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In the art of human communication, body language constitutes 60% of the the message conveyed to the recipient, while the remaining 40% are shared by both words and tone. Like most people, I am oblivious of my body language till my friends gave me the defining moment of my life.

According to my friends, effective communication between one and the person/group, he or she has to consciously observe the following areas:

1. Always maintain eye contact with the person (occasionally casting a fleeting glance to the chest level if feeling uncomfortable)
2. Hand gestures not to exceed more than 1 ft by 1 feet boundary
3. If 2. is not necessary, then hands should remain in a stationary position

Of course, to put body language to your advantage, one has to be conscious of the following body language behavior that is open to a number of interpretations at:

http://www.deltabravo.net/custody/body.php

Realistically, anyone can accomplish the above three golden rules through constant practice, albeit it is easier said than done. Well, my friends put me to a test by challenging me to maintain eye contact with one of them as long as I could. I gave up the second when both our eyes were connected. I mean I just couldn't keep a straight face.

For those seriously keen on improving their body language, allow me to share with you further what I learnt from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_language): By and large, body language is termed as the types of communication either through the use of body movements or gestures only, or along with sounds, verbal language, or other forms of communication. Also, body language encompasses the use of facial expressions.

In a bigger picture, body language falls under paralanguage, which describes all forms of human communication that are not verbal language. This includes the most subtle of movements that many people are not aware of, such as the inconsiderable movement of the eyebrows.

An interesting thing to note is that paralanguage, including body language, has been wide studied in social psychology. In our daily speech and popular psychology, the name is most often applied to body language that is considered involuntary, even though the difference between voluntary and involuntary body language is frequently debatable. For example, a smile may be an conscious or unconscious act.

Can you make out the difference?