Understanding Negative Body Language Gestures

If you read a little about body language, I am sure you heard the term ‘negative body language. Negative body, in simple words, is the body language gestures that could give a negative or bad impression to people.

When I talked about body language earlier, I said that even if a person doesn’t know how to read body language, he will still get a certain impression about you based on your gestures because his subconscious mind will detect them.

In other words, by learning how to avoid negative body language gestures, you will be giving a positive impression to both kinds of people.

Negative body language connected to posture

Here are the posture-related negative body language gestures:

• 1) Curved back: A curved back in body language can give different impressions, but all of them are negative. A curved back might communicate a lack of interest, sadness, depression, lack of confidence, or lack of motivation.
• 2) Standing on one leg: While standing on one leg doesn’t give a direct negative impression, it can still reduce the overall positive impression. A confident person will usually stand with both legs firmly planted on the ground.
• 3) Slightly curved legs: When a person feels confident and self-assured, his legs will be straight. When a person is unsure of something or not motivated, his legs might be a little curved while standing.
• 4) Closed gestures: Closed gestures such as folding the arms or crossing the legs give an impression to people that you are uncomfortable, confident, or offended. See
• When you make your body smaller by taking smaller space, you give the impression that you are not confident, shy, or even dishonest.

Negative body language connected to the face

In addition to the previous signs, there are also some negative body language signs related to the face. Here are some of them:

• 1) Touching the nose: People touch their noses when they think that something negative happened. Touching the nose might also indicate that you don’t like a person or even lie.
• 2) Touching your neck: Touching your neck in body language can indicate that you think that you are in deep trouble. This is a common sign that happens when people get asked a tough question during job interviews.
• 3) Touching your ears: People touch their ears when they hear something they don’t like. This is why some people touch their ears when they lie. The explanation here is that those people dislike their own words.
• 4) Scratching the top of your head: This is not a direct negative sign, for it signals confusion; however, based on the context of the situation, it might be interpreted as a negative sign. How the negative can be positive

Based on the message you want to deliver, any of those negative signs could actually help you achieve a positive goal. Let’s suppose that you wanted to tell someone indirectly that you disliked what they said. In such a case touching your nose while they are speaking might deliver the message.

In short, what makes a gesture negative is when it doesn’t communicate the message you want to send to others properly.