boost confidence

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The Big Kahuna Pose
Throw one arm over the armrest of your chair. Stretch the other over the back of the chair next to you. Rest one ankle on the opposite thigh. If you're like the volunteers in a study at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, this expansive pose "activates" power-related behaviors (as examples, they made bolder blackjack moves and indicated a willingness to speak first in a debate). Ann Cuddy, a social psychologist at Harvard Business School, found that holding an arms-up/legs-spread "power pose" for two minutes boosted confidence on a hormonal level by increasing testosterone and decreasing the stress hormone cortisol.