How much purposeless behavior do you suppose has a purpose? Humans do a lot of things that we don’t know the purpose of. Some of it we may call fidgeting. In a class or meeting, you may observe yourself and others doing things that have no obvious purpose. We may fiddle with our pencil, move our writing pad, change our position, twirl our hair, scratch our face, drum our fingers, rub or scratch our bodies, look around, doodle, and we might even take notes.
It seems likely that all of these behaviors are ways we regulate our mental state. If we are in a rather inactive state, our minds will tend to wander. We may drift into an alpha wave state, which is less than ideal for task oriented situations. When we scratch an itch or otherwise make some adjustment to our body, we are likely shifting our brain into a beta wave condition, which is more conducive to focus, and orientation to tasks.
Sometimes we might be in a fearful state of mind and the seemingly random acts, like running our hands through our hair or rubbing our hands together are likely bringing our minds into a calmer, more coherent, frame of mind. It will be relatively calm compared to panic, but it may still be far from calm. If you are in a calm state and you start running your hands through your hair and wringing your hands, you might notice that your anxiety level cranks up. Your hands might get moist for instance.
The odd thing is that we have many ways that we alter our consciousness, but rarely do we do any of it consciously. We either think it meaningless or we give it a meaning that isn’t the whole truth. Think about applause. When we applaud a performance, we think we are communicating with the performer, and we are, but what a strange way to do it. As we smash our hands together, we are making a noise, but also dramatically stimulating our brains. Banging together our highly sensitive and therefore highly brain connected digits, we are creating an acutely focused and activated mental state. Add whistling and cheering and you’ve got massively focused brain activity.
In meditation, we eschew both fidgeting and applause. We sit in a not totally comfortable upright posture and hold our hands in a mudra, a particular type of hand position, and these behaviors help us maintain the focused alertness of the activity. If we are fidgety, we are not in the one pointed mental attention that corresponds with meditation. The fidgeting, in fact holds us out of that state. It keeps our minds prepared for external orientation and action. If our brain is directed out there, it isn’t attentive in here.
Just for fun, as an exercise in mindfulness, spend some time just noticing the things you do that seem purposeless, but are likely affecting your alertness or are self-soothing. Perhaps, while walking around or while sitting at your desk, just notice the times that you touch your own body or touch the things around you. Notice the movements of no particular significance, the little adjustments, the changes of your attention. This is not about changing what you do, but it’s about being observant of your own behavior, of your own mind.
© 2010 Tom Barrett