How Body Language Influences Your Brain | Aaron Alexander & Jim Kwik

Welcome back, Kwik Brains. Your question of today is, how do you use your body to communicate and also influence people, influence yourself most of all? And I'm excited to have back on the podcast my dear friend, my movement coach, Aaron Alexander of the Align Podcast. What's up?

Thank you so much for doing this, man.

No, thanks for doing this. We're talking about our bodies.

Yeah.

And kinesthetic intelligence. Your book's coming out in It's coming. It's up for sale now, but it comes out, out December 24th. Yeah. So how do we optimize our body for, for better communication internally, externally?

So have you ever heard of a guy called Albert Mehrabian?

Tell me.

There's an interesting thing. So he came up with a— he was a Harvard professor, might have been a Yale professor, but in the '60s he came up with the 55-38-7 rule. And so what he came up with is 55% of Our communication comes from the way that we move our bodies. And then 38% comes from the tonality of our voice, pacing of language. And then there's this little 7%, which is actually the words coming out of our face. And what that specifically is in relation to is, is feelings.

Yeah.

And also if there's incongruence between what a person says with their mouth, but their hips are facing the door or they're kind of, their hands are kind of shaking or their voice starts going in a different direction, you're like, I'm outta here. I'm not interested in the words this person's saying. So all the time we're continually playing our bodies, communicating with our bodies, but few people actually pay much close attention to what our physical body is saying. And so if we can find that congruence with what we speak, the tone of our language, the way that our body moves, it starts to spill into not just the way that other people perceive us, but the way that we perceive ourselves, which then that leads into opening doors because people are magnetized by people that are really in And they kind of— when people are disassociated, then people kind of get away because they're like, what's going on with that guy?

It's how people perceive you, but also how you perceive yourself.

Yeah.

Because how you see yourself really reflects in those behaviors.

Yeah.

How would somebody go about occupying completely themselves?

Yeah, well, first of all, I mean, we're doing it right now. We're sitting in such a way that, you know, we're just spending more time on the ground is a beautiful option. So if you look at cultures in like Northern Africa or Eastern Mediterranean or Southeast Asia, places that just spend more time closer to the ground, they eat on the ground, they use the bathroom on the ground. If you're hanging out at a bus stop, do what your kids do or what the rest of the world has done for the last ever and pop a squat. If you're out in the park, there's an opportunity to come down, maybe take a knee.

So what do you do on the plane if you're flying from here to— I know you're headed to New York. What do you do when you're on that plane?

Yeah, throw a sweatshirt behind your back or bring like a water bottle along. So bring an extra sweatshirt or a water bottle. Always have a water bottle for water anyway. And then you can throw that behind the thoracic spine. Now that takes out, instead of that chair being in that bucket seat position, now all of a sudden you're kind of a little bit more—

Where you're like hunched over.

You're all hunched over the whole time. So now you, and you could put maybe a shirt over the bottle so it's not just like a hard bottle. But now you're taking that space out. You're redesigning the chair To match a neutral, long, stable, stacked, confident spine. And then you could, as just another option, you could start, you could actually buckle the seatbelt to kind of pull your hips back into the corner there and put a little support around the neck and then take a walk every hour, hour and a half or so.

Mm-hmm.

So a general rule people can follow is for every 1 hour of sitting, get at least 5 minutes of meandering around. And that could be doing maybe some lunges. It could just be walking. It could be doing a little squat.

And this is whether or not, even if they're not on a plane, if they're in an office and they're behind a computer.

Absolutely.

We always tell people every 25 minutes or so to get up and just stretch their body and hydrate.

Yeah, follow the Pomodoro Technique for movement. So every 25 minutes that you're sitting there, it's going to be— you only have so much attention span. So that walking up, if you're really concentrating on what you're doing, that walk actually helps with consolidating those new memories that you're creating from that 25-minute concentrated session. So when you get up, it's not just Oh, I want to go take a walk. It's like, no, no, you're learning. You're moving the information into your, into your body through moving your, your limbs.

And as your body moves, your brain grooves, create brain-derived neurotrophic factors, which is great for neurogenesis and plasticity.

So there's another study done in San Francisco University where they took 2 groups of students. One group, they had them hunched over in that staring at the phone position. And then another group, they had them stand in an upright position, power pose, all that. And what they found is the people that are in that hunched over position, it was easier for them to access more depressive, challenging memories. And when you go into the upright position, all of a sudden that taps into that millennia of every time I win, I, you know, I, oh my, we got the woolly mammoth, you know, or we, you know, we're winners, we did it. Your body goes into this upright position. So that's tapped into your physiology for the last ever.

And this is exactly the topic of what we're talking about when we're talking about communication with ourself and to other people. We're sending that message to people.

