{"id":58640,"date":"2024-10-07T12:54:10","date_gmt":"2024-10-07T12:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"\/aejjzul\/body-language\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T14:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T14:34:14","slug":"body-language","status":"publish","type":"product-content","link":"https:\/\/www.mindtools.com\/aejjzul\/body-language\/","title":{"rendered":"Body Language"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n

What Is Body Language?<\/h2>\n\n
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Communicate better with body language.<\/figcaption><\/div><\/div>

Body language is the unspoken part of communication that we use to reveal our true feelings and to give our message more impact.<\/p>

Communication is made up of so much more than words. Nonverbal cues such as tone of voice, gestures and posture all play their part.<\/p>

A simple example of body language is a relaxed facial expression that breaks out into a genuine smile \u2013 with mouth upturned and eyes wrinkled. Equally, it can be a tilt of the head that shows you’re thinking, an upright stance to convey interest, or hand and arm movements to demonstrate directions. It can also be taking care to avoid a defensive, arms-crossed posture, or restlessly tapping your feet.<\/p>

When you can “read” signs like these, you can understand the complete message <\/strong>in what someone is telling you. You’ll be more aware of people’s reactions to what you\u202fsay <\/strong>and do, too. And you’ll be able to adjust your body language to appear more positive, engaging and approachable.<\/p>

In this article and video, we explore body language some more, and look at how you can interpret it to understand and communicate with people more effectively.<\/p>

We also have an infographic<\/a> showing how to put this information about body language into practice.<\/p>\n\n

The Science of Body Language<\/h2>\n\n

You’ve probably heard the statistic that only seven percent of a message is conveyed through words, and that the other 93 percent comes from nonverbal communication. This is often quoted out of context and is therefore misleading.<\/p>

It’s taken from Mehrabian&#x27;s Communication Model<\/a>, which states that body language is more important than tone of voice and choice of words when communicating true feelings. But Mehrabian makes clear that his study dealt only with communications involving emotions and attitudes. So, it’s not applicable in all cases.<\/p>

However, it does help to explain why it’s so tough to gauge sentiment when we can’t see people \u2013 on email or messaging apps, for example. It’s also part of the reason for the rise in use of emojis<\/a>, even in business communication.<\/p>