The inner depths of a person's mind are truly a mystery - unless you happen to be a body language expert.
While most of us are left clueless to everything which remains unsaid, the local body language expert is busy analysing a person's physical behaviour and filling in the blanks.
Sound like something you'd like to do? Well, you can start by looking out for this one characteristic.
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And what is this gateway into unlocking the greater mysteries of a person's body language you may ask?
That would be blinking.
This tiny, automatic eye function may not seem like much, but according to military veteran and Applied Behaviour Research CEO Chase Hughes, it can tell you everything you need to know about a person's mood.
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Explaining the importance of this natural reflex during an appearance on Steven Bartlett's Diary of a CEO podcast, Hughes labelled the rate in which we blink as 'one of the fastest ways to get a read on another person'.
Explaining the behavioural science between someone blinking rapidly or hardly blinking at all, Hughes said: "If a person is blinking fast it's a sign of high stress, if they're blinking really slow it's a sign of focus."
Hughes went on to use the example of speaking to a person with antisocial personality disorder and explained how they will typically have an intense gaze with minimal blinking.
"If I talk to a psychopath in an interrogation room, or business negotiation and they're very focused on prey, their blink rate will almost be at zero, because they're going to manipulate somebody," he said.
Whereas a person who is suffering from increased levels of stress or anxiety will begin to blink more rapidly.
Explaining the importance of blink rate as method of deducing a person's feelings or behaviour, Hughes said: "One of the reasons blink rate is so reliable is that it's unconscious.
"We don't manually control it very well."
So how do you use this technique when conversing with a person, especially if counting how many times a person blinks would be both distracting and very obvious?
According to Hughes, it's simple - just be on the lookout for any obvious changes in their behaviour.
"What I'm really looking for in human behaviour are changes," he explained.
However, the author did note the importance of context when watching someone's body language - adding that this is just as crucial when analysing how a person acts.
"This is why it's so hard for people do peer research on it," Hughes said. "Because there is like a million variables."
Topics: YouTube, Science, Community, Mental Health
Brenna Cooper