Meet Harvard psychologist, Amy Cuddy who has a firm belief that mornings can be converted into a wonderful experience if one was conscious about his/her behavior. She is the author of ‘Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges’, a book that is about how our physiology affects our emotions and thoughts.
Her advice? Before you even place one foot on the floor in the morning, stretch your body as widely as possible. Her TED talk on power posing is actually the second most-viewed of all time.
Generally, it is believed that our behaviors fall in alignment with our emotions. For instance, we stand proud and tall because we are feeling confident. However, Cuddy’s research states that the opposite holds as well. That is to say, we are capable of becoming more confident by merely striking a power pose or stretching out in the morning.
During her recent talk, she explained how her study can be incorporated into a daily routine while specifically mentioning about early morning power stretching so as to make yourself huge the very moment you open your eyes. She said, “It’s obviously bi-directional. But the people who wake up like this” – here Cuddy throws her arms up in a V – “are super happy, like annoyingly happy.”
She further added, “If you sleep in a fetal ball. We have some preliminary evidence that people who wake up like that wake up much more stressed out.”
Almost 40% of people go to sleep in the fetal position and according to Cuddy, this robs them off their confidence throughout their day. Using Cuddy’s research, we can finally begin our day on the right foot and although you might have to fake in the start, it would become real soon enough. Once you start doing this, You should avoid this common habit at night
