Smile naturally ! It's important.

Many of us don't think that smile has that much of importance in our daily life. But little do we know that Smile is an important factor for forming first impression.

Recently the Femina Miss India beauty pageant show was on a general entertainment channel. We will start with the first picture which was on Newspaper.

 Smile

Now , we have 21 beautiful contestants here. We are not debating if the picture is photo-shopped or not. But we will pay close attention to the smile.

Out of 21 girls, 13 chose to give sensuous look. Sensuous look is when a girl has her chin up a little bit, eyes a bit narrowed and lips opened...again a bit.

But few girls chose to smile here. Now let us look at their smiles.

Now no.3,13 contestant is smiling but if you look at the smile, the smile is not looking natural. Only lips are stretched .

No.7 is smiling too. Her eyes have narrowed compared to others, which gives an impression that it is a real smile.

No.9,10, fake smile again. When we smile, the smile should be stretched and eyes should be narrowed down.

No. 11 and 19, are showing teeth, which is supposed to be a good smile, but are miserably failing in that.

Last are No. 14 and 21, who are smiling, which is mostly looking like smirk. We don't want to smirk on people who are supposed be judging us.

So, next time, if you smile, in any competition, try smiling naturally, not for people, for yourself.

Do you calm yourself down?

A pacifying behaviour or a self-soothing behaviour is when you caress yourself to comfort yourself. When someone is under stress, the only way is to comfort oneself is to use a self soothing gesture. People also use this gesture when a negative emotion runs through their mind or they get bored or even to hide something . Everyone does it unknowingly.
One thing to mention here, it is touching oneself in a complete "Non-Sexual" way and yes, it is to be repeated, everyone does it. We'll see some examples as to notice how do we do it? There are more than 25 gestures that come under pacifying behaviour but we will cover only 5 here, that too only face.

1.  Rubbing the Forehead

This is a self soothing or pacifying gesture, which is used usually to save oneself from embarrassment. You will see this gesture, when someone is feeling shameful about the "mentioned" topic. This was when Aamir Khan was asked by Rajat Sharma, in Aap ki Adalat, about his blog, where Aamir had written about his dog "Shahrukh",. 

2. Lip Movement

This one is seen, when someone is associated with a thought mostly negative. At stress, we want something to comfort us, and if we are not in a position to self-soothe, this is how we use it. As you can see, in the picture, she is asked by the host , if she thinks she has the talent to be successful in movies, in Sach ka Saamna. 

3. Scratching Face

Scratching face is a common gesture when a person wants to dodge a question or pretends that he/she is thinking over the question,which in reality, it has raised the stress level. This happened when Aamir and Katrina went for the promotions of Dhoom 3 and somebody asked Aamir, if he wants Salman to be married and the same question was shifted to Katrina.

4. Nose rubbing

 This is the most common gesture used, specially by males, when they are trying to hide something or are at stress. This gesture doesn't mean someone is lying, but it definitely means, being uncomfortable. When the reporter asked Virat in an interview, if he has a girlfriend, Virat says he is single and then he uses this gesture.

5. Cover the face/ Wipe the face

When someone wipes the face with one's hand with no intention of wiping the sweat, the gesture means the person is getting bored. This gesture is just one of the gestures to make one self ready to go. We see Abhishek doing this, because he is at some Gym launch with his mother, Jaya Bachchan and the journalists are talking to Jaya, not him. He gets bored and now wants to go. 

These were just for starters to make you understand, how we use pacifiers. It's not necessary we use it when we are lying. It may be one of the reasons, but there are several others. The other important thing to pay attention is the base-lining. You need to baseline the person and his/her normal behaviour when he/she is under no stress or during a normal condition. 

So next time , you notice someone self -soothing, ask them Is something wrong?

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What's real ? What's fake?

First of all, wishing all of you a very happy and prosperous new year. May this year gives you insight to know the unknown.

After so may days, we have something interesting in Bigg Boss 8. In the luxury budget task" Freeze", we caught some expressions which were true from the heart and some which were faked to their best.

1. Puneet

When he sees his wife, he immediately calls her name with surprise. In surprise, we typically see eyebrows going up and and open mouth. We can also see surprise in Ali's face.

2. Karishma

Karishma was unsure when Puneet's wife came to her. But when she says she wants to hug Karishma, Karishma closes her eyes with a smile, which symbolizes the acceptance of hug. Also, she gets emotional during the hug, which she quickly controls.

3. Diandra enters

Pritam is surprised seeing Diandra here, but if we see Gautam, surprise is missing.

In the next moment we see, Pritam's surprise is still continued , now with a smile. Whereas, Gautam is flashing a micro expression of fear here, which is being masked by a smile. Now, why is he scared of Diandra, that we don't know.

