How to be Expressive with the Hands: On Stage, Camera & in Person

The world is intrigued by hand gestures and body language, and you can find many videos about using your hands here. Whether your goal is to gain more elegant hand mannerisms or use gestures to engage your audience while public speaking, I think you’ll enjoy this video because we’re going to cover some new ideas about hand theatrics so that you can learn what to do with your hands while speaking under pressure and how to build up your skill, remove any movements that irritate you and refine your hand and finger placement and speed while talking.

Here are my top 5 suggestions to express better with your hands while communicating.

#1 Take care of your hands like you care for your face.

Our body shows its wisdom over time, and it’s easy to put in place a skin routine to care for the face but overlook the hands. Your hands are a communication tool. They do not need to look youthful, but you can put some strategies in place to keep them at their best. Here’s my suggested hand care regime. When my hands feel well cared for, I feel more comfortable to move them expressively while out and about, making videos, performing or public speaking.

Use the same products you use on your face and on your hands.

Always wear suncream on your hands. Moisturise after hand sanitiser.

Avoid carrying weighty things on the fingers, especially slender fingers, as it can affect the joints in the future. Tug heavy bags on the crook of your arm instead.

#2 Keep the nails clean and well-filed to build symmetry.

If you’re speaking on camera, it’s advisable, just as with your makeup, to opt for a polish that could be more visually distracting and bright and classic. Here are some colours that make the hands look lovely on camera:

• A French manicure
• Light pinks
• Clear and clean

Red polish can be striking, but I prefer to place a red on my lips to bring the viewer’s attention to my face rather than the hands. It’s my preference. How much colour and attention do you want to bring to your hands? Consider how you can assist your conversation partner or audience to engage more with your face and eye contact.

#3 Jewellery can be a great finishing touch

There is room for personal scope around this. I love to wear rings and have a soft spot for coloured gemstones. However, there is a time and place that works best for me.

When I consult with my clients, wearing a large, bright stone will suck attention. I’ve tested this on numerous occasions, so for this reason, I, more often than not, opt for a classic ring that is not too visually distracting. This is my personal preference.

I prefer my viewers to take in the movement of my hands to support my message so that they can focus on my ideas, rather than my fashion however, I have also seen many communicators wear many rings and beautiful ones for that matter, successfully in a way that works for them so today it’s a good chance for you to consider, what is the personal styling you wish to convey with your hands across different environments. If I’m at the opera, I will wear sparkling jewellery. If I’m in the office, chances are it will be ornate, just less colourful, so that my clients focus better on the instructions and strategies we are working through.

People will look at your hands more when they are socially anxious, so keeping them elegant and minimising distractions at both a visual and movement level is an effective way to increase the chance that you’ll achieve more attention to your facial cues and expressions, especially enabling them to meet your eye gaze more effectively which is an important conduit to trust, rapport and smooth social interactions (Kret et al., 2017)

My hands communicate; for this reason, I take care of their health by avoiding UV lights and Shellac or SNS salon manicures, preferring to do my own nails to avoid the fumes, dust and skin risks of many salon treatments. I occasionally go to a manicurist for reshaping to get back on track with the oval shape I prefer, but for the most part, I manicure my nails weekly. It’s an excellent chance for me to sit still and be more patient, and I make it a pleasant experience by watching my favourite YouTubers, drinking tea and taking my time- a change to my regular busy routine.

#4 Reduce repetitive hand movements

When we start to give more consideration to how we’re using our hands to communicate expressively, it’s easy to head in the wrong direction and move the hands too much. Do you move your hands too much? Maybe you’ve just watched a video of yourself and become concerned with flicking or rapid micromovements when speaking. Keep listening because now it’s time to address the amount of movement the hands use.

Charismatic presenters have been shown to use a higher amount of gestures than presenters seen as less charismatic. Researchers also notice an increased ratio of gesture in presidential campaigns, successful Ted talks and venture pitches so it is easy to assume, move more and you’ll look more expressive. But take care!

The hands move in multiple ways and not all movements will benefit and support your message, especially when presenting or on camera.

