Try Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.
I was diagnosed (as an adult) last August, and one of the give-aways, my doc tells me, is my constant leg jiggling, fingertapping, teeth clicking or other repetitive behavior. ADD is caused when the neocortex and portions of the prefrontal lobes’ executive centers are understimulated. They cannot screen distractions as well as other people’s brains, and the result is that someone with ADD or ADHD is extremely easily distracted and impulsive.
The leg jiggling is an attempt to provide stimulus to ramp up the brain and screen out distractions. Washoe pointed out a correlation between leg jiggling and substance abuse. Well, the literature on ADD points to an approximate “self-medication” rate of 50% among those who have ADD and have not received therapy or medication for it. I was in the fortunate 50% who didn’t self-medicate. Well, except for caffeine.
Well, I do constantly click my teeth, tapping out musical rhythms. Also, I am indeed impulsive, though not uncontrollably so. Easily distracted, yes in one sense, no in another. The “no” sense is as follows–when I need to work on something for a long time, I actually seek out a workspace where there is a lot of random noise and talking, stuff that others might find “distracting.” I actually find it easier to concentrate in such an environment, not sure why. (I think it’s because there’s so much going on, nothing sticks out to draw my attention.) But the “yes” sense is that it’s hard for me to keep working on something because my mind wanders very easily, and because I am constantly thinking of other things I could be doing, like, say, reading the SDMB. I don’t know if that counts as being “distracted” or not, since if anything’s distracting me in that case, it’s me.
Well, anyway, no one has ever suspected me of suffering from ADD, and certainly not ADHD (Kris Rhodes hyperactive?! Ha!) That would be totally weird if I had it.
I don’t know if this helps at all, but there’s something I should have mentioned. Although I’ve noticed a very strong correlation between leg jiggling and substance abuse of all sorts, by far the strongest correlation I’ve noted is between leg jiggling and the use of nicotine. Is there any correlation between ADD and nicotine use?
Oh, yes. For many ADDers, it’s the drug of choice. It’s a stimulant with exquisite control over delivery. It occupies the hands and the mouth. There is a ritual of lighting and behavior involved with it. Boy, oh, boy, yeah. I can’t remember the numbers of the top of my head, but it was something like twice the number of unmedicated ADDers smoked than the general population.
I never smoked either. Caffeine is my stimulant of choice, and I don’t even get to abuse it that much anymore, since it gives me heart palpitations.
Frylock, the flip side of distractability for those with ADD is the ability to hyper-focus when under pressure. When I was a kid, I would avoid work until the very last possible moment, but by golly, when that moment came, I was sharp as a laser. You could have had a marching band parade through my room, and I’d never have noticed it. If it’s not that, then I usually have a radio playing or I put myself not to far from people who aren’t studying, because the background noise actually did make it easier for me to study.
There’s a symptoms checklist here, if you’d like to investigate it further. And, BTW, though I originally thought the idea was ridiculous and the last thing I needed was another label, understanding ADD and getting appropriate treatment has drastically improved my life.
I was super energetic as a kid, and I did the leg up and down thing. I could stop it though. Decades later and I had the loss of control leg jumping that you can’t stop. I sat in a chair and within ten minutes the jumping started small, and in the next five it built to a good three to four inch unstoppable motion. I had restless leg syndrome in bed for a couple years about the same time.
I think your talking about having a nervous energy outlet, because you can stop it. I heard some women point to a guy once and say look he like her. They seamd to connect with the fact that guys get nervous energy around women and at least one leg going up and down will talking with the woman shows an interest.
Never taken drugs, don’t smoke, no longer taking anti-depressants (it was occurring before I started anyway), have no ADD trouble. If I have my legs crossed it’s just the foot moving, if both are on the ground, it’s the right leg.
Leg tapper here as well. Wife hates it. Family hates it too. I suffer from OCD, ADHD, ANXIETY, and HYPOCONDRIA as well. I find .5 of Xanax keeps the leg tapping to a minimum.