Research Recap with Skye: Fidgeting

Summary

Podcast Summary: Hacking Your ADHD

Episode: Research Recap with Skye: Fidgeting
Host: William Curb
Guest: Skye Waterson
Date: May 22, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of Hacking Your ADHD is part of the Research Recap series, featuring host William Curb and returning guest Skye Waterson. Together, they review and discuss a 2024 research paper: "A Quantitative Analysis of Fidgeting and ADHD and its relation to performance and sustained attention on a cognitive task." The central theme is exploring the purpose and effects of fidgeting in adults with ADHD, how it connects to task performance, and what practical takeaways can be drawn from these findings.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Background and Study Design

• Paper Selection & Relevance

  • William expressed excitement about the paper’s relevance, wishing it had been available for his previous episode on fidgeting.

    “This study is investigating the functional role of fidgeting in adults with ADHD and how that affects their performance when doing tasks.” (03:00, William)

  • Skye noted the abundance of new and valuable ADHD research.

    “There is so much good ADHD research coming out… This paper is gonna make you feel better about yourself.” (03:35, Skye)

• What Was Studied?

  • Purpose: To examine how fidgeting relates to task performance and sustained attention in adults diagnosed with ADHD.
  • Participants: 70 adults (36 male), ages 18–50, all formally diagnosed using the MINI International Neuropsychiatric Interview.

    “These were people who were definitely diagnosed with ADHD… They didn’t have people that had autism or other psychiatric disorders.” (06:40–07:10, Skye & William)

• Cognitive Tasks Used:

  • Stroop Test: Responding to ink color, not the word (e.g., the word “red” written in blue ink)—a classic test of selective attention.
  • Flanker Task: Pressing a button indicating the direction of a target arrow among distracting arrows.

    “All of these are kind of the rub your, pat your head, rub your stomach kind of tests…” (05:44, Skye)

• How Fidgeting Was Measured:

  • Used motion sensors placed on the wrist and ankle to quantify movement; focused on intrinsic fidgeting like toe tapping or finger drumming (not external items like fidget balls).

    “They did have a measurement device… just basically measures movement. And so they had one on people's left wrist and on their right ankle so they could try and get both sides of the body.” (08:38, William)

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2. Main Findings

• Fidgeting Correlates with Focus & Performance:

  • Fidgeting increased with task difficulty and was positively associated with correct answers—suggesting it aids in attention and cognitive performance.

    “The harder the test got, the more fidgeting people did, and the more fidgeting people did was associated with getting more correct answers.” (09:13, Skye)

• Reframing Fidgeting:

  • The study challenges long-held stigmas about fidgeting, positing it as an adaptive, focus-supporting behavior rather than a sign of distraction or deficit.

    “Fidgeting had a purpose… that reframed everything that anyone had ever said about it.” (07:10, Skye) “It was a real sense of believe people with ADHD when they tell you something is helping.” (11:14, Skye)

• Connection with Broader Research:

  • Skye and William likened the findings to research on exercise/doodling and ADHD, highlighting the importance of movement or secondary stimulation for emotional regulation and memory.

    “Doodling is helping me maintain my focus and giving me a secondary stimulus that's associating the memory.” (10:46, William)

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3. Memorable Quotes & Personal Reflections

• On the practical reality of fidgeting:

  • “Whenever I’m doing the podcast, I am very consciously fidgeting because I need to make sure… my hands will do something. So I like find very quiet fidgets…” (12:05, William)

• On life experience:

  • “If there was something that needed to be untangled, my parents would automatically give it to me. They’d be like, here, finally something for you so you don’t destroy it…” (12:59, Skye)

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4. Limitations of the Study

• No Control Group:

  “There were a few things that… could have [been] improved. Like they didn’t have a control [group].” (13:10, William)

• Definition and Measurement Scope:

  • Only intrinsic fidgeting measured; only two sensors used.
  • Noted room for future studies to compare extrinsic (with objects) and intrinsic (body-only) fidgeting.

    “It would be great to see results from comparing those two… the only have two sensors, you know, the one on the right and one on the left. And so… that could have been a little bit more robust.” (13:22, William)

• Call for Replication:

  • Researchers shared the code and methods for replication, encouraging further studies.

