Body language is an important basis of communication.

If you want to know how important body language is in your daily interaction, try to imagine losing your hearing for a day. Your understanding on what others are saying will depend a lot on your ability to interpret body movements and gestures.

Would that make you realize that you have ignored an important part of communication that has been present all the time?

Everyone else including you uses your body parts to complement your verbal communication or to express your thoughts and emotions even without speaking a word. Your body movements have become a pattern and you are unaware and unconscious that you are doing them.

There are many clues and cues that people communicate through their body movements to show their thoughts. Learning how to interpret the meanings associated with the behaviors of the body parts would definitely affect your influence on others and improve your social skills.

How to improve your reading and interpreting apparent body language.

• Study people.

Watch people when they talk to someone. Observe the spontaneous position of the body parts.

How does he stand or move when he emphasizes on certain words? Where does his eyes move? Look at his eye movements. The eyes move when he tries to recall, imagine or making up something inside his head. Observe him when he is listening.

Studies in NLP have shown that when people lean their head to one side, they are actually listening to their self-talks. When they moves their heads down, they are feeling something inside.

Each movement of the body part is a telltale sign of what someone is thinking.

• Review your own specific mannerism.

You may need help from someone here to notice your own favorite eye accessing cues and facial expressions. You can make it a point to observe yourself each time you adjust your body parts when you are in conversation, listening or thinking.

Make a decision to become aware. Understanding yourself will help you interpret what other people actually transmitting instead of what they are saying.

• Practice matching or mismatching the other person.

Practice matching someone's posture, position of limbs and gestures during interaction. Then try to do the opposite. When he crosses his legs to the right, you cross yours to the left.

What you gain from this exercise of matching the other person is the ability to create rapport, a term to mean being in "sync" or being on the same wavelength as the person you are talking to. It works the opposite if you mismatch his posture and physiology. Once you have develop rapport, you can lead him without his realization to your position.

How does understanding this non verbal cues benefit you?

• Improves your understanding on flirting.

Couples who are dating get confused and can't determine whether their partners are interested. The reason for this is because what they hear is not what they see. The other reason is that they ignore the signs that their partners are trying to convey from the gestures. By paying more attention to how each body parts respond, you can avoid the confusion and doubt.

Women typically show their interests by either running their fingers through their hair or running their tongues along their lips. These are the obvious ones. Watch out for the subtle movements where their eyes are watching and where their shoulders are leaning.

When you speak to a man, look at how he stands, where he put his hands and of course the eyes are "the windows to the soul".

• Someone is always watching.

Knowing that people are watching you from your posture and your appearance gives you an advantage. You can get yourself prepared especially when meeting a new client or attending a job interview. You can condition your body to relax by adjusting your standing, sitting position and movements to give the good first impression.

• Knowing what the other person is thinking.

When you are attending an interview or meeting a new person, you can guess whether he is interested in what you have to offer or say. You can tell whether he is listening or is carried away in his own thoughts. This will help you find another strategy to influence his thinking pattern to your favor.

• Ability to "click" or get his approval instantly.

Your ability to match him will send a message to him that you are pleasant and consistent even though he hardly knows you.

Positioning yourself in a way that he can't have a face to face conversation, will make him pay more attention to your body and its gestures. You can then use this to your advantage.

Pay attention to the involuntary movements during any interaction. Study and practice and you too can acquire this skill.

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