Wonder Woman Did It Right – Power Poses and You.

I’m not sure if you know this, but we should all be more like Wonder Woman – for so many reasons really, not the least of which is her power pose. Harvard professor Amy Cuddy did a fabulous (FABULOUS!) TED talk on what she calls a “life-hack.” It’s a simple, profound way to change your life – totally free, totally low-tech, and totally based on Wonder Woman. So obviously, it’s legit.

 How Power Poses and Wonder Woman can change your life:

Really, how couldn’t Wonder Woman change your life – that’s the real question we should be asking. In all seriousness, this talk gives a deeply inspiring message about the simple things we do day to day, how we stand, how we sit, how we hold our bodies can change our physiology and our likeability as humans.  We speak a verbal language, but we also speak a deeper more influential language that we call body language.  Your body language is always influencing how others perceive you, but more importantly, it changes how YOU feel. Amy Cuddy’s research showed that not only does your posture change how you feel, but it also changes your hormone levels in a significant and meaningful way.  Standing in a power pose for two minutes significantly raises testosterone levels, boosting confidence and mood and lowers cortisol levels, which reduces anxiety. If you’ve got a big job interview, that could be just the thing you need to get through it with flying colors.




Straight from Amy Cuddy's TED talk - the classic power pose, a la Wonder Woman.

Straight from Amy Cuddy’s TED talk – the classic power pose.

This means you can have a profound impact on your mood, your stress and your overall health in just two minutes.  So what if you take two minutes a day? What would the impact be then? You can actually change your destiny with two minutes of the power pose. It is that simple, because we are truly ruled by our hormone levels. Also, this not only changes how you feel internally, but also how you interact with the world and how those interactions go for you. Outside of prescription hormones this is typically not easy to do, so it’s amazing that this free, simple step can make such a huge difference in such a short time.

Here’s Amy Cuddy’s power pose TED talk:

The idea is that even if you don’t feel powerful, you can fake it ’til you make it. You can act powerful and confident until you realize that you actually ARE powerful and confident. Until you realize that a power pose is just your normal way of being in the world because you have become a leader.  Essentially standing like a leader gives your body the idea that you need to have the confidence and mental-emotional balance of a leader, so it produces that. Isn’t that just mind-blowing? This is just like the research that showed that smiling, even when you’re sad, causes your body to release the endorphins that would be released if you were actually happy.  Essentially if your face smiles, your body feels happy even if you’re smiling on cue. Maybe the classic case of changing your body changes your mind? You have nothing to lose – this is free, simple and takes two minutes. So, switch to a power pose and change your hormones and your life.