They are constantly striving for something and resemble a perpetual motion machine. They need to do a thousand things at the same time, even if at the same time they just pour from empty to empty. Why are some of us unable to stop?
Piotr, a 41-year-old pharmacist, says: “One day my body said ‘enough!’ In May 2013, I had heart problems. And the doctors told me to learn to rest, do everything slowly (even eat and walk), relax, avoid stress. At first it was difficult for me, I no longer felt like myself – as far as I can remember, I ran somewhere. I had to change all my habits … and I suddenly liked it. And my wife and daughter too. Continuous movement is tiring for those who are nearby.
“Just sit and do nothing? What for? wonders 39-year-old Galina, a florist. – I’m tired of idleness. And sorry for the time! I’ve been a fidget since childhood, this is a character, you can’t change it. Yes, I don’t really have a choice. I have a house and two teenage sons, and also a job, so I have to keep up with everything, spin around. Hyperactivity is harmful only to children!”
With age, Galina believes, the reasons to worry about this disappear.
“Hyperactivity occurs in early childhood due to disruption of the nervous system,” explains developmental psychologist Natalya Evsikova. “Over the years, her symptoms lessen. Experts believe that approximately 10% of children and 6% of adults are hyperactive. But there may be other reasons for the increased activity of adults.”
I fill the inner void. Fussiness can be associated with behavior patterns and rules familiar from childhood, says psychoanalyst Michel Declerc.
“Some parents say: “Move! Don’t sit back!” They place importance on actions over the child’s internal resources and push him to do something all the time instead of just being.”
As an adult, such a person suffers from emptiness, fragility, lack of internal resources.
“He is afraid of loneliness, afraid to be face to face with himself, with his desires, his dissatisfaction,” concludes Michel Declerc. “He fills his life from the outside so that the frightening emptiness inside disappears.”
I can not concentrate. It makes a difference whether we do a lot of things and successfully complete most of them, or, having taken on one thing, we give up halfway to do another.
“An adult controls his behavior, he is able to choose an object and keep it in the focus of attention,” continues Natalia Evsikova. “We train this skill when we do something for a given purpose: we learn a foreign language, we read a book for the sake of knowledge, and not just for fun.”
But this important skill has nowhere to come from if we only follow momentary impulses. It’s hard to concentrate if you don’t know how to do it at all.
I do this at the request of society. Today the world welcomes activity. We can (or should?) do a thousand things at the same time.
It turns out that someone who finds it difficult to sit still, “corresponds to modern sociocultural norms,” confirms Sylvia Kadi, director of the International Center for Psychosomatics. “Such a person protects himself from the guilt associated with passivity, which is perceived as synonymous with inefficiency and laziness.”
To the extent that it does not sit still at all?
“It’s a matter of how much we take external demands to heart,” she continues. “Some of us find it easier to adjust to the circumstances than to figure out what is happening and why.”
What to do?
Find yourself in the present
Various techniques – relaxation, auto-training, yoga – help stop non-stop running and teach you to feel the moment of the present, without getting stuck in thoughts in the past and future.
Describe behavior in words
Sometimes we do not even notice how we move from one to another, and only then we feel restlessness along with rolling fatigue. Try to ask yourself the question more often (for starters, once every half an hour): “What am I doing now?” – and describe your actions in words to yourself. Gradually, you will begin to distinguish between aimless and chaotic activities from those that are useful to you and meet your goals.
Take up a new sport
Those who live in constant motion are often athletic people. But they do not spare themselves, giving all the best during the competition. To streamline your body rhythm, consider more harmonious physical activity options that include time for activity, time for relaxation, and time for reflection. The body needs both tension and its absence: this is how it achieves balance.