"Your body can change your mind and your mind can change your behavior, and your behavior can change your outcome." Amy Cuddy
In 2012, Amy Cuddy, a social psychologist, did a TED talk based on her research related to power poses. Cuddy’s research was simple, exploring how the body influences our thoughts and subsequently shapes our behavior. She wondered if changing how we carry ourselves could influence our feelings of empowerment. In the study, participants held one of two poses for a total of two minutes—one with an expansive posture (think “Wonder Woman”), or one with a collapsed posture (leaning in, shoulders hunched, legs crossed). Those who held the expansive posture reported higher levels of self-confidence and competence and performed better in mock interviews than those in the other group.
Cuddy’s research yielded two major findings: that adopting an expansive pose influences how we behave, and that the power pose itself was not just a subjective experience but changed one’s body chemistry. Cuddy’s study found that those who stood in a power pose for two minutes had measurable increases in testosterone and decreased levels of cortisol, suggesting that our posture not only changes our behavior but influences hormonal responses as well.
Cuddy became a media sensation when she presented her research on the TED stage, which quickly became one of the most watched segments in TED history. After her TED talk, power posing became all the rage, with people slipping into bathroom stalls or standing in front of mirrors to hold a “Wonder Woman” stance before job interviews. Even Little League teams were holding the pose in dugouts before championship games. Numerous people reported that power poses changed their lives, improved their confidence, and enhanced their performance. Many women were grateful for Cuddy’s research, stating it empowered them to take control of their lives.
I came to Cuddy’s work several years after her TED talk when her research became embroiled in controversy. Subsequent studies failed to verify her research results and her fame led to backlash and accusations of promoting “pseudoscience”. Regardless of the controversy, I found her expansive postural poses to corroborate what yoga practitioners and manual therapists have known for years: posture is critical to our well-being. Cuddy’s “Wonder Woman” pose supported the yogic principle that posture directs how energy flows through the body. In yoga, “Up the front and down the back” refers to postural stances in which the front of the body is open while the muscles in the back of the body, from the top of the head down to the arches, are holding the spine in proper alignment. When energy flows freely in this direction, we experience less stress, more rhythmic breathing, and greater mental clarity. No wonder people were landing jobs and winning baseball games. Cuddy’s research may not have been verified empirically, but experientially it made sense.
On a very basic level, we all know that posture is important. At some point we’ve been reminded to “Stand up tall!” or perhaps practiced walking with a book balanced on our head (…am I showing my age?). We seek to strengthen our “core” in an effort to avoid the dreaded “Dowager’s hump” associated with advancing age. We know that a lack of flexibility creates stiffness that can be painful, triggering “hot spots” and limiting our mobility. But emerging evidence suggests that inflexibility may impact us on a deeper level, perhaps setting the stage for the development of chronic disease as we approach middle age.
In the past decade, studies have explored the relationship between flexibility and stiffness in the arteries. With advancing age, the arteries become less elastic, even in healthy people, and arterial stiffness has been shown to be an independent risk factor for future cardiovascular disease. This is not to say that arterial stiffness is caused by aging as many factors contribute to a loss of elasticity in the arterial walls, including lifestyle, environment, and genetic factors. But there is growing evidence that decreases in flexibility, which is common as we become sedentary, may play a role in the resilience of our arteries.
The walls of the arteries are maintained by two proteins: collagen and elastin. Collagen stiffens the arterial wall, while elastin maintains its resiliency. These two proteins maintain a balance through a slow process of production and degradation. Many factors can disrupt this process, but when it becomes dysregulated, collagen production increases, causing arterial walls to become thick and stiff which initiates the onset of high blood pressure.
Pressure against the arterial walls is one of several factors that contribute to dysregulation of collagen and elastin. Research over the past decade has explored the role that flexibility plays in how these two proteins function. In the early 2000’s, research into flexibility’s relationship with arterial stiffness was sparked by studies that found that middle-aged martial artists, who were quite flexible in their torso and lower leg musculature, had low levels of arterial stiffness. Further research sought to discover the role trunk flexibility played in the development of cardiovascular disease. Several studies have shown that a four-week program focusing on stretching the chest, back, abdominal, hip, and leg muscles significantly reduced the incidence of arterial stiffness, although it is too early to identify the exact mechanisms that take part in this change.
