Head movements are thought of having been our first method of communication in ancestral times, one of the reasons being after studying people who were deaf, dumb and blind they observed they also used these gestures, the Head Nod as a positive movement and the Head Shake as a negative gesture (as mentioned in the initial chapter used by babies to refuse drinking more milk or when being spoon fed), the Head Nod is also believed to be an ancient form of bowing down in submissive agreement with someone but symbolically stopping at the head.Apart from the Neutral head position where the head is perfectly centered, these are the 3 most important gestures you should remember:

• Head Downwards/Shrug: Hiding the neck by lowering the chin to protect it, is a clear display of a judgmental, aggressive or negative attitude in the person.It’s a subconscious gesture used by ourselves knowing that we have deceitful or bad intentions and therefore we should protect our vulnerable throats and necks from being attacked by the other person if they were to find out what our thoughts were.Shrugging our shoulders to protect our neck and throat however have a totally different meaning, we usually shrug our shoulders when we feel in danger, like when someone is aiming a gun at us and we display our palms to show we are honest and submissive meaning no threat while raising our shoulders to protect our neck, when we hear a balloon pop or a bomb go off out first reaction is to hide our neck inside our shoulders, when a parent hits a child he will shrug as well, even in things like going to the cinema and walking to our seats during a movie…we will shrug our necks and raise our shoulders trying to appear smaller and stop from being attacked by the angry yelling crowd who we are walking in front of.
• Sideways Head: Another head gesture that reveals the neck but carries a totally different meaning to the Head Upwards, in this case revealing their vulnerable neck and making themselves smaller is a sign of submissiveness, as a cowardly dog that puts his tail in between his legs, lowering his head and displaying his neck to the other dog as a way of saying “I’m at your mercy, I have no intent to attack you”, this sign of submissiveness has been exploited by century old folkloric stories such as those of the Vampir’s…where the Vampire sucked the blood of the helpless damsels neck.Not surprisingly, this submissive body language gesture can be found very often amongst women in intimate conversations with their friends or while flirting with men who the majority, find such submissive and non threatening gestures attractive.
• Head Upwards: Characterized by the snobbish head upwards, with the chin pointing forward and slightly looking down at you over their nose, this head position is taken by people who feel fearless, arrogance or superiority.This is a technique used to gain height as well as reveal their throat as a way of showing they don’t feel threatened by the person they are talking to.