3 simple ways to use silence to your advantage

Do you ever feel awkward or uncomfortable when a conversation goes silent?

Many do, and rush to fill the silence with whatever comes to mind first. But that can often be the wrong strategy.

In fact, expert communicators often deliberately create silences to help them have better conversations or get better results.

Body language: The cornerstone of productive silences

The trick to making a silence productive instead of uncomfortable is to signal that you’re creating it on purpose—or at the very least that you’re comfortable with it. And body language is an excellent way to do this.

By maintaining relaxed eye contact, making a deliberate gesture—such as raising a hand slightly in a “wait” motion, or using facial expressions, you can turn silence into a helpful tool.

Now, let’s take a look at three of the most common ways to use silence to our benefit, along with helpful body language for each of them.

To give ourselves time to think.

This is probably the most obvious one, and usually the one people are most comfortable with.

When you need to think something through before you answer, a few seconds of silence can make all the difference.

To signal this type of silence, you can raise the palm of your hand slightly up, put on your best “I’m thinking”-face, or simply ask the other person to give you a moment to think about what they said.

In most cases, people will be more than happy to give you a few seconds to think, at least if they really care about what your answer is.

To underscore something important.

If you or the other person says something that you feel is important and deserves extra thought or consideration, a brief silence can help.

During pauses like these, it’s important to maintain eye contact with the other person to show that you’re still fully engaged in the conversation. Combine that with a facial expression that shows how you feel about what was said, and odds are that the other person will take an extra moment to think about it.

Just remember that these pauses shouldn’t be long—a couple of seconds is usually plenty. Any more than that, and the other person will often get impatient.

This strategy can be helpful when we’re teaching, negotiating, creating agreements, exchanging ideas, or whenever we want to make one piece of information a bit more impactful and memorable than the rest.

To get more information.

Pausing to elicit more information from the other person can be a very helpful strategy when we’re negotiating, helping someone make a decision, trying to change someone’s mind, or similar.

In those cases, the more information we have about their thoughts, wants, ideas, and experiences, the easier it becomes for us to craft convincing arguments and overcome their objections.

The best way to do this is to not speak, maintain eye contact, and put on an expectant facial expression—as if we’re expecting them to say more, even if they were clearly finished talking.

Looking at people this way tends to increase their desire to fill that silence, and when they realize that you’re not going to, they’re likely to start talking again.

Studies also show that this is the time during negotiations or discussions where people share information they hadn’t planned on sharing, just because they can’t think of anything else to say. And that is often the most valuable information for us to get.

Just remember not to do this too many times during a conversation, since it will make it seem like you don’t have anything to contribute. A couple of times during key moments is plenty.

Simply put, silence leaves room for possibilities.

Conversations that have no silences tend to follow a very predictable path, and usually end up looking similar in the end as they did in the beginning. But a purposeful silence at the right time can change the tone, path, and feel of a conversation in no time.

And the list of how it can be used is very long.

From building tension and creating the opportunity for the first kiss on a date, to letting someone acting rudely sit in discomfort by maintaining eye contact and not responding, to showing respect and compassion by patiently waiting for someone to gather their thoughts, silence can be even more powerful than words.

Have fun with it, use this power for good, and don’t be afraid to experiment.

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