Practitioners who work with the connective tissue of the body—physical, manual, and yoga therapists in particular—have long suspected that inflexibility contributes to poor health outcomes. They are well versed in the connection between tightness in the body and the development of poor posture, and the role inflexibility plays in triggering the inflammation related to chronic disease. The body’s myofascial system, which includes connective tissue, muscles, tendons, and ligaments, is a living, responsive matrix that stores and distributes mechanical information throughout the body. This system enables the body to adapt to the stresses placed upon it, enabling it to bounce back to its natural state once a stressor is removed. But when exposed to a chronic stressor, the body responds by creating what are known as “patterns of compensation”. These are dysfunctional movement patterns that are adopted in response to forces that inhibit a joint, muscle, or tendon from working within its full range of motion. Compensatory patterns are developed over time; they are the body’s attempt to work around an obstacle, much like a tree branch that grows around a telephone line. That is why a person’s foot injury at 20 years old can lead to severe neck pain at 52. If the initial injury fails to heal completely, that person’s gait will change, which over time sets off a cascade of compensatory shifts in the hips, ribcage, and shoulders, eventually showing up as severe pain or arthritis in the neck in middle age.
Most of us are aware of how our thoughts direct our behavior, but we may not have considered the role the body plays in directing behavior. Our muscle tone, postural alignment, range of motion, and the ease with which we move not only determine how we interact with the world, but also influence our sense of self. When I wore a sling after shoulder surgery, people rushed to open doors for me and insisted on helping me carry bags. I appreciated their actions since the help was needed--I was very weak after the surgery. Although I knew my strength would come back, I found myself feeling deflated, and noticed the subtle ways I behaved like a frail elderly woman. It took time to regain my sense of self-confidence and power, especially since my diminished muscle tone and limited range of motion took months to regain. During my rehab, I had to work hard to avoid acting as if I was weak and helpless, even though my body was telling me otherwise.
Our posture tells the story of where we have been, the stresses we have faced, and how we have adapted. It is the most accessible tool for maintaining our health and is essential to the process of healing. Our posture can give clues to our emotional states—think of the slump of depression, the rigidity of anger, or the defiant stance of determination. Emotions create tension in the muscles that lingers well after the emotion has dissipated—referred to in yoga therapy as “issues in the tissues”. This type of tension is typically associated with tension in the shoulders and neck but recent work with trauma patients has shown it can be held at much deeper levels in ways that are potentially devastating.
At a functional level, postural imbalances and inflexibility can easily distort breathing patterns. The sympathetic nervous system—our “flight of flight” trigger—is sensitive to the rate, depth, and rhythm of our inhale and exhale. Chronic tightness in the muscles in the front of the upper body causes us to slump forward, creating what Cuddy referred to as a “low power” pose. This slumping hinders the ability of the diaphragm to descend into the belly while limiting the expansion of the ribcage, creating a breathing pattern that features shallow inhales and short, sharp exhales. The sympathetic nervous system interprets this pattern as one of stress and signals the need to be on alert for potential danger. Our attention narrows and we become more susceptible to distractions. Stress levels rise, as does our heart rate and muscle tension, both in anticipation of needing to fight or flee. These physical changes subtly initiate stressful or negative behaviors--we become cranky, overly sensitive, hypervigilant, even angry or irritated. Some become depressed. We unknowingly communicate tension in the body through our actions. So goes the cycle of the body influencing our behavior.
A very simple and accessible step to improving our health is through our posture-- watching how we hold ourselves in the world while noticing our movement patterns and how they direct our actions. Amy Cuddy’s research on power poses is a reminder of how a small change in posture, held for a short burst of time, can change us and shape our world. Is it pseudoscience? Perhaps. But her study need not be judged solely on its ability to withstand the rigors of scientific validation. There is a shared wisdom in what her subjects experienced; we just seem to know that how we hold our body can change who we are. Traditional science lacks the tools to measure and verify all human experience. Science has brought us a long way in our understanding of health, and we are wise to follow many of the prescriptions that have grown from this body of knowledge. But there is a vast well of knowledge related to our well-being that lies beyond what can be measured, springing from the inexplicable web that connects mind, body, and behavior. We are wise to follow this path as well as we travel toward enhanced well-being.
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