    “We want people to be able to replicate this study. We’re going to give you every tool available that you can, because we think this is, you know, really important.” (14:36, William)

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Skye on the emotional impact of the study:

  “I personally felt like this was a real sense of believe people with ADHD when they tell you something is helping.” (11:14, Skye)

• William reflecting on fidgeting awareness:

  “I am 100% unconsciously fidgeting here. Often while I’m doing the podcast, I am very consciously fidgeting because… I know my hands will do something.” (12:05, William)

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Major Takeaways & Practical Implications

• Fidgeting is Functional:

  • For adults with ADHD, fidgeting (like toe tapping, finger drumming) appears to support sustained attention and task performance, especially during demanding cognitive tasks.

• Challenging Misconceptions:

  • The traditional view of fidgeting as a distraction is undermined; it can be a self-regulatory behavior.

• Practical Advice:

  • If fidgeting helps you focus, don’t be ashamed or try to suppress it needlessly—just be mindful of your environment (quiet, non-disruptive fidgets).

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Key Segment Timestamps

• [02:33] – Episode introduction and study premise
• [04:17] – Explanation of cognitive tests (Stroop & Flanker)
• [06:26] – Participant demographics and ADHD diagnosis
• [07:10] – Main findings on fidgeting and performance
• [09:13] – Measurement of fidgeting & emotional impact
• [10:13] – Related research (exercise, doodling)
• [12:05-13:10] – Reflections, anecdotes, and practical considerations
• [13:10-14:36] – Study limitations and replication encouragement

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Conclusion

This episode delivers an encouraging, research-backed message to the ADHD community: fidgeting serves a purpose and can enhance focus and performance, not detract from it. The hosts highlight both the scientific advances and the lived realities of fidgeting, offering validation for those who rely on movement to manage their ADHD.

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Transcript

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[William Curb]

Welcome to Hacking your adhd. I'm your host William Curb and I have adhd. On this podcast I dig into the tools, tactics and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain. Today I'm joined by Sky Waterson for our Research Recap series. In this series we take a look at a single research paper and dive into what the paper says, how it was conducted, and. And try and find any practical takeaways. In this episode, we're going to be discussing a paper called a Quantitative Analysis of Fidgeting and ADHD and its relation to performance and sustained attention on a cognitive task. And so, yeah, this study is investigating the functional role of fidgeting in adults with ADHD and how that affects their performance when doing tasks. So let's get into it.

[Sky Waterson]

Yeah, I'm really excited to get into this one. When we said we would talk about fidgeting and adhd, I had no idea that there was so much cool stuff out there about it.

[William Curb]

Well, so I did an episode on fidgeting a number of years ago, and I was, like, looking through this paper, and I was like, this paper came out in 2024. That would have been great had I not done an episode about it two years earlier, because I would have loved to use this one.

[Sky Waterson]

And that's why I love being. Having this focus on research, because there is so much good ADHD research coming out. I feel like it's the daily news cycle for me in terms of, like, something that came out so recently. And I'm gonna just say it up front. This paper is gonna make you feel better about yourself. So just so you know.

[William Curb]

Yeah. I mean, in with a lot of the papers we've been doing recently, I've been like, man, I don't like this paper that much. This one I loved, and I loved the results. I hope that's not, like, fogging my ability to read the paper. I'm like, oh, I love the results. I love this paper. But.

[Sky Waterson]

Okay, should we get into what they were looking for?

[William Curb]

Yeah, so they were looking for just this. Yeah. This role of fidgeting while performing these cognitive tests. And so for them, they used two tests. They did the Stroop test and the. What's the other one? The flanker. That's right. And so the Stroop test is this test where you're, like, looking at a list of words, and it's like the word red, but it's colored blue, and you have to say the color, not what's written. And it's much more difficult than it seems. I remember when I used to play a game called Brain Age on my little Nintendo ds. They had you do that to, like, help determine your brain age. And I got very good at it. By the end, I was like, oh, this is a. One of the reasons that cognitive tests are not good. If you just practice them, you actually just get better at the test rather than improving yourself. But so, yeah, that was one test that they did and it was, that was a great example because you can, you didn't have to use your hands at all to. So you could fidget away. And then the other test was the flanker where you have to like push choose, show which way an arrow is for facing. So it have like two arrows going one way, the arrow that your. Your target arrow, and then two arrows going another way, and then you have to pick show which way your target arrow is going.

