Vanessa Van Edwards studied hand gestures in TED talks and found the most effective speakers use them constantly. Gestures help audiences visualize ideas, reduce cognitive load, and make you seem warmer and more charismatic. When you physically show size, quantity, or contrast, people process your words faster.
Your hand gestures are incredibly important for getting your message across. Hands are really, really important for warmth. They're really important for conveying charisma. So we did a really fascinating study where we counted hand gestures in TED talks. This is actually what my TED talk is about. And we found that the most dynamic speakers, the best TED talkers, use their hands to demonstrate their words. So if I say I have a big idea, you see how big it is? Or it's this big, or it's beach ball big, or I have a really small idea, and you look at how small it is. So if I'm talking about three different things, I would actually show you those three things. Here's number one. Here's number two. Here's number. If I'm talking about you versus me, my hand gestures are giving you an outline. It's a really easy way to lighten someone's cognitive load where they can think just a little bit less because they're following your hands in addition to your words.