4. Diandra- Karishma

When Diandra says Karishma, about the confession room talk ( Whom to save) . Karishma gives an expression of surprise, to convince Diandra that she hasn't done anything. Anyway, we know, the truth, that Karishma did say she wanted to save herself, But here, we are looking at the body language and micro expression. If Karishma is truly surprised, the eyebrows would have gone up, even a little bit , which is being faked here,

When Diandra says Karishma, she is coming across like Selfish and self-centred in the show, we catch a quick curling of lips,that too one sided. This one sided smile here is a micro expression of Contempt, which is implying she is happy to hear that.

5. Diandra- Gautam

When Gautam is "released" by Bigg Boss after the "freeze", we don't see any excitement in any of his actions, signifying he is not happy to see Diandra. He also closes his eyes and puts his hands on the face,covering face means not wanting to see whatever is happening. The other thing to notice here is Diandra's feet. The legs are pointing towards Gautam. And immediately after the "freeze" , she moves towards Gautam. She definitely likes Gautam too much.

We see in the picture Diandra , moving ahead of Gautam, and also touching the neck area. Actually, the area she is touching is known as Suprasternal Notch, the area below the neck where the collar bones meet. It is a self soothing gesture, to comfort oneself during nervousness. So, we know that Diandra is also nervous but in a happy way, to meet Gautam.

If we see here, we can see Diandra and Gautam sitting in a coffee table, but if we look closely, Diandra is very comfortable in her seat, whereas Gautam looks really uncomfortable. Another thing to notice here, is how Gautam is pushing himself back, as if he has been sticked to the back of the chair. This way of sitting of Gautam tells us, he doesn't want to be associated with Diandra at all.

A moment later, Gautam is smiling here with Diandra, but look at the hands, which are down and crossed in front of the vital parts , this is again a symbol of nervousness and being uncomfortable. If you look at the legs , they are also pulled back and are not in rest, symbolizing, Gautam wants to get up and doesn't want to be seated there any more. On the other side ,look at Diandra. Her hands are on the table, which shows honesty. Legs are at rest and pointing towards Gautam, meaning, she is wants this date to go on and doesn't want to go back. The body is leaning forward suggesting she is interested in the conversation.

When a person is telling the truth , it is very hard to control the emotions. Here, when Diandra says, whatever happened between them ,was never a part of game, she cries. This sadness (of the idea of using that for the game) is real, because we see oblique eyebrows here. And by baselining Diandra, we know, whenever she gets emotional she becomes very active physically, she moves her hands a lot, shifts her places etc, which also happens here. Diandra is really sad here.

6. Gautam

Now, this is the real surprise expression which we see in Gautam's face, which was missing when Diandra entered the Bigg Boss house. Gautam is surprised here, by seeing his brother Mohit Gulati.


The Bigg Boss 8 is a very nice show to know and read the house-mates Non verbal communications. 

We will be posting blogs on other issues, and if you want to know or decode any special case, do let us know.

Stay tuned.

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The Longest Bollywood chain letter & the honesty

A few days ago, the news was trending on Facebook about the Longest Bollywood chain letter of Actors on Rajeev Masand show. So, we thought to have a look at the video and see the hidden feeling. Though there are actors here who are not being honest at all, but we will write about two points for each person.

a. Bipasha

When Tabu asks her about her fitness, the word "Amazing" brings smile to her face instantly. That is a genuine smile where we see, Bipasha giving a full smile.

When she talks about her fitness routine, she talks using her hand, which an illustrator here. This is a good sign, showing her interest in the topic.

b. Sonam

Sonam looks down and shakes her head NO during the question( where Bipasha asks her for hair,make up and dress tips for a red carpet event), which means, Sonam is thinking she can't answer that. Also, when she says, she thinks Bipasha looks naturally gorgeous she shakes her head NO.

Again while giving Bipasha some tips on beauty and make up she uses self soothing gesture, which means, making oneself understand, that everything is fine and I am right.

c. Deepika

When Deepika says Sonam is adorable and is extremely honest, she also caresses her hand and also touches the face,which means, she is not being confident enough for the statement.

When Deepika says," You speak your mind" and " We all move on" , she shows disgust . Disgust usually features on a face when we don't like something or someone.

d. Parineeti 

Now, that's a true surprise with a genuine happiness on Parineeti's face , when Deepika asks about the dinner date. She is truly happy by that question.

When Parineeti says , " I'm dying to go out with you". She not only uses her hands to talk but also puts forth two palms in front of the camera. Palm show is a sign of honesty.

e. Katrina

We caught a quick micro-expression of Anger by Katrina, when Parineeti asks her the question. Now, what triggered the anger we don't know.

We saw her playing with her hair too while answering the question. Usually, girls play with their hair on two conditions, either they are preening or they are nervous. In this case, this could be a sign of discomfort.

f. Shraddha 

When Shraddha hears the word "Who" she shows fear, implying she might get a hard question to answer. 

