Sitting in Motion: Why Fidgeting Helps in ADHD

“Stop fidgeting, sit still” is one of the most heard sentences of an ADHD childhood.

Research of recent years does not look kindly on this sentence. Movement, at least in some tasks, may not be the impairment itself but a compensation developed against the impairment.

Level of evidence: medium. There are experimental studies, the samples are small and most were done in children. Generalizing directly to adults should be done cautiously.

What the claim is

The study by Sarver and colleagues (2015) looked at the relationship between movement and working memory performance in children aged 8-12 with ADHD and in typically developing children.

The finding was this: in the ADHD group, increased movement during working memory tasks was linked to better performance. No such relationship was seen in the control group.

Kofler, Sarver and Wells (2020) tested this relationship experimentally and reported results supporting the finding: there is a functional relationship between movement and working memory.

So fidgeting, at least in these tasks, may not be a sign that attention has scattered; it may be something done to gather attention.

The mechanism

The proposed explanation is about arousal level. During a task that requires working memory, an inadequate arousal level lowers performance; increased motor movement may serve to pull that level up.

This logic is of the same family as the moderate arousal model in the white noise article. Both say this: in ADHD the level of stimulation needed for optimal performance may be higher, and the person starts to seek it out on their own.

Some of the behaviors I wrote about in the article on stimulation seeking may come from here.

Suppressing fidgeting can mean taking away the tool used to gather attention.

Practice

The practical counterpart of this is not to let movement run free, but to direct it into a channel that does no harm.

Foot movement. Swinging the foot under the desk, putting a small step or a band under the foot. It bothers no one and is the most natural channel.

An object for the hand. A squeeze ball, a pen with the tip closed, a small object. The condition is that the object makes no sound and does not require looking. An object that requires looking turns into a distraction.

Working standing up. An adjustable desk or a high counter. It works especially for reading and reviewing tasks.

Short movement breaks. Standing for five minutes every forty minutes. The easiest way is to combine this with the pomodoro structure.

Thinking while walking. Going for a walk during tasks that do not need a screen, such as generating ideas and planning. Taking voice notes joins the two.

Not confusing this with exercise

We are talking about two separate things.

The subject of this article is small movement during a task. Exercise is a separate heading: the meta-analysis by Cerrillo-Urbina and colleagues (2015) reports that regular physical exercise is linked to improvement in measures of attention and executive function in children with ADHD.

The two do not replace each other. I wrote about the general effect of exercise in the articles on movement and exercise and does sport really work.

When it does not work

If the movement requires looking. Playing with a phone is not a fidgeting channel; the screen takes attention completely.

If the setting is not suitable. Swinging a foot in a meeting causes no problem, but if it shakes the desk it does. The channel needs to be invisible.

If the task needs fine motor control. Handwriting, work that demands surgical precision, playing a musical instrument. In these tasks movement directly impairs performance.

If it comes from anxiety. Not every fidget is arousal seeking; some of it comes from anxiety. Restlessness tied to anxiety is not solved with this method; the anxiety article describes that side.

The part that matters for children

The most practical consequence of this finding is in the classroom.

Stopping a child who is fidgeting looks like helping them, but it can be the opposite. Arrangements that can be applied in the classroom: an area where they can work standing, permission for a quiet object for the hand, short movement tasks within the lesson (wiping the board, handing out papers).

It makes sense to add these to the request list in the article on meeting with the teacher. If a BEP (Individualized Education Program) is being prepared, they can be written there too.

How it stands for me

This subject changed one sentence in me: the sentence “sit still where you are sitting.”

For many years I carried my fidgeting as a flaw. Trying to keep my foot still in meetings spent energy as a separate job. It was one item of the second job I described in the article on masking.

Now I do the opposite: instead of suppressing the movement I direct it into an invisible channel. I am not claiming a measurable benefit for this; what I can measure is that the energy spent on suppressing disappears.

The evidence side is not yet certain. The samples are small, the studies mostly in children. But it is enough to say at least this: fidgeting is not proof of inattention.