#5 Learn more about how hand gestures are categorised

In researching hand gestures and body language at large, the human interest factor in this topic makes for some detailed and heavy theories and readings but let’s keep it practical and focus on the minimum you need to know to get some positive changes.

We’ll look at key hand movement types and I’ll provide you with some suggestions around their use.

Beat gestures: are gestures that occur due to the rhythm of your speech.

Beat gestures are hand movements that tend to follow the pace of your syllables and are more likely to occur when a syllable is stressed.

This is a common practice among amateur presenters and speakers that increases the redundancy of your speech movements. It’s better to minimise this type of movement and focus instead on the other types of gestures that support our actual message more effectively.

Beat gestures can be useful to support recall of certain words or to highlight and showcase the importance of a key word, but this will lose its effectiveness if your speaking is dominated by constant movements of this nature.

Do you move your hands too frequently and repeatedly with the pace and flow of your speech?

If so, you’ve found a goal!

Working on composing your posture and calming erratic hand movements that mimic the movement of your mouth will be a useful way to reduce visual distraction for your audience. Beat gestures are commonly very rapid when speakers are faced with public speaking anxiety and can account for those rapid movements you’re embarrassed by when watching yourself on video.

If you’d like some more ideas on how to stop wriggling and move confidently on stage and camera, you can check this video on our channel.

Iconic Gestures are gestures that look in some way like what they mean.

For example if you’re describing a beautiful clock you might draw an air circle with your index finger, or if you’re speaking about a phone call you may get out your pretend phone! Or perhaps you’re a beauty influencer discussing the benefits of sheet masks, you may motion to the face as though placing the mask on your face while discussing its benefits.

Air guitar is a typical example of an iconic gesture! Iconic gestures can be useful in public speaking by creating increased stimulation of the process or item we’re discussing. Especially useful in story telling but best used in moderation for maximal effect.

These types of gestures have been found to increase the recall and comprehension of your message so can be incredibly useful if you’re describing how something complex and mechanical works or wanting your listeners to tap in to more visuals about what was happening.

Let’s check the third hand gesture type.

Use Metaphoric Gestures to Convey Abstract Concepts

Metaphoric gestures are similar to iconics but instead they are used to convey abstract concepts. Here are some examples of how they may look-

Balancing your hands like a scale to show you’re weighing up options
Moving your hands upwards to discuss progress notions
Grasping your hand while discussing notions around grasping ideas.

Metaphoric gestures can be very useful tools to provide a type of theatrical visual support to the metaphors we’re using. Often these types of gestures can be complementary to your message, but it’s best to keep them strategic and at a minimum to avoid redundant and excessive movements.

“Gestures can be more precise and show more nuances than words. Gestures are actions in space, and thereby provide a natural and direct mapping for representing space and action. Gestures are powerful tools for thinking and communicating because they both represent and resemble (Kang and Tversky, 2016).”

It’s best to streamline your movement usage and find ways to be more resolute and intentional with your movements so that the hands, while expressive, best support the content of your message, bring your audience into the view frame of your face (in particular your eye gaze) and calm their attention to focus on the critical information.

If you find that you struggle to use enough gesture, “Individuals with weak spatial visualization skills were found to gesture less than individuals with stronger skills” (Hostetter et al, 2007) so this may suggest work on stage presence and body awareness on stage is necessary. We have a few videos on how to move well on stage, camera and in life that you might like to check in the description box below. In particular I think you will find this one particularly useful:

References

• Bergmann, K. (2012). The production of co-speech iconic gestures: Empirical study and computational simulation with virtual agents.
• Kang, S., & Tversky, B. (2016). From hands to minds: Gestures promote understanding. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 1.
• Khatin-Zadeh, O., Farsani, D., & Banaruee, H. (2022). A Study of the Use of Iconic and Metaphoric Gestures with Motion-Based, Static Space-Based, Static Object-Based, and Static Event-Based Statements. Behav Sci (Basel), 12(7). https://doi.org/10.3390/bs12070239
• Kret, M. E., Stekelenburg, J. J., de Gelder, B., & Roelofs, K. (2017). From face to hand: Attentional bias towards expressive hands in social anxiety. Biological psychology, 122, 42-50. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2015.11.016