[Sky Waterson]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it was. Again, all of these are kind of the rub your, pat your head, rub your stomach kind of tests where they want you to be really engaged and very much like focusing on one thing, not focusing on another thing so that all of the different layers of your brain are, are, have, you know, are focused essentially. It's hard to. It's hard to do this one without taking your full attention.

[William Curb]

Yeah, and that's exactly. Yeah, because when you have these tests, like, sometimes there's things that you're like, oh, I'm just, I can just do, you know, if, like, I'm like just pushing a button because I can just figure out the like, cadence or something. These ones you actually have to be like, kind of zeroed in because if

[Sky Waterson]

there's a way to zone out during it, we will, we will find it. So there were 70 adults, 36 male, between the ages of 18 and 50. So adults. This is very different.

[William Curb]

Yes.

[Sky Waterson]

Can you tell me? Because I was honestly, they, they were looking at people who had diagnosed adhd. So they were confirming an ADHD diagnosis using the mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview. So these were people who were definitely diagnosed with adhd?

[William Curb]

Yes.

[Sky Waterson]

Okay, cool.

[William Curb]

Definitely diagnosed with adhd. And then like, they had criteria to like, they didn't have people that had autism or other psychiatric disorders. It's like, this is specific ADHD for this.

[Sky Waterson]

Exactly, exactly. So what they found was really interesting. They found that fidgeting had a purpose. At least it appears to have some kind of purpose. And that for me was game changing because it reframed everything that anyone had ever said about fidgeting.

[William Curb]

Yeah, well, for me, it's. This has been an idea that I've been playing around with a lot in my mind thinking about. I think this is a big relation to the default mode network and how we're kind of, you know, not tuned into our task positive network all the time. So fidgeting allows us to up our stimulation and then be like, oh, we're. We're on it. We're. We're engaged.

[Sky Waterson]

Exactly. Yeah. It's essentially what they found was that when people were more focused or they were doing a harder task, they fidgeted more. So fidgeting wasn't something that was associated with doing worse on this test. It was actually associated. And to be clear, this is fidgeting your body. So they. They did have a fidget ball, but it didn't get. Make. Make the test. But this was about tapping your toes, sort of, you know, putting your fingers on the desk, things like that. And they found that it was aiding focus.

[William Curb]

Yeah. And just to, like, let people know the. They did, like, have a measurement. It wasn't just like someone watching if you're fidgeting. They had a measurement device. What was it called? The acta. It doesn't really matter because I don't know exactly what it is, but it is. It just basically measures movement. And so they had one on people's left wrist and on their right ankle so they could try and get both sides of the body. And so during the flanker test, when they're, like, clicking, that motion doesn't get activated on their right hand.

[Sky Waterson]

Exactly, exactly. So they were really looking at them. And it was really cool that they found that the harder the test got, the more fidgeting people did, and the more fidgeting people did was associated with getting more correct answers. So that was really cool because it meant that not only were people fidgeting to pay attention, fidgeting was also seemed to be helping. So it made me think of every single teacher who's ever told anybody to stop fidgeting.

[William Curb]

Yeah. And it's. Yeah, exactly. It is something where the. Your fidgeting is. They did have, like, a line lantern. Like, maybe this is like a, you know, reverse causation where the higher focus is causing the fidgeting. But they. They're like, that. It's possible, but that all the indications from this study go the other way.

[Sky Waterson]

Yeah. And it also relates to, you know, it reminded me of the. The really good research we've seen on exercise and adhd. We found that movement is associated with, you know, reduced ADHD symptoms, emotional regulation, all of that kind of good stuff that we want. And so it makes sense that any kind of movement would have maybe a potential effect as well. Again, you're. It. You. Like you said, it's going in the right direction. That kind of research.

