity of ‘emotional intelligence’ in which managing one’s emotions plays a big part, and of course the self-awareness to recognise these in yourself. So if your success in interpreting body language in others is to do with reading thoughts (effectively mind-reading), it is also concerned with you identifying and being aware of your own thoughts, which gives rise to various emotions and therefore your own body language (good or bad).

Since it’s not what happens to us in life that causes us anxiety, but rather the view that we take of the events, we need to be able to control and change these perceptions. We know that negative thoughts fuel anxiety and anger. If you don’t think the thought, you don’t feel the emotion.

The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognise that we ought to control our thoughts.

Charles Darwin

Of course, you’ve often heard of the benefits of the ‘power of positive thinking’, but in the battle of the gladiators between negative on one side and positive on the other, who finds it easier to win the contest? Usually it’s negative thinking because as the whole stress cycle begins, the depressant activity of the stress chemicals causes more and more upsetting thoughts to crowd the brain, which just makes you feel worse.

Try to train yourself to replace any worrying thoughts that are causing you anxiety by more positive ones (‘I won’t dry up and forget most of the speech’, ‘I’m just as qualified as the others who have applied for this job’.) The brain can concentrate on only one thing at a time, so if you focus your mind on positive thoughts (effectively supplanting the old thoughts) you’ll feel in a much better mood. This is, to a large extent, the result of ‘the power of positive thinking’ on the body’s biochemistry as it releases the good chemicals while at the same time diluting those that were released during your anxious state.

The biochemistry – what’s happening?

Just a quick look at biochemistry – the chemical reactions in your brain and body:

• Your thought, which starts in the cortex area of the brain, activates a number of other nerve cells on its route down the neural pathway to the mid-brain area, the limbic system – the home of emotions.
• These then send a message to the adrenal gland near your kidneys, which accelerates the action of many of the other organs that then release a number of chemicals into the bloodstream.
• These chemicals flood the body system en route to the pituitary gland, located in the brain just under the hypothalamus, which in turn releases more of these stress chemicals from the adrenal gland.
• Names of these stress chemicals, I hear you ask? (I hope you’re not asking just so that you can justify any abnormal behaviour – such as anger – towards friends, family, work colleagues by tossing out the names of a few stress hormones in defence!) Okay – adrenaline, norepinephrine and a variety of corticosteroids. These are a mixture of neurotransmitters (brain chemicals) and hormones.

No wonder the body gives so much away when we’re experiencing nervousness and anxiety.

Let’s take a short journey to see what exactly is happening to cause these outside signals that give away our discomfort:

• The stomach doesn’t handle stress chemicals well. It produces hydrochloric acid so that it can digest your food, but there’s no food in this instance. The stress makes acid flow giving you that upset, churning feeling.
• Muscles in your body constrict and under particularly trying situations muscle coordination goes completely and you may shake and tremble.
• Your lungs may become constricted and breathing may become irregular.
• Your sweat glands also become stimulated trying to maintain your normal blood temperature despite the increased blood circulation that’s going on. You may get clammy hands or break out in a sweat on the forehead and under the arms.
• Saliva flow decreases and your throat and mouth become dry.
• Stress boosts the blood flow to your skin and this may manifest itself as flushing or a red rash (most obvious during embarrassment).

Effects on the brain

These stress chemicals inflict quite a bit of damage on your normal brain function. This may help to explain why you sometimes get flustered or impatient with yourself when you’re with others (displaying just the kind of body language and vocal irregularities you normally strive to avoid) and you can’t remember something or think straight:

• These chemicals actually impede and obstruct normal neural transmission – in other words, the passage of information as it passes through the brain.
• The result is that you don’t think clearly and you find it difficult to remember – ever come out of an important meeting or interview and found yourself remembering what you were trying to remember on the stairs going down? The brain was unable to process the messages it was receiving at the time and so this affected your powers of recall.
• Both thinking and memory are, to some degree, chemical processes. The nerve cells release chemicals called neurotransmitters, which interfere with transmission when they come into combat with the stress chemicals, with the result that both thinking and memory are affected.
• Also, the constricting of the lungs, mentioned earlier, means that you can’t take in enough oxygen, which is so essential to the functions of thinking and memory – any reduction or restriction in the amount of oxygen to the brain results in a failure to function efficiently.

Forgive yourself?

