Pana po'o: Scratch your head to jog your memory

The remarkable connection between the tangible and intangible 🤔

Pana po'o (Hawaiian)

A few years ago, I interviewed the psychologist Kristin Neff for a story on why self-compassion beats self-confidence. She mentioned an interesting habit she practices during public speaking: she pets her arm to calm her nerves. It might sound weird, she said, but it works.

Not long after, I was in Philadelphia about to take the stage at a women’s conference. I peeked at the audience from the wings and felt my guts immediately tie into a knot. When I get nervous, I start rambling—not a great habit for public speaking. But I remembered Kristin Neff’s trick. And even though I felt a little nuts doing it, I began to gently stroke my arm like it was a soft kitten. Did the anxiety disappear? Not really. But it helped. I felt a tiny bit calmer. My breaths just a little deeper. It was like time slowed down.

I’m not sure why this trick works, but for me at least, it works.

We all do some version of this, don’t we? We talk to ourselves out loud to feel more motivated. We squeeze our eyes closed when we’re trying to think. And there’s a Hawaiian word related to this: pana po'o. It describes the act of scratching your head to help you remember something. 

There’s no reason that scratching your head should help jog your memory, but something about the action is stimulating, the same way patting your arm can induce a calm response. In science, it’s called a “displacement activity,” a behavior that seems unrelated to the task at hand. We think of these activities as effects of our mental processes—the result of us trying to do something—but they can also impact those mental processes.

Pana po'o is a reminder that, because our bodies and minds are connected, we have a remarkable ability to influence our cognition and emotions. It highlights the connection between the tangible and the intangible in our complex lives—all part of what makes us human.

From the archives

The Case for Cursing (the New York Times): You know when you stub your toe and involuntarily utter an expletive? You probably didn’t give it much thought, but you might have been on to something. As children we’re taught that cursing, even when we’re in pain, is inappropriate, betrays a limited vocabulary or is somehow low class in that ambiguous way many cultural lessons suggest. But profanity serves a physiological, emotional and social purpose — and it’s effective only because it’s inappropriate.

What’s new?

• I tried my hand at blackout poetry.

• I read an essay by Elamin Abdelmahmoud on the power of names: A father’s letter to an infant daughter: ‘I wanted my last name to be a burden’

• I fell in love with Lulu Miller’s Why Fish Don’t Exist. If you like going down rabbit holes that lead you to the big questions, this book is for you.

 — Kristin