[William Curb]

Yeah. And I mean, it also, like, mimics some Other research I've seen on like doodling and how that can help memory retention where in it's because it's a lot of stuff where people are like, no, that can't be the right thing. Like fidgeting is. You're doing something else. Like, no, this is helping me maintain. Doodling is helping me maintain my focus and giving me a secondary like stimulus to. That's associating the memory.

[Sky Waterson]

Exactly, exactly. Yeah. And so what this meant, and they kind of mentioned it at the end was just, it was a sense. I, I personally felt like this was a real sense of believe people with ADHD when they tell you something is helping. That was kind of the paper for me. It was like all of these different years have gone by with people saying, I really like fidgeting. I struggle when I don't fidget. Being told not to fidget is frustrating and, and people, and not just children. You know, I have a lot of clients who have to go to important meetings and those meetings go very long and they struggle because they're not trying not to fidget. And that's just making it a lot harder. So to find that there's some research that there might be a positive reason for tapping your toes, et cetera, it really just felt like a believe people moment.

[William Curb]

Yeah. I mean, it was funny while I was reading the paper, I was like, oh, I am very much aware that I'm not. Like, oh, I, I am 100% unconsciously fidgeting here. Often while I'm doing the podcast, I am very consciously fidgeting because I'm like, I need to make sure that. Because I know my hands will do something. So I like find very quiet fidgets because if I like pick up a pen, I'm like, I don't want the clickies in the show. And neither do people listening. I think that is a, a great point too, is like, yeah, we, the fidgeting does help us, but we also have to be aware that we're gonna, if we're gonna do it, maybe do things that are gonna be quiet, non destructive quiet. I've definitely like, you know, like sat at a thing where I'm like, I'm just slowly tearing this like piece of thing, this piece of paper apart. And I'm like, I have that. Why did I do that?

[Sky Waterson]

If there was something that needed to be untangled, my parents would automatically give it to me. They'd be like, here, finally something for you so you don't destroy it. You can actually take this one apart.

[William Curb]

Yeah. Now to Temper the study a little bit. There were a few things that, you know, that could have improved. Like they didn't have a control.

[Sky Waterson]

Yeah, yeah, that one was a big one.

[William Curb]

I guess we skipped this earlier, but their definition of fidgeting was, you know, as defined as non goal directed actions undertaken for stimulation, you know, characterized by repetitive or patterned movements that can be categorized into either extrinsic or intrinsic. So extrinsic would be, you know, like the fidget ball that they didn't really use. And then the intrinsic is just. Yeah, like tapping your fingers or your feet or something. And so it would be great to see results from comparing those two. But I was just also thinking that, you know, they only have the two sensors, you know, the one on the right and one on the left. And so, you know, I felt like that could have been a little bit more robust. But this is like a. Like, they. All the code that they use for putting this together, they put out to have other researchers use. So they are very much like, this is a start. Let's get more information.

[Sky Waterson]

Yeah, yeah. Which I love. That's one of my favorite things about research is there. It's the ultimate. I don't know about every. Every area of research, but at least the ones we've been into, it's very much people saying, hey, could you copy me, please? Please copy me. It would be amazing. Do better than me.

[William Curb]

Yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, this, they. They very much were like, hey, we want people to be able to replicate this study. We're going to give you every tool available that you can, because we think this is, you know, like, a really important thing to looking at this, you know, optimal stimulation for people with ADHD and how that helps them focus is

[Sky Waterson]

important, and it is. Hello, everyone. If you have enjoyed listening to this episode, then you might like to listen to my podcast, the ADHD Skills Lab, where we go and deep dive into more of the research. And also we focus on ADHD support for business owners. Whether you're aspiring or you have your own company. And if you have your own company and you wish that you had somebody who would just build these systems for you so you could stop figuring out what to do all the time, well, that's what we do. We are mentor and operator together. So if you want to learn a little bit more about that, you can find me at Unconventional organization. Thanks for listening.

[William Curb]

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[Sky Waterson]

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[William Curb]

Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual to get together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Sky Waterson]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.

[William Curb]

Anyways, get a [e-mail] or with your local agent.

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[Sky Waterson]

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