Body language: Understanding Anxiousness

If you’ve tried noticing how people usually behave as they wait for their turn at the dentist’s office or as they wait for the results of their exams, then you will certainly see some of the body language signs of anxiety.

Anxiety is one of the body language signs that cannot be identified by one gesture, but instead, you have to find more than one signal before you can know whether that person is anxious or not.

The presence of three or more of the below signs shows that a person is anxious:

• Finger-nail biting: In body language biting fingernails shows that the person is anxious or worried
• Fidgeting: frequent change of position while you’re sitting or being unable to settle down
• Tapping your heels: Tapping your heel on the floor repeatedly in a nervous manner.
• Tapping your fingers: Tapping your fingers and/or hand on your lap.
• Sweating
• Jiggling your pocket’s contents
• Whistling

Other signs that show anxiety

when a person becomes anxious, a part of his mental resources gets occupied, so his brain’s processing power weakens. As a result, the person who feels anxious might face difficulties finding the right words or doing the correct actions.

Speech mistakes, for example, are a good indicator of anxiety provided that the person under inspection speaks fluently in other situations.

Motor functions get affected by anxiety as well; the body of the anxious person will become more rigid. This usually happens because the person’s subconscious mind tries to prevent others from paying attention to him. During the early years when our ancestors lived with predators standing still was one of the good defense methods used to escape danger.

Our minds nowadays don’t differ a lot from the minds of our ancestors, and that’s why we might respond to anxiety by tightening our bodies.

Relaxation vs. anxiety

Relaxation is the opposite of anxiety. A confident person will always be relaxed and will really fidget. Confident people are calmer since their mental resources are properly allocated, and so they make fewer mistakes.

It’s worth noting that you can feel more confident just by taking the confident body language positions.

Body language and leaving a positive impression

Just as you saw, very slight changes in your body language can significantly affect your relationships with others. A slight change such as keeping your back straight can increase the chances of making people fall in love with you. The more confident you appear, the more attractive you will become; nothing can make you appear to be more confident than a straight back.

On the other hand, if you were not aware of the body language signs of anxiety, you might mistakenly do them and leave a bad impression. Many people ask me how to leave a good impression, and the best answer to that question is to use proper body language since body language can allow you to leave a great impression even if you didn’t talk!!