Although she says, she can't pick a name, but she does shift her gaze to down with a smile and hesitates  to name "Aditya" (says a lot of things to us).

g. Priyanka 

We see Priyanka pursing her lips, when Shraddha tells her foody. Pursing of lips symbolizes Priyanka doesn't deny it but chooses not to say about it.

We saw Priyanka giving a one sided shoulder shrug, when she says " Anyone can do that, it is just a state of mind" implying she doesn't believe what she just said. We see one sided shoulder shrug, when there is uncertainty.

h. Alia

Alia is being asked the square root of a number. She flashes a quick disgust after answering ( which is also a wrong answer, as Priyanka asks the square root of 2222, not the square) , which means she really hates it when someone asks her a question relayed to studies eg. GK, Maths etc.

The other emotion which we catch on Alia's face is Anger when she says " Yes, I don't know how to say the number correctly,so I'm using coma". This might look like a smile but it is anger being masked by a fake smile.

i. Anushka

One thing is very simple, if someone is saying he/she is happy, he/she should look happy. When Anushka says, she is happy, about the interview with Rajeev Masand. She doesn't look happy from any angle here.

This was the happiness we were talking about. When she mentions Alia, she seems happy, implying she is telling the truth.

j. Aishwarya 

Aishwarya shakes her head NO in the middle of the question, when Anushka says who she thinks is the most beautiful woman in the world. Anushka also says, Aishwarya can't take her mother's name or any family member's name, which we think gives an idea to Aishwarya as to what to answer.

Touching of hair is seen again , while answering. Instead of a simple answer she generalizes, which is avoiding a truthful answer. 

So, the longest chain letter of Bollywood did have something good, it told us about the hidden feelings , the true emotions , be it the question or the person who asked the question. 

Here is the link to the video, in case you want to watch it. 

Sometimes we hide our emotions to make things good, sometimes, to not disturb the existing system,but half truth is worse than a lie. 

Keep that in mind and stay tuned.

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Shweta Basu and the letter

The letter of Shweta Basu Prasad to the media has created a sensation and has become a top news.

Let us know little about Shweta. Shweta has started her career as a child artist. We have seen her in Kahani ghar ghar ki, where she played the character of Sneha, daughter of Om ( Kiran Karmarkar) and Parvati (Sakshi Tanwar). Later she acted in Makdee and Iqbal. Makdee got her national award. And the child star became popular. She has also done few south indian movies. She was recently caught,and was alleged of prostitution. She spent 59 days in Rescue home, and finally, the court dropped charges against her.

 Let us find out, what she actually feels, is she happy with the popularity, as some say, or she is angry.

So, we went through few old videos of Shweta and found out few things to gauge her normal behaviour pattern.
a. She uses her hands a lot while talking,which is good.
b. Her voice is low pitched
c. She laughs genuinely

And then, we saw another video of her after the incident. The video is just of  2 mins, but it tells a lot about how Shweta actually feels after the incident. Few things, which are noticeable at first where, less use of hands, less or fake smiling , high pitched voice etc. Now, let's see what more, could we decode.

1. "Nothing happened"

She shows a micro expression of disgust, when she says "whatever happened was unpleasant" "Nothing happened". The two mins clip is full of disgust. Shweta might portray she is ok, but she really hates whatever happened.

2. Pacifying

She scratches herself when she says, "You can move out of anything", the gesture like scratching, caressing, etc means self soothing i.e she is calming herself down while saying that. She is not at all ok, how good she might seem,

3. Sympathy

And this is a micro-expression of sadness, when she mentions sympathy. She says, people are giving her too much sympathy and she is not a rape victim to have such sympathy. But again, hidden emotion here is sadness.

4. The preening

When she says, "whatever happened was very unpleasant" she preens, which means adjusting or playing with hair. Girls do preening in two cases, either they are impressing someone or they are uncomfortable. Of course, Shweta is not trying to impress here anyone. She really is uncomfortable about the incident.

5. The Industry

We also see a micro- expression of sadness, when she mentions about the industry. Although she says they have been always there but she is sad about that.

6. The anger

And at last, we see the anger, when she says I pity them. The micro expression of anger can be caught as nostril have flared. She is trying to mask it with a laugh.

And then gives a flat fake grin by saying, they don't know I have wings.

How do we know, it's fake? Because, she looks different in her real happiness.

Now, this is her real smile. We caught this smile, when she was naming the artists she worked with, while making the documentary. The real smile is more widening of lips, tightening of cheeks, narrowing of eyes, forming of wrinkles around eyes etc.

So, the anger towards the media is backed by great amount of sadness as well as disgust.

Please click here for the video link.

We can't control the mishap, but we can control , how we look towards the person after that. A mouth may tell us different things, but a face never lies and so does the body.



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