Give Fidgeting a Hand

The poll needs an "all of the above" option.

Is constantly checking email fidgeting?It is hard to doodle while daydreaming.

Fidgeting is different for me.   If I am angry or frustrated or both,   I tend to take my pen and twist it around and around with one hand.  Think "Iceman" in Top Gun,  with the passive-aggressive agenda of rattling "Maverick's" concentration.  But if I am merely bored,  I  tend  to  take  a  legal  pad, and  informally  play  scrabble  with  myself.  Write  down  a  word,  then  try  to  see  what  intriguing  other  words  can  be  intersected  with  it.  sharing  one  letter.  This  game  is  played  like  chess,  thinking  5  moves  ahead  to  other  possible  combinations  and  permutations,  and  extra points  are  awarded  for  interesting  or  complicated  words. 

I'm a compulsive leg-jitterer, much to the annoyance of anyone sitting nearby. Usually its my right leg, but lefty gets a look in sometimes.

i fidget,   if a heavy mental task is weighing on my mind.  working through a concept or decision.

doodling stain glass patterns in my mind.
 

i'm a hair twirling fidgeter if confined in a space where i can't get up and move.  such as sitting in a car, or flying in a plane.

constant motion until the point comes in the evening where i have to lay down to sleep, once my head hits the pillow, i'm out like a light, gone, not a tosser in sleep, don't even move. the covers are exactly where they were when i layed down.

i hit the floor wide awake, thinking, moving and pondering.  have diciplined my self to meditate, for a complete removal of any thoughts, focusing on the breathe, 

i think there might be a new generation of doodlers of a different nature.......text messaging.  my neices text message count last month was over 16,000.  yes, for one month.  my brother and i figured out that's around one every 3 seconds, 24/7, giving room for incoming return messages.........

Doodling is my fidget of choice, followed closely by daydreaming.  If those start to bore me, I make a grocery list.
 
Now, off topic, as usual, for all you folks who were talking about your dogs being afraid of thunderstorms, I recently saw an ad for something called a Thundershirt.  Try Googling that.  It sounded like a reasonable idea, although I think any solution will be difficult to implement for an outside dog.  At least it was inexpensive and non-invasive.

And finally, when all my fidgeting/coping mechanisms run out, I start with the snide remarks.  Nothing makes a meeting go faster than finding humor in the absurdity. 

A foot tapper -- I didn't even know it until someone I used to work with mentioned it -- does that go along with leg jiggler?  I think so.

I spent years doodling as I endured hour after hour after hour of (so-called) education -- which consisted of our 'teacher' reading the text for 50 minutes.... I could read it in seven minutes (ignoring the 'teacher') and that left 43 minutes of total boredom.  (Even the kids who asked questions were essentially 'running the clock out' by coming up with inane interruptions to the drone of the reader-in-chief....)  I would sometimes smuggle a book into class, sit in the back and read while the 'class' was going on, but how many months (years!) can one do that.... Doodling provided some (minimal) mental relief from the boredom............   Years later I smile when I hear folks from large corporations complain about meetings that sound just like my 'educational years'.  I smile because in our small firm WE DON'T HAVE MEETINGS!  Joy!  Only downside is that my doodling skills have deteriorated... a small price to pay for being let out of prison, though!

I was in elementary school at a time when fidgeting was not only frowned on but punishable under certain circumstances. This is back in the early 60's, long before we were drugging our children into non- fidgeting submission.

After several brushes with teachers over my fidgety wiggling ,seat shifting and finger fiddling, I began perfecting my "margin art"as a way to redirect these more obvious activities into someting less noticible. This saved me from more than a few minutes in the hall with my face to the wall ,and salvaged a few  recesses.

Elementary school subjects were, three-D geometric figures,( similar to JFK's it would seem) flowers, faces animals etc. Jr high( now called middle school) saw a more psychedelic style of art work scrolled up and down my pages of notes. Paisleys,eye balls, trees, and Peace and Love scrawled in various swirling scripts embellished every note and workbook. Only tests and other graded papers were safe from my doodling frenzy it seems.

