It is a typical situation when people are anxious while waiting for their appointment at a dentist’s, for example. A smoker conceals his/her anxiety with the help of a cigarette. As for those who don’t smoke, they instinctively make other movements: they may comb or smooth their hair, bite their nails, tap with their fingers, tread down, readjust their clothes, they may put on or put off their rings, etc. One can easily discern tension and fear the person feels behind all these gestures.

 
Gestures related with smoking play an important role in figuring out the intentions of a person because such gestures are usually predictable and are of ritual nature. Therefore, such gestures help people to understand the mood of their interlocutor.

Smoking pipes

Pipe smokers have their own rituals. They may knock the ash out of the pipe, puff at it, fill it or blow off their pipe. All these actions help people relieve the stress in case they feel uneasy. The studies have proven that pipe smokers make their decisions during quite a long period of time, a period of time longer than the one needed for those who smoke cigarettes or doesn’t smoke at all.

Pipe smokers are not inclined to make hasty decisions. They make decisions in such a way as not to hurt their interlocutor and observe the rules of behavior.

Smoking Cigarettes

Like smoking pipes, smoking cigarettes is only suppression of the internal stress and anxiety. The process of smoking gives a person time to quiet down. Cigarette smokers make their decisions much faster unlike pipe smokers. The ritual of cigarette smoking includes such gestures like tapping, kneading, lighting up, twisting and some more mini-gestures that reveal a more intense than usually internal smoker’s condition.
One of the signals demonstrating good or bad mood of a person is the direction of the smoke breathed out. A person feeling positively and self-confident, knowing his/her superiority, breathes the smoke out upwards most of the time. And vice versa, a person with negative emotions and feelings, who is reserved and suspicious, will breathe the smoke out mostly downwards.
Moreover, if such person exhales the smoke through the corner of his mouth, it means he is very secretive and reserved (if he doesn’t do this in order not to offend his companions with cigarette smoke). Very often in the movies, the actors performing the roles of rockers’ band leaders or gangsters, simulate desperate and aggressive people. When they smoke, they throw back their heads with an abrupt motion and exhale cigarette smoke into the ceiling with calculated accuracy to demonstrate their supremacy over the other gangsters.

The speed with which a smoker exhales the smoke is also related directly with the person’s mood. The faster the smoke is breathed out, the more confident he feels himself and the stronger he feels his superiority over the others.
If a card player smokes during the game and he is lucky at cards, he will exhale for sure the smoke upwards. In case he isn’t lucky, it will make him breathe the smoke out downwards.
The observations over the gestures accompanying the smoking process reveal that when a smoker is offered something to buy, he is more likely to buy it if he exhales the smoke upwards. Attentive and careful salesperson, having noticed that a potential buyer breathes the smoke downwards, may emphasize the advantages of his/her goods in time to give the client more time to make his decision.
Another important smoking gesture – exhaling cigarette smoke through one’s nostrils – is a sign of a person’s self-confidence.

Smoking Cigars

Cigars are often used to demonstrate one’s supremacy as they are quite big and cost pretty much. These are the cigars that big chiefs, gang leaders or people of high social status smoke. Cigars or cigarillos are smoked to celebrate an occasion – a victory, wedding, birth of a child, etc.

It is not a surprise that cigar smokers breathe the smoke out upwards.

Gestures common for all smokers