So I hope you all now have a better idea (if you weren’t already aware) of how the lack of oxygen to the brain and neurotransmitter blocking causes certain malfunctions in your behaviour when you’re operating under anxious and stressful situations in your personal and professional life. You find yourself not being able to make decisions, think clearly, concentrate fully or remember things. So if you’ve wondered why your carefully planned presentation to a group of people at a business meeting, wedding or wherever – honed carefully for optimum vocal and body language effectiveness – results in you standing there with a blank expression, try not to blame yourself too much. It’s a result of those ruthless stress chemicals knocking out your neurotransmitters, which in turn has a knock-on effect on your memory. For example, ‘forgetting my lines’ comes in the top five of greatest fears, whether it be for acting, a work presentation or a wedding speech.

There will always be occasions when disaster befalls us. What about the description of this unfortunate speaker:

His face was blank the audience was mute, he’d left his speech in his other suit.

Back to that rich source of leakage information, apart from showbusiness – the world of politics.

A researcher analysing a speech during a Labour Party Conference noted that while Tony Blair was speaking to the delegates, the then chancellor Gordon Brown, sitting next to him, engaged in the following (we’ve got this far now, so let’s call it ‘displacement activity’ since you’ll be using this term – as well as being aware of it – when you’re let loose): he adjusted his clothes 25 times; bit his lip 12 times; hand-to-face gestured 35 times; fiddled with his cuffs 29 times; crossed and uncrossed his arms 36 times; looked away 155 times.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking (test your mind-reading)? The words – records ... Guinness ... world ... book – come to mind.

I just get the feeling that there was some negative leakage coming out there – don’t you? And that’s without seeing the lower half of the body, the all-revealing legs and feet – what might have been going on there? He didn’t want to be there, did he? What do you think?

Summary of ‘leakage’ and avoiding ID 10T errors

I’d like to highlight – as an aide-memoire – some of the gestures associated with discomfort. In other words, negative leakage signals.

Always remember that each gesture listed, on its own, doesn’t tell the story. A number of these gestures together – let’s say three or so – will give you a good ‘reading’. Otherwise you’ll be committing too many ID 10T errors.

I’m not going to repeat again what they can signify. I’m confident that you’re able to identify them easily by now:

• body closed in on itself
• body or shoulders oriented away from the other person
• arms crossed with clenched fists
• arms crossed and gripping the upper arms
• wringing the hands
• raised shoulders (towards the ears)
• legs and arms crossed
• legs or feet wrapped around the chair
• one foot locked around the back of the knee (while standing)
• ankles crossed while seated
• repeated crossing and uncrossing of the legs
• shuffling or excessive movement of the feet
• foot, or both feet, pointing away from the other person
• repeated swinging of the top leg
• biting of the lip
• tight lips
• touching the nose (or rubbing it)
• touching or tugging the earlobe
• touching the face frequently
• mouth cover with the hand(s)
• chin supported by a hand
• licking of the lips
• frequent gulping
• fiddling with objects
• fiddling with the hair
• holding the chin – or rubbing
• excessive blinking of the eyes
• eyes closing while speaking (eye ‘cut-offs’)
• eyes moving from side to side
• constriction of the eye pupils
• downcast eyes.

BODYtalk

Q I think with all these ‘leakage’ signals that I now know about, there’s no excuse for not being aware of my own – and also picking them up in other people’s behaviour.

Absolutely right. I think you’ve noticed that with a little bit of empathy – so that you really see when you look and also when you listen ‘between the lines’ – you’ll just become so much more effective. It’s not even that difficult, if you have the will.

Q You know what I think the problem was – and I probably speak for a lot of other people here and also, no doubt, for a lot of people out there – we don’t know that we don’t know.

Glad you’ve picked that up.

Q So it’s all about image really, as well, isn’t it? Things have to be congruent or the action doesn’t match the image that we want to project. Our body language seems to be really important in creating our image. Any good tips for maintaining the right image?

That’s a tough one – you’ve put me on the spot. Okay. ‘Never try to make a dramatic exit in flip flops!’

Q I was trying to be serious.

Serious? Any more questions?

Q Yes, one last one. This ID 10T error. I don’t want to sound stupid or anything. Some people have been giggling – they seem to know what it is. Can you enlighten me?

Sure. Just unravel it.

Q Unravel?

Yes. I – D – I – O – T. It means an IDIOT error!

Q Charming!

No offence to you all. Just be wary. Last question, anybody?

Q Yes, here. You said right at the beginning of the first Lesson that body language was not an exact science. Can we rely on something that’s not an exact science?

A question for you: Who said science is an ‘exact science’?

Hey, that’s just so profound. Wow. Need to get my breath back. I’ll be able to use that for years to come. I’ll just have to lie down in a darkened room for a bit.