And it's an important thing that I'm not suggesting that people just chronically move around the world and they're like, okay, like Aaron said, upright posture all the time. That's one of the colors that's rarely explored in the mold that we live in. Because for the most part, the mold is kind of folded over into this position, this hunched over position. That hunched over position, it accesses, helps people with accessing more depressive, challenging memories. Access that stuff. Go into it.

But don't live there.

Don't live there. You know, so realize that your body is almost like— it's like you're tuning your thoughts, you're tuning your, you know, what you create in your life, you're tuning the way that people perceive you.

And how you perceive yourself.

Yeah. And so sometimes, like, an important way to create rapport with somebody is to mirror them, like neurolinguistic programming stuff. You know, so if you come in the room, someone's feeling sad, it's a funeral, whatever, and you come in all Stacked on top of the woolly mammoth Chuck Liddell, like, oh, hey guys. We're like, whoa. Like, you know, that's, it's going to be a weird disconnect. There's going to be incongruence, you know? So have access to being folded over in all the ranges of motion, but just realize what that signifies at an internal level.

55% is through body kinesthetic. And so people really should be, the self-awareness is very important.

So what we can do is we can start to integrate more effective fundamental principles of movement that we were never taught in grade school into our daily life. Another thing is just hang more. Get a pull-up bar at your office or at your house or whatever. What does that do? There's a whole book called Shoulder Pain? that's by Dr. John Kirsch, and he was an orthopedic surgeon that found that— he claimed it was like 99% of people that had shoulder pain could be healed from just hanging. I found that hard to believe, Just literally hanging on a bar. Yeah. So starting off, you could start off literally just like doing like a good morning type pose where your arms are up overhead and you can put your arms on a table and kind of just stretch those arms up overhead and then eventually get into the point. For some people, hanging is challenging, but eventually get to the point, yeah, you have a pull-up bar, you get a chair underneath you to help support as well to start, and then eventually spending— in that book Shoulder Pain, he recommends a minute and a half of hanging each day. I have a similar recommendation in my book coming up. And just hanging, opening up, you're opening up your ribs. So you're getting a more expansive breath. You're opening up that tissue around the heart and you're literally changing the structure of the shoulder girdle. So by being in that position, it's taking you out of that mold that we've been formed into of kind of the shoulders medially rotated in, that dowager's hump thing, which nobody wants to have, that folded over spine. Like, it's pretty ubiquitous throughout culture where people are kind of in that Just simply hanging for a minute and a half each day, try it for 10 days and see how that affects you.

Not a solid minute and a half.

It could be, but no, broken down. So you do 15 seconds 6 times or whatever. If you're already super athletic, maybe crank it up to like 2 and a half minutes. But for most people, you know, a minute and a half in total each day. So just put that as like a gift to yourself. Put it in between your bedroom door or your office door. When you walk through, have all your employees do it. Say just a little woo, a little pick-me-up, hang through there. And as you Put your arm up over your head. That's tied to all like the Amy Cuddy Harvard testosterone, increasing testosterone, decreasing stress hormones.

In your podcast that we just did, I know I was talking about the power of habits, and those triggers are important. Like you go through a doorway and you hang. Yeah. So those reminders, it's good because it prompts you to do the new behavior.

That's right.

And you set your environment up to be able to be supportive for your own Yeah, and the other thing is starting to pay attention to breath. Let's talk about that.

Yeah, so your breath, there's a 1-to-1 relationship of the way that a person's autonomic nervous system is feeling, how it's expressing itself, to the way that they breathe. So when a person goes into like, right, what do you do? You breathe in, I've kind of exaggerated, but you breathe in through your mouth, your shoulders, your clavicles go Reach up to your shoulders or up to your ears and you go into this, oh, I'm surprised. That's a— you breathe surprise. If we're soothed and we're calm, it's this, oh. In daily life, the idea of, oh, it's like, oh no, I don't want to be weird. You know, weird, the original meaning of weird is an Old English word, weird, and it means to be in control of one's fate. Which is kind of fascinating. So the weird people are actually the people that are taking control of their lives. The normal people, you know, the part of the sheep, they're kind of just in the herd. But so that breath, as you are walking down the street, just pay attention. Is your breath up in your shoulders?

Mm-hmm.

Are you breathing through your mouth? Is it easier for you to breathe in than it is out? So take— try right now, everybody listening, is take a breath in. Through the nose. And then breathe all up in as much as you can, and then breathe out as much as you can. Then come back to normal. Did you notice if one direction was easier for you? Did you notice anything? Was one easier than the other? You can try it again too.

Out.

Out's easier. Good, I love that. Yeah, so when you're breathing out, that's activating more of that Parasympathetic, rest, digest, calming side of the nervous system, which is a beautiful tool for people to have. So every time you're feeling stressed out, before you've done public speaking, you're meeting a date, whatever it may be, emphasize that breath out.

