“Linguists think that gesture was probably our first language, before we even were able as a species to use spoken language to communicate, and we still communicate through gestures,” Paul mentioned.
According to Paul, although, gesturing isn’t nearly speaking with different folks—it really assists and enhances our personal considering as nicely. “There are amazing experiments that show that our gestures are a few milliseconds ahead of our verbal expressions and even our conscious thoughts in terms of what we’re about to say,” she defined. “We can actually read information off of our own gestures that will help us find the right words or locate the right concepts.”
Gesturing can also increase our capacity for memory recall. Numerous studies have found that gesturing when trying to recall a word or memory can bring something from that tip-of-the-tongue state to the more accessible part of the brain, and recently, research has shown that when people gesture while they’re encoding a memory, that memory is later more easily recalled. Speakers remember their speeches better if there are actions associated with the words; actors who use gesturing better recall their scripts; children who gesture while learning are more likely to retain what they learned than children who stay still.
To cheat the bodily process that’s already happening, you can allow and encourage gesturing, especially when you’re trying to enhance your thinking. “The more we gesture, the deeper our understanding of a concept will be. As workers, thinkers, and creators, we want to allow ourselves to gesture as much as possible,” shared Paul.
On the flip aspect, a whole lot of our psychological sources are used up after we attempt to inhibit our urge to maneuver (that is much more true for neurodiverse folks). “We actually have to devote mental bandwidth just to keeping ourselves still,” Paul mentioned, “whereas fidgeting is actually a very finely modulated way of adjusting our own arousal level. It might keep us awake during a boring meeting, or if we’re kind of playing with some kind of object on our desk, that might sort of put us in a more creative frame of mind. I would love to see us give ourselves more permission to fidget, to doodle, to gesture, and not feel like those things are somehow anti-intellectual. They’re actually enhancing our thinking.”
As a really small private instance, once I used to do my podcast intro and outro recordings, I’d really feel foolish for the gestures that my physique naturally felt compelled to make. I keep in mind as soon as even sitting on my arms—I’d so internalized that gestures have been a sign you despatched to different folks, and nobody else was within the room with me, in spite of everything. Who was I making an attempt to speak with?
Since my interview with Paul, although, I’ve allowed myself to gesture wildly as a result of, as she defined, it’s actually a sign I’m sending to myself. And I’ve discovered that my ideas move extra freely when my arms are waving round like I’m conducting an orchestra. Sentences come simpler; phrases really feel extra graspable.