Your handshake tells a lot about you
Our hand and brain have profound connection. What goes on in our brain our hands reveal; hands are the most important part of our body. Handshaking is perhaps the most generalized and recognized way of greeting worldwide. When we meet somebody, a friendly handshake is the immediate gesture for beginning a conversation. It gives the first impression of a person. It tells a lot about the person whom we meet for a small or big job as it actually reflects certain personality characteristics of the person. It reveals the confidence, etiquettes, readiness for the subject matter and ease. Handshake as a protocol is most important for both men and women. A proper handshake should last from 3 to 6 seconds and it should be equally balanced. In a good handshake thumbs must be locked around each other’s upper hand and fingers must be firmly gripped.
A genuine shake hand demonstrates both sides are at peace and are not carrying a weapon in their hand and that each person comes in peace. Truly, shaking hands proves there is no hidden weapon which could be used during a meeting.
We shake hands on various occasions: with a romantic date, for a job interview, with a client, with your lawyer, with your boss, your peer, your colleagues, your professor, your father, brother, grand parent, with a buddy, with a neighbor and sometime with a mob. In a mob it might mean nothing at all, you are introduced to one person after the next. If you are a public figure, you might shake hundreds of hands in the course of just a few minutes, simply because people want to connect with you. But there are other times when this ritual of personal engagement is an overture to more important business that will follow. It could be at the beginning of a meeting or negotiation, or in advance of an important interview, or upon meeting some relatives of your extended family where you plan to fix your child’s marriage. Handshakes are an important introductory ritual in all manner of social contacts, and the handshake makes a real difference.
It’s important to recognize the different meanings of handshakes in different situations, and to be able to use them to your advantage. In psychology a first impression is an experience when one person first comes across another person and forms a mental image or an impression of that person. The impression need not always be accurate; it varies depending on the observer’s frame of mind and the target (person, object, scene, etc.) being observed. First impressions are based on a wide range of characteristics: age, race, culture, language, gender, physical appearance, accent, posture, voice, smile, facial expressions, interest and of course the hearsay number of people present, and time allowed to process details observed. The first impressions given by individuals greatly influence how they are treated and viewed in many contexts of everyday life.
A handshake is one such important measure. Extroverts have firm confident grip while shy people tend to shake hands softly or mildly. There are many types of handshakes you will come across every day. Few of them are:
Hand Hug is popular with people who choose to wrap your hand with their left hand which creates warmth it seems as though the person is protecting your hand. When done to the right person, they are perceived as being friendly, trustworthy and honest.
Cold hand is when a person has a cold sweaty hand. It is associated with weak characters or a lack of energy or dispirited people. More commonly, this handshake can be found in nervous people who are not sure about their feelings. Hand crush is experienced when we experience some people literally crushing our hand. Such people are aggressive; they think it displays confidence and power. When male-female encounter wherein the woman needs her personal space and wants to maintain distance they will stretch out their hand from a distance allowing the other person to barely grasp the two or three fingers without a good grip of the hand. This shake hand is called Queens Fingertips.
Controller’s shake hand is when you feel your hand being pulled toward the person or strongly guided in a different direction, perhaps towards a chair. People who do this are controllers. This implies they want to dominate. Whereas sometimes you experience that some people grip just your fingers and not your entire hand it is meant to keep you at a distance. This type of a handshake is called Brushoff, these people are often insecure.
So friends, we shake hands with the young, old, very old and very young, delicate damsels, sturdy sportsmen, dumb guys, smart guys, some optimists and some pessimists on various occasions. Some hands are strong, some lame, some nervous, some very confident, some are delicate while some are robust. All said and done you shake hands to make a beginning – to say “hello”, “hi”, “welcome”, “nice to meet you”, “goodbye”, “we agree”, “let’s talk” as a reciprocal sign of goodwill and peace.
