Dr Jane Gregory

So for me, when somebody's fidgeting, what I find is I just can't tune it out. So I feel like my attention is drawn to it. I almost want to look at it. I can't look away. Or it just sort of stays in my periphery and I can't concentrate on what I'm doing. And over time, that just gets more and more annoying.

For me, the sound is definitely worse than the movement. But if there's a movement attached to the sound, that will compound the reaction. But even if I can't hear the movement, it will still distract me. It just won't cause as strong of a reaction.

One of the things that I do is try to remind myself that they're not doing it deliberately. Sometimes when you're in the moment and feeling frustrated and angry about what's going on, it feels like the person's doing it deliberately or that they don't care that it's bothering you and actually it's just habit or they might just be nervous or just getting a bit of energy out or something.

So for me, it's about trying to remember that there's nothing malicious going on.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, just remembering that it's definitely not about me. They're not doing it to hurt me directly and that it's just my brain sort of overreacting to these kind of movements and sounds.

That's one of the things definitely, yeah, sort of to try and connect a little bit with the other person and relate to why they might be making the sound or doing the movement, but also just reminding yourself that you're not crazy for reacting this way, that it makes sense as a way of humans have survived over the years is to sort of notice subtle signs of things that could be a sign of danger, like a rustle in the grass or something like that that could be a snake.

It kind of comes from the same place.

Yeah, that's it. It's treating it like it's a potential sign of danger. And so your brain gets hypervigilant and keeps paying attention to it in case it could turn into something dangerous or harmful. And of course, we know that these things aren't dangerous or harmful. And so then that's the other thing is trying to teach your brain that it's not actually anything harmful.

It's just something that is annoying and irritating, but it's not actually going to cause you any harm.

It's surprisingly common. So about one in one third of people have a more intense reaction or can't tune out fidgeting. But it's a much smaller proportion of people that have this really intense emotional anger reaction where it affects them on a day to day basis. That's much less people have that strong reaction.

Dr Jane Gregory Dr Jane Gregory

When somebody's fidgeting, what I find is I just can't tune it out. So I feel like my attention is drawn to it. I almost want to look at it. I can't look away. Or it just sort of stays in my periphery and I can't concentrate.