So everybody at home, they could be— they could breathe in and then exhale longer?

Correct.

Because that allows them to be able to go into that parasympathetic.

Exactly.

Yep.

You could even— you could compound it, stack variables, and add sound.

It's like the vagus nerve.

That's right. Yeah. So adding sound in there, even it adds a little bit more of like a workout for your nervous system. So humming as well, it's shown to— I think it's something like 30 times, 20 times, 30 times, fact-check that part, but it increases the release of nitric oxide dramatically in your body. Just the process of mmm.

And what does the nitric oxide do?

Helps with vasodilation, helps with circulation of blood. So if you're having blood pressure issues, have you tried humming? Have you tried altering your breath? Have you tried getting more sun? Have you tried hanging from a tree branch?

And these are all free.

They're all free, which is why you're not going to see— there's not a really strong affiliate code for like, get more sun.

You're not going to see a 30-second commercial.

Or take your shoes off and walk in some grass outside, you know, or take a cold shower. Like, there's not going to be like, oh cool, like you get 15% off for more sun. It's like, no, let's, let's not talk about that so much.

So let's boil it down. You just listed like 12 things people could do. Let's pick 3 of them. What's everyone's challenge who's watching or listening? What are 3 things hanging?

Hang more. Yeah, so this week, 7 days, get a pull-up bar, cost you $30, or find a tree branch. That'd be even better if you got a tree branch. And a total of a minute and a half a day, hang. So that could be 15 seconds, and make it fun. Make it something you look forward to. And then the other one, spend 30 minutes on the ground. So for a lot of people, this would be easy. Be like, oh dude, I do yoga, you know, or I do— I have kids or I have dogs. I already spend an hour and a half on the ground. For some people, be like, I haven't been on the ground for a month, you know. So wherever you're at baseline, at least 30 minutes of ground time each day, you know. So it's—

that's like your base where you're touching the earth.

Yeah, I mean, there's, there's all sorts of grounding electromagnetic stuff that I think is legit, but I'm not like claiming any expertise in it.

Mm-hmm.

So look into that. I think it's all really great stuff. Ideally compound those variables, stack the variables, and make the time that you're working on your computer, checking your emails or whatever, go outside, maybe get a yoga mat, put it in your driveway or in some grass, get sun, take your shirt off, expose your whole body to the sun. You know, so your mitochondria can actually create, from what I've read, can actually create ATP, adenosine triphosphate, the currency of energy in your body, through processing that sun. You know, so your body is a big old solar panel. You know, and so again, we're sold an idea that, you know, we need to be scared of the sun. If you're scared of the sun, it's like— Your cells aren't going to be able to optimally function. You know, so investing that time when you're checking your emails on your computer, put yourself outside, get some sun, and make sure there's a panoramic view that you have access to. So look out into the distance regularly. When you're looking up close, it puts you into more of that sympathetic fight-flight type place.

Mm-hmm.

You look out over, say, you know, over the mountains or over the ocean or this view we have now, it literally Think about that. Every time you look into the ocean, the first reaction people have is this— they relax.

Right.

Every time you look at your cell phone, it's a little bit of this, okay, exactly, we'll get it done. You know, so compounding that time that you're working on your computer— not saying burn your computer or anything, stay on the computer, but put the computer beside of you so you can alternate in and out of that. The other one is pay attention to your breath. So as you're, as you're walking down the street, just check in, where's my breath? Is it up in my shoulders or is it down in my lower ribs? You can bring your hands along the lower portion of the ribs here. Breathe out. Feel that lateral expansion indicating that diaphragm is coming online. Diaphragm's coming online. You're getting that low belly breath and the ribs are coming outward to the side. That's indicating to your body at a deeper physiological level that you're calm and you're relaxed.

And you're safe. And you're safe. Yeah. Aaron Alexander, how do people find out more about— they could preorder the book?

They can preorder the book, yeah. It's on the— if they go to thealignedbook.com, they can preorder that, and then we'll have some bonus extras for people that do preorder it. And then we just finished a pretty— what I would concede to be a pretty tremendous conversation on the Aligned Podcast, literally just before this. So I'll co-release that, so if people have interest.

Amazing.

Continue to hear about your stuff, you can jump over there.

So next steps, take a screenshot of this episode or this video, tag Aaron, tag myself. As always, we'll put everything in the show notes, jimkwik.com/notes, including links to his podcast, also to preorder your book, and put your big aha so we see it on social media land. And what was your big takeaway? What's one thing you're gonna do? Is it gonna be the breath? Is it gonna be the hanging? Is it gonna be the grounding? And the, the, the floor culture, if you will. And I'd love to hear your takeaways, and I'll, as always, repost some of our very favorites.

Aaron, thank you, brother.

Thanks for being on, man.

I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you, man.