Why does so many peoples leg bounce up and down while sitting?
In: Physics
I always make the assumption that it’s more to keep circulation going then anything else. Standing up with dead legs is pretty terrible. The previous has no scientific basis.
A common reason is stimming, it’s a (often unconscious) means of self-soothing when stressed for people with ADHD, Autism or some combo thereof.
Different things for different people, some maybe restless leg syndrome, others may have a quirk or a tick, some even fidget as a coping mechanism or cause they heard fidgeting cause help get through calories. Many many different reasons.
For me it’s a tick. I have a hard time being still for too long so I get the urge to move. If I’m in a place where I can’t get up and walk around I start to shake my leg.
Honestly I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t realize this was considered not normal until I was in high school. During a quiet class, I was shaking my leg with such force that the people around me could feel the vibrations and pointed it out. I was completely unaware and had just been doing it subconsciously. But now I was fully aware of it.
Ever since I just find myself doing it all the time, sitting or lying down. Sometimes I stop myself on purpose and find that my leg does feel, “funny” if I don’t shake it. Not painful or anything, but just some urge that I have to move it again. Other times I go full days without shaking (I think). Maybe I have some underlying condition or maybe it’s just out of habit. Who knows 🤷♀️
I do it to help myself focus. I did it ever since I was a little kid. I’m often unaware I’m doing it unless someone shoots me a weird look or tells me to stop. When I took final exams in high school, it was disruptive enough that people several rows away from me felt the floor shake. When I took my full day graduate exams in college, I’d notice that my calves felt sore at the end of the day from the constant workout I was giving them. Probably linked to the same reason I chew gum a lot when I need to focus.
In the past couple of years I’ve come to realize that I do it because I’m hyper sensitive to vibrations (which I’ve known for a long time), and bouncing my leg drowns out background vibrations like when I’m sitting at a stoplight and my engine is idling (the new realization). Basically I’m exchanging a sensation I control for one they I don’t…
God built a fidget toy into my body. Who am I to question why?
The term is called “Happy Feet” and as a study of body language. It most often indicates that the person is either A, excited about the situation they are currently in. B, wanting to remove themselves from the current situation. Or C, they have too much energy to sit still in a FORCED sitting situation..IE. Classrooms, job interviews, movie theatres.
Some asian cultures, mostly Korean, believe it to be very bad luck and that nobody should shake their leg while sitting.
It’s called stimming. And it’s common amongst the general public. People with ADHD and those on the autism spectrum can do more severely.
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