It's no secret that most people hate public speaking.
Anytime I have to talk to one or more people in public, my face gets flush and I start to notice myself moving my hands, a lot.
Our hand gestures — even the way we shake hands — send silent signals to others about our personality, and how we're feeling about the topic of conversation.
If someone has ever made fun of you for "talking with your hands," you might have felt embarrassed and promised yourself that next time your hands would stay pinned to the podium.
But recent research shows that people who talk with their hands could actually be better communicators, as well as more talented individuals!
Scroll through below to learn more about what this style of communication means about your personality.
[H/T: Huffington Post]
Hand Gestures Make You Easier To Understand
If you're an extroverted person, you probably thought talking loud, fast, and/or with your hands was just another part of your outgoing personality.
What you might not have known is that using hand gestures during a conversation or speech actually increases the chances that people will understand what you're trying to communicate.
"Hand gestures are really a powerful aspect of communication, from both the speaker's and the listener's end," Dr. Carol Kinsey Goman, body language expert and author of The Nonverbal Advantage: Secrets and Science of Body Language at Work and The Silent Language of Leaders, told the Huffington Post.
Hand Gestures Indicate Strong Leadership Skills
Talking with your hands is also an indication that you have strong leadership potential.
Everything from the type of hand gestures you use to the timing of when you use them indicates your level of expertise and passion to an audience.
Goman wrote: "If a speaker’s gestures are not in full agreement with the spoken words, the audience consciously or subconsciously perceives duplicity, uncertainty or (at the very least) internal conflict.
“Although people may not be aware they are doing so, audience members are also evaluating a leader’s sincerity by the timing of his or her gestures: authentic gestures begin split seconds before the words that accompany them. They will either precede the word or will be coincident with the word, but will never come after the word.”
Hand Gestures Make You More Likable
Other research has shown that using hand gestures can make you seem more likable to your audience.
"Studies have found that people who communicate through active gesturing tend to be evaluated as warm, agreeable and energetic, while those who remain still (or whose gestures seem mechanical or 'wooden') are seen as logical, cold, and analytical," Goman continued.
In fact, a study analyzing TED Talks last year found that the most popular viral speakers used an average of about 465 hand gestures, which is nearly twice as many as the least popular speakers used.
Hand Gestures Are A Sign Of Intelligence
You might be feeling pretty smart for using hand gestures now, and rightly so.
Researchers have found that infants who use more hand gestures at 18 months old have greater language abilities later on, indicating that talking with your hands could just be a sign of higher intelligence — at least where communication is concerned.
Hand Gestures Help You To Learn
If you've ever been scolded by parents or teachers for using your hands while you talk, they probably claimed it was distracting them from your words. But science says differently!
Research out of Cornell University suggests that "the evolution of the control of speech and hand movements can be traced back to the same place in the brain," and use of gesticulation with speech actually helps us to communicate more efficiently.
Talking with our hands has been shown to help us learn more efficiently as well.
One study found that requiring children to gesture while they explained how to solve math problems actually helped them learn new problem-solving strategies.
Let Your Hands Fly Free
So, if you're a hand-talker, don't shove those hands in your pockets — let 'em fly free!
Those hand movements are helping you to articulate your ideas more clearly, while also showing people that you're a passionate, intelligent, caring person who deserves to be listened to.
Have you ever been told to stop talking with your hands? Tell us about it in the comments.
Please SHARE if you know a hand-talker who needs to know these facts!
