A closer look
If you think your brain is the only organ doing the math, try explaining a spiral staircase while sitting firmly on your hands. Embodied cognition suggests our physical movements are not just expressions of thought; they are the literal gears generating it. Psychologist Susan Goldin-Meadow discovered that when children are forbidden from using hand gestures, their ability to solve complex cognitive puzzles plummets. Your hands effectively act as external hard drives, offloading the spatial and working memory required to process information. Forcing your body to stay perfectly still literally suffocates your brain's processing speed.
