What’s your body position like right now? Slouched in a chair? Hunched over your desk with elbows on the table? Prostrate on the couch or (gasp!) still in bed?

I recently came across an interesting video from TEDGlobal 2012. The speaker, Harvard business professor Amy Cuddy, suggests that body posture can influence mood more than one might expect. Cuddy also suggests that altering your body posture before professional engagements, such as an interview or client meeting, might have an impact on whether those meetings go like you want them to.

“We used to think that emotion ended on the face,” states Cuddy on the Harvard Business School website. “Now there is established research showing that while it’s true that facial expressions reflect how you feel, you can also ‘fake it until you make it.’ In other words, you can smile long enough that it makes you feel happy. This work extends that finding on facial feedback, which is decades old, by focusing on postures and measuring neuroendocrine levels.”

Learn more about how assuming a “power pose” for two minutes before a professionally significant event could help swing the odds in your favor by watching the video below.

Image: TEDGlobal 2012 – June 25 – 29, 2012, Edinburgh, Scotland. Photo: James Duncan Davidson