What do I do with my hands when I present? As a public speaking coach for two decades now, I’ve heard this question a lot. So like a “Best Of” album from your favorite band, today I’ll be compiling some of the greatest hits when it comes to research on hand gestures.
We’ll define what a gesture really is. Then, we’ll look at some scientific research that you can trust to guide you with what to do with your hands when you present.
What is a Gesture?
While a gesture might seem pretty self-explanatory, let’s dig just a little deeper right here at the start. It’s important that we know exactly what we’re talking about when we use the word “gesture.” We know of course that it has something to do with our hands. But there’s a technical distinction we need to address. Nonverbal communication pioneers Paul Ekman and Wallace V. Friesen defined different types of hand gestures in The Journal of Communication. They use the terms “emblem” and “illustrator” to classify different types of hand motions.
Here’s a quick overview. Emblems are any gestures that stand in for words. We can directly and pretty quickly translate them. A “thumbs up” gesture and the “shhhh” gesture are both emblems. They don’t need to be accompanied by words. And we can easily tell what they mean without much context.
Illustrators, on the other hand, don’t take the place of words the way emblems do. They accompany words. Ekman and Friesen say illustrators are “intimately related on a moment-to-moment basis with speech, with phrasing, content, voice . . . etc.” So when you give a presentation, the hand gestures you are using are, by definition, illustrators. They are hand motions which accompany your speech as part of the communication process.
Now that we’ve got the definition settled, let’s look at some research for how to use those gestures, or illustrators, more effectively.
Speak with Your Palms Up
One of the most famous sources for information on gestures comes from Allan Pease’s TEDx talk about body language and our palms. In his talk he says our palms are deeply connected to our brains and our perceptions of others. Because of this, presenters who want to gain the attention and trust of the audience should speak as often as possible with their palms facing up.
This is a form of “open” body language which communicates that the speaker is trustworthy and has nothing to hide. President of a communications training firm, Mark Bowden says that palms up or open gestures communicate “no tools, no weapons.” It is a symbol of vulnerability and trust to which the audience responds favorably. So as a presenter, let your audience see your palms when you gesture.
Use Gestures When You Get Stuck
One of the most important things to know about gestures is how strongly they are connected to our thought process. We might think of them as something speakers “perform” or do for the audience, but I’ll let you in on a little secret. They benefit the speaker just as much. If not more.
Ekman and Friesen found that iIlustrators “help the speaker explain and the listener understand what is said.” But “illustrators also serve a self-priming function, helping the speaker past an awkwardness in his speech or thought, accelerating the flow of his ideas.” In fact, one study asked speakers to try to tell a story without the help of their hands. They found that the speakers who didn’t have the use of gestures had more pauses and filler words like “uh.” So when you use gestures when presenting, you help your thought and speech flow more smoothly and quickly. All the more reason to use them freely.
The Audience Loves When You Gesture
Did you know gestures seem to be connected to a message’s popularity? It’s true. Vanessa Van Edwards compared TED talks of the same time length by average number of views and average number of hand gestures during the talk. She found that lesspopular talks had around 124 thousand views and around 272 hand gestures. The most popular TED talks had an average of over 7 million views and around 465 hand gestures. In other words, the most popular presenters use many more gestures.
But what is the reason for this phenomenon? It’s probably a combination of communication and movement. For one, hand gestures add to the communication by helping to fill in gaps and aid in learning. Van Edwards says, “When really charismatic leaders use hand gestures, the brain is super happy . . . because it’s getting two explanations in one, and the brain loves that.” When effective audio and visual channels are combined to present information, we learn better almost every time. And we know that our eyes search out meaning first. Before patterns or shapes or objects. So hand gestures will be interesting to the audience because they provide additional meaning.
Second, we know that our eyes are naturally attracted to movement. Say for example you are looking at a still computer screen, and something in your peripheral vision moves. Your attention will be involuntarily pulled to that moving object. That’s why it’s call a pull cue. Researchers from the University of California, Irvine have found that pull cues like movement can shift our attention in about 100 milliseconds and they are nearly impossible to ignore. When a presenter uses hand gestures after standing still for a moment, those gestures function as pull cues, recapturing the audience’s attention with movement.
Keep It Natural
Probably the best piece of advice we can offer when it comes to gestures is to keep it natural. If you try to use something invented or unnatural, it usually won’t sit well with the audience. Think for example about Bill Clinton’s famous pattern of gesturing with his thumb. It’s not something people normally do. So instead of feeling powerful, it just feels unrelatable.
Instead, use gestures that you typically use in everyday conversation. But use them with a little more intention and try to execute them in the strike zone—which is the area between your shoulders and the top of your hips. Van Edwards calls the strike zone “the sweet spot.” It is easily visible for your audience and feels natural. Anything bigger or broader can start to get distracting or feel more like theater.
Also make sure to mix it up. Avoid any motion that feels repetitive or planned. A good way to evaluate your gestures is to video yourself practicing your presentation. Then increase the speed of the playback and look for anything that you do repeatedly. Work to weed these gestures out so they don’t become distracting, or even worse, annoying, for your audience.
Gesturing will always be an important part of presenting. Now that you know why we do it and how it helps both you and the audience, I have one last piece of advice. Don’t overthink it. Your gestures are part of the unique and beautiful way you share your thoughts with the world. As long as you aren’t confusing, offending, or distracting your audience with your hands (and you’d have to work pretty hard to do any of those), your gestures are probably functioning just as they should to help you communicate.
If you are still worried about what to do with your hands, consider working with one of our presentation coaches who can give you feedback and guidance.