By the time I got to 9th grade I began another phase of fidgeting. I began to take lecture notes in backwards hand. I not sure what prompted me to do this, but to this day I can write anything backwards...(I'm not sure if this is a result of or the cause of my "mild" dyslexia!) Wonder what the shrinks would do with this ?

Recently my parents moved from the home we grew up in. In the actic was 50 years of stuff. In that stuff I found all of my notes and books from grammar, Jr and High school.As I eagerly flipped through notebooks etc,I saw the evolution and perfection of my fidgeting skills laid out before me.

I am similarly saving all of our daughters school stuff.Much of this is  decorated with age appropriate doodles , scribbles , faces, animals, flowers not unlike mine! She keeps asking why I would want to keep it. Hopefully, one day she will be able to appreciate the chance to rewind her life and evaluate her own growth  as I was able to do mine.

I'm so sedentary that figeting is impossible but the figeting of others nearby drives me mad.  There has to be agreement on the weight gain coefficient for non figeters since I carry extra baggage.  As for the doodling, it's more of a way to close the door to the left brain, for me and seems to document the daydreams in a way that memory can't.  If there is a reward for not being figety, it's the ease that one can achieve the medative state.

My hands always need to be doing something.  Unfortunately, that means that I am pounding on this stoopid keyboard an awful lot.
 
Since the 7th grade, I have been a hair twirler.  I remember the nuns slapping my hand to cut it out.
 
Oddly enough, my husband does the same.  When my oldest daughter was born, she has a head of curls.  Almost immediately her little hand went up to her head to play with her hair.

I'm a doodler, fidgeter extraordinaire. constantly I find it helps my subconscious work things out and this is when I find myself solving problems that I haven't worked through 100%.

It's good stuff for the mind and soul.

Well when I'm on the phone at home and can't get off, I clean or fold laundry...so it is a productive kind of fidgeting.
 
When I'm at work and on the phone and can't get off, I come here!  Not so productive but much more fun.

<---------Nail biter.  Gross I know, I've tried to quit but just can't.

 
 
caprichosmorales
some use repetitive physical motions to help achieve a meditative state.

 
 OFF TOPIC
 
oh.....and Willie Trask, if you are here watching....
 
 
 
yes. I am a snake....with rabbit ascendant. my hubbie is rooster with dog/ rooster cusp ascendant.....we were married year of the ox. our daughter is dog with rabbit ascendant. very common for kids to share year and/ or hour with one or more parents

                                      "It's good stuff for the mind and soul."

Can OFF TOPICs be considered doodles in the margins of the EyE?

I cant look at a paper clip without picking it up and bending into a million different shapes. I think I'll go look for one right now...

Ahh,   sand castles of the mind       and cloud pictures?

Rubber bands are fun to fidget with (with which to fidget?).  There are so few of them around, now, it seems, but if I find a good rubber band I can play with it for hours.  Or until I shoot it and lose it.  But give me a good rubber band and I'm a happy girl.

 
Can really active dreaming be considered a sort of doodle/ fidget thing?
The type where one flies around to different worlds and talks and walks in a different time and space, all while asleep.

park4, bet ya, with a good rubber band, a paper clip, and some doodling paper, we could have a pretty good battle plan......see what one does as they pondificates...

My husband is a first class, beautiful fidgeter.  When we go to shows he folds the ticket stubs into all kinds of forms.  My favorite was a toy car. The play was a comedy, A Flea in her Ear. He says he likes the shows, but just has to fidget.  I can relate.
  Grad school was my doodlepalooza.  I would just start drawing certain things described by the instructor or other students.  When I went to study my notes, I was left with audience member at the symphony with a mohawk and piercings instead of symbolic meanings in Beethoven, but whatdiyaknow! I did enjoy the lectures, and remembered them clearly, and did well in my classes.  Dr. Pine is on to something!

I pace incessantly when I'm on the phone.  I also doodle whenever possible (mostly cube shapes and flowers).
 
Does petting my cat count?

Oh and what's up with "Restless Leg Syndrome"?  Sounds like plain old fidgeting to me...

I think the evil pharma industry fabricated this 'syndrome' to convince fidgeters they need medication.

Hate to be a sticker about this, but Nero played the lyre, an form of harp. But petting one's cat must count, though it has direct benefits for the cat and the cat's employee... 

I'll bet George W. doodled, but half the time with the eraser.

Miss Blue
I tke your point but compared to some figeting, like Sufi Dance, I'd rather stick with the Wu Wei.

Jilly Bean:
 
I think my hubby has Restless Legs - it happens when asleep.  I would never ask that he be medicated for it, though, that's what my pointy elbow is for...

Let's see........ I can't talk without my hands ...... especially on the phone or when talking to myself. I fiddle with any found object. If I'm holding someone's hand I'm usually petting theirs with my thumb. Unless I'm driving I cannot stay put. If I have paper in any form, and a pen or pencil within reach; I am compelled to doodle around the borders of the page, between paragraphs,....... miles and miles of overlapping, interconnected shapes and textures that take on a life of their own. Sometimes I just fill in all the Os, Bs, Ds Rs, A,s and Zeroes that are on a page. Much of the pleasure I derive from coffee is in the act of holding the cup and if it's a Styrofoam cup, I always three-dimension-doodle with my thumb nail (these have been some of my best works).  

If it wasn't for good novels, empty pockets and deep sleep I would be a perpetual motion machine.

So yes, I do believe I fidget.

I can' talk without my hands. I can't be placed on hold without sketching. I need to be constantly busy or I fidget. Even my motto on my profile sort of relates to being fidgety in that if I'm not engaged in something that wholely keeps my interest, I go insane. On the brightside, I can multi-task like no other.

This post really touched home. It seems I never stop fidgeting and I'm so happy to hear it's a good thing. Thanks JP. (LOL)

My brother constantly would flip the TV remote control. He claimed he wasn't aware that he was doing it.

I will admit. I am a ring twister.

i don't include hand gestures, fidgets.  sign language uses only hand gestures, they're not fidgeting nor doodling.  it's a form of communication, as is vocals grunts used to form what we perceive to be words, to communicate between one to another, 
 
pondered all day on the dream question by miss blue, no sure on that one.  thinking it's just another dimensional wall that we might pass to and thru, when we let go of the control we fight for during our, so called, waking hours. 
 
fidgeting might be a way of distracting one concious thought from consuming one of our 16 or so people from overpowering our congress of decisions, to be made during the day, if only in our perceptions.
 
still fidgeting, most likely, always will.  it's good to alive. 

Miss Blue you're as interesting asleep as awake :).

i'd like to know more about where she flys to....sounds very interesting. 

i absolutely love dreams and what they could possible mean, and she is so on to something there.  do we doodle and fidget in our dreams? what does it all mean.... i just keep pondering that. 

I am a devoted fidgeter. I even wrote a book about it: www.FidgetToFocus.com! It's what keeps my restless self sane. Some of us are just more at peace when we're in motion.

WOW! Thanks to Sarah, I can now claim my coctails as legitamate medication for fidgeting; I have ADD (alcohol defeciency doodling), and by occuping my mind with alcohol,partially(it makes other people interesting)I can concentrate better. Eureka! 

I juggle with my feet. It's really not socially acceptable, but that's just one of the reasons I like it. I read a biography about Harry Houdini, how he trained himself to untie knots with his toes and stuff, and I said 'I can do that!', and sure enough, I could. I slip off my spectator stilettoes at dinner parties or committee meetings and surreptitiously juggle hard boiled eggs or olives or whatever I can find under the table-that's how good I am. It keeps me focused.
The opposable hallux helps a lot, although it makes finding the right shoes a